Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to this video on Interprefy, one of the big four interpreting platforms interpreters reveal. Before we get started, there are three caveats that I'd like to go through. First of all, this is not an endorsement of this RSI, Remote Simultaneous Interpreting platform. Second, we are not official Interprefy trainers. We're not paid by the company. We have no affiliation with the company, so therefore this video is not a replacement for the official Interprefy training program. And the third caveat is that anything you see today in this video may change, and that's just another reason why it's so important to do that official Interprefy training. They'll always have the most up-to-date features. This one was done at the end of June in 2020. Things could change tomorrow. That being said, let's get started on our look under the hood of Interprefy. My name is Kathy Kaufman. With me today is Natasha Bonilla, and we'll be your guides as we walk you through this interpreting platform. The very first thing we'll need to do is to log in. We'll go to the Interprefy login page, and we'll connect to the session using the token or the individual password that we have been giving, and we'll go straight to our session. The next thing we'll do is choose the username that will be used in the chat, and we'll hit submit. This will then take us to the next section where we will select our languages. The first language I'm going to select is English. I'm going to add a relay language. That's the language that I will be giving relay onto, and that is the Spanish language in this case. I will select save, and here we are. I'm ready to get started. I do, however, need to wait until the page is completely logged in. As we can see, of course, we have the identification of the platform, the interpreter's name, a set of controls that I'll talk a little bit more about in just a moment, and we have a logout feature. It's very important when we are done interpreting that we do actually take the time, just a moment, to log out from the Interprefy platform. What we're seeing down in this area is the presenter. Right now, the presenter is not available, so we're seeing this blank screen. Down here, of course, we can see the view of the presenter who is sharing slides, in this case, a photograph of the city of New York. We can see this in either low resolution or, as it says here, change video quality in high definition. As interpreters, we're probably going to prefer the high definition so that we can get the best resolution possible on the screen. Down here, we have the full screen interface. When I click on this, it will open up, and we can see, indeed, the full screen. I also have the option here to look at both the slides and the presenter by selecting the split screen option at the bottom. Now, one very important thing about the full screen mode, as you can see, is that I do have all of my language controls. Again, we'll talk more about those in a moment, as well as some of the other functions that are going to be key. One thing to keep in mind, of course, here is this little thing right here, which is the pin. As an interpreter, you want to be sure to pin your strip down here to make sure that you are always able to access that and so that you can see it. Otherwise, after a little while, it will simply disappear, and you won't be able to monitor, like this, your incoming and your outgoing languages or see much of anything else unless you actually move your cursor and put it back down there. To keep that strip, again, from disappearing, what you need to do is click right here on the pin, and the pin will hold that in position for you. Now, going back to my standard interface, as we can see here, I have my incoming and my outgoing languages, my on-off switch for my microphone, my cough, and my handover features. We'll talk more about the handover features in just a little while. Let's take a look at our language settings. I have my incoming languages here, I have my volume for the floor, and I have my outgoing languages. In this case, I have English and Spanish, and here I have the option to listen to my Boothmate as my Boothmate is interpreting. Of course, this is very important that I can hear both the floor and my Boothmate so that I can better regulate the volumes that I need to hear, primarily to support them either in this chat box with vocabulary or for the handover. Now, another interesting feature here on Interprefy that we have is the chat box. Here we can see that we have this set of presets, so if you need to quickly answer a partner, you don't need to type out long messages, yes, no, I'll be back in a minute, back in five, okay, we're in five minutes, I'm here, I'm ready, and the all-important ready for handover. If I click on that, it goes out immediately, I don't need to type out the question. Now, let's look at these language settings in a little more detail. I have this wheel here that I can use to select my incoming language, so if I suddenly need to take Relay off, let's say, the French interpreter, the French Booth, then I can simply switch that. You can see that it takes a little while for that to kick in, that may be in part because I'm recording. Other things that may affect it include your bandwidth and other features of the computer that you're actually working on. As you will see here, when I switched my listening language or my incoming language to French, it automatically changed my outgoing language to French. Now, I've heard from Interprefy that they are in the process of modifying this, so again, this is why it's so important to stay up-to-date with the changes on not only Interprefy, but all the interpreting platforms. Things are changing very, very quickly, and what you see on an interface today may not be the same thing that you see on an interface when you actually get on the platform, so you need to remain up-to-date and stay trained and well-informed. Another option that we're not seeing here, because this is the training interface rather than the actual live interface, is another little button that would be right here. This would enable me to, if I have two screens available, to see the presenter on one screen and the slides on another. The next feature I'd like to talk about is the microphone. As we turn it on, it does take a moment, and once we hear the beep and it turns completely red, then we know that we are live and broadcasting on the platform. It's very important that the interpreter not commence interpreting until that microphone has turned completely red. We have a cough button that, if I click on it and hold it, will turn the microphone gray, indicating, of course, that I am not actively broadcasting. One of the important features on Interprefy is our ability to adjust the volume of the speaker and of our interpreting partner. In this particular case, I can increment the volume from the floor, and I can increase

Speaker 2: or decrease my birth partner.

Speaker 1: In theory, of course, I can completely mute the floor, and in that case it will end up blinking like this. As a general rule, of course, as an interpreter supporting her partner, I would not actually mute that, although I might turn that volume down considerably, and I will do so for the purposes of this recording.

Speaker 2: As you can hear, again, I can increase the volume of my interpreting partner to establish

Speaker 1: the appropriate mix so that I can hear both the floor and my booth mate with a view toward doing the handover, which we'll talk about in just another moment. Another important set of controls, as I mentioned earlier, is found here at the top of my screen. One of them is the language settings. I can click on that to modify my outgoing languages. Again, I'll always hear the source or the floor. Another option here is full screen. Now, you may be wondering, what is different between this full screen and this full screen? Well, the difference is fairly straightforward. All that happens when I click on this full screen is that the identifying aspects at the top disappear. From the interpreter's perspective, it's probably not a very useful function. Next we have the network test. Obviously, we don't want to do this while we're live and on the air, but it is a good feature and a good thing to double check before you, or just after you, rather, you log on. In any case, with Interprefy, you will pretty much always have a technician monitoring your output and what you're doing. Interprefy also uses something called TeamViewer, which is a program that you will be required to download and install on your computer to enable the Interprefy technician to control your computer, to make sound adjustments, to provide the best possible experience for your listeners. The next feature is this restart all lines. This is very useful if there's a problem. If someone, for some reason, my mic is in broadcasting, I'm having difficulty hearing, I can basically do a refresh. But the difference between this refresh and the refresh up here that one would normally do to reload the page in Chrome is this. If I use the refresh up here, I'm going to have to reconfigure completely. When I use this function, the restart all lines, as you can see, my language configuration came right back and I did not have to log into the session again. Now, of course, this will be your first line of action if there's an issue. If this doesn't fix it, then go ahead and completely refresh and log in again. We also here have a set of settings that have to do with your audio device. I would recommend that when you first log in, that you verify that the microphone that you will be using for the event is actually the one shown here. Sometimes things happen, computers somehow mysteriously, at least to me, make some changes that weren't expected. I think we've all had those kinds of things happen. So you want to make sure that you're using the right microphone for this program. Now, as you can see, for demonstration purposes only today, I am using a Logitech USB headset. Please note, Logitech headphones are not approved for work on the Interprefy platform. In fact, Interprefy has a relatively limited list of microphones and headsets that they will allow their interpreters to use. So make sure you're familiar with that list as well, and that you're properly equipped before attempting to work on the Interprefy platform. Now coming back to these chat boxes here, we can see that I am in the chat box in English. When I switch my outgoing language to French, what will happen is that you will see that I have switched to the interpreting partner in French. Switching back to English, one of the other features that you'll see is this event chat. Now I can close that down because as an interpreter, I won't be using it. In fact, in this case, the event chat has been disabled by the event organizer so that I can't accidentally type here to my colleague, are you ready for handover, and send it to every participant in the meeting. I think we can all agree that that would not be a good thing. Now for those of us who are getting on in age and need a little extra help, we can also make that font bigger. We have an option here to turn on audible notifications, but honestly, as an interpreter, we probably do not want to use that. And now what you've all been waiting for, the all-important handover function. As we can see on Interprefy, we have two options, now and later. We can also see that the system is advising us that in order to request a handover, or in this case, because it's the active interpreter who is going to hand the microphone off to the passive or non-active interpreter, that in order to do this, I must be, as the active interpreter, unmuted and have the same outgoing language as my interpreting partner. Now how do I know where my interpreting partner is? Well I can tell that Natasha is in English, that her outgoing language is configured to English, because here in the English chat, it very clearly says, one partner, and it gives me her name. If Natasha were on another channel, which sometimes happens when you're bouncing back and forth in a bilingual meeting, for example, it could be that she might be on the Spanish channel. At that point, I would not be able to see that she is present. But if I were to switch my language to Spanish, there indeed she is. My partner is in Spanish. But since we're working into English primarily today, we're both going to go back to the English channel, and this way I know that I can start my handover. To do that, as I know, I need to turn my microphone on. Again, that takes just a moment, but we get that signal that tells us the mic is live, and of course we can see that it is red, and we can see that we are broadcasting using this meter. Now my function of the handover now is available. As soon as I do that, Natasha will get a pop-up message. I'm told that we're waiting for my partner's response. As soon as she unmutes her microphone, we can see that Natasha is live. Now that means that I would immediately need to turn off my microphone, because otherwise we could accidentally both be interpreting on the same channel at the same time. So I've completely muted my microphone, and now of course Natasha knows that she's free and clear to commence interpreting. Now remember, to avoid that mistake of both of us being on the same channel at the same time and speaking at the same time, it's very important to monitor your Boothmate using that Boothmate volume and the speaker volume. By doing this, I can hear the floor and my partner, and know exactly when my interpreting partner has finished her sentence, and it's my time to start. So let's take a look at how this works the other way around, if Natasha is handing over the microphone to me. My shift is over, I've given it to her. Her shift is concluding, she's giving it back to me. As we can see, I've received a notification saying please unmute. As soon as I do that, my microphone will turn live, and Natasha will need to turn hers off. And as we say, I now have the con. I am in control, my interpreting partner is still there, and I'm able to communicate with her through the chat box. That's essentially how the hand over now function works. Now I'm sure you're curious about this hand over later function. Again, in order for this to work, I need to be live broadcasting and on the air. As soon as I hit the hand over later button, I will be given an option. Now by default, it's going to set that hand over time at five minutes, but I can change that. I can make it 30 minutes, so that, for example, if I want to do that as soon as my shift starts, then we can both be advised of exactly how much longer there is to go in this shift. But for these purposes, I'm going to send it and set it at one minute. As soon as I do that, I will get on Natasha's end a notification. She will start the countdown, and I'll show you that going the other way in just a moment. As soon as that countdown starts, we can see that it's available, and if I were to be in the full screen mode as well, I can also see at the bottom of my screen that that countdown is available. That way I'm not caught by surprise when that countdown ends. Now as soon as we get to the 30 minute, excuse me, the 30 second marker, Natasha will get a pop up on her screen. Again, I'll show you this in a moment going the other direction. When she sees this, it will tell her that she can unmute her mic. She'll wait for me to finish my sentence, listening both to the floor and to me, and pick the perfect time for that handover. When she turns on her microphone, I know that she's live and I need to turn mine off. Natasha is now interpreting. She is in control, and that handover later is complete. Okay, let's assume now that of course 30 minutes have gone by, Natasha's shift is over. It's time for her to hand it back off to me. Let's take a look at what that looks like. I've received that handover request. My interpreting partner has requested a handover in one minute. Am I ready to start the countdown? I'm going to select yes. I do that, and as we can see, once again, the countdown has commenced. At that 30 second mark, I will receive a notification. And here we have the notification that starts at the 30 second marker. I can cancel the countdown as the person receiving this because it's not the right time or for some other reason. I can unmute, and at that point, I would take over control. But let's see what happens when the countdown runs its course. Just a few more seconds, and we will see exactly what occurs. As you can see, nothing serious occurs. The countdown has disappeared. Natasha will probably just turn off her microphone, and I will turn mine on. And here we are. I am live. Just going to press my cough button there so I don't have a problem with the recording. But in any case, we started the handover. Natasha was handing it over to me using the handover later function, but our time expired. Not a problem. Natasha simply turns her microphone off at an appropriate time, and I turned mine on. Now, why would that happen? Well, let's say that Natasha was interpreting and the speaker said, in conclusion, when there were eight seconds left to go. She may want to finish that thought out because there will then be a natural pause for the next speaker. That would be one reason, for example, that we might not actually hand over at the precise time. This is a matter of teamwork and of policy. The nice thing about Interpify is that we have all of these options. I can use the handover now function. I can use the handover later function. And I can simply opt to turn my microphone on or off. Now, because there is the possibility that both microphones can be on at the same time, it is extremely important to be diligent in the control of your microphone. Again, we can see that Natasha's mic is live, my mic is live, and the handover here is flashing in red. The system is clearly expecting that handover to take place. If I forget to mute my microphone, that will continue to flash. Again, we do not want to have both of these on at the same time. This concludes our demonstration of the basic functionality of Interpify for today. We hope you found it helpful. And remember, you must get the official training. We don't work for the company. We're not official trainers. So this is no substitute for going out there and learning how to use this and getting properly accredited to be able to work on Interpify. Thank you for watching.