Official Languages committee  I believe some solution will have to be found, because if we're stuck for another year with COVID.... I'm no medical doctor, but I've followed this very closely, as much as I can, and part of my Ph.D. thesis was psychoacoustics and neurophysiology. What we haven't talked about

Official Languages committee  Exactly. I agree. From what I have learned, I've only talked to some of your interpreters, but 70% of people are experiencing problems. Those are the ones, they said during the Tuesday meeting as part of their study, who are working. Some of them can't work because they don't ha

Official Languages committee  We found during our review of classes and mock conferences that there were both. There is trauma from sudden sound—for instance, somebody dropping a microphone or putting down their headset. Also, there is long-term degradation of hearing, which is both permanent and non-permanen

Official Languages committee  The engineers have given us a very clear answer. They measured a completely wired set-up, and even Zoom “advanced”, which is specified to reach 15 kilohertz, which is the absolute minimum we need, did not meet that threshold. I'm afraid, then, the answer is no. It will help, of

Official Languages committee  I'm sorry; I would contradict that.

Official Languages committee  A good sound engineer, or a sound technician even, with a bad connection can set the parameters in a way that is less damaging to our health than an algorithm that is optimized for a different thing can do. Getting professionals in from sound engineering to advise on the type of

Official Languages committee  I'll be happy to do that. In Europe, there are plenty of interpreters, as there are many more training institutes, also for English and French—in Paris, for instance, at the ISIT and ESIT. We'll be happy to assist in any course optimization or setting up of training, of course.

Official Languages committee  Yes. As I was saying, in fact, about the team of engineers who did the measurements of the current platforms, which I believe you've been given a summary of, that very team has said that there is the web synchronized connection and there is an STC connection as well. I'm not a

Official Languages committee  There are all kinds of systems. The main thing about the dedicated systems where the parameters can be set manually by technicians is that you can set priorities. For instance, when you say that there are conference interpreters involved, you can set audio as a priority, and lip

Official Languages committee  Yes. The Internet-based platforms with automatic adjustment of parameters by algorithms are a huge problem for conference interpreters as a category of software.

Official Languages committee  It depends to some extent on the connection quality. When you have a very fast broadband connection, it's of course less dangerous to your hearing than it is with bad connections.

Official Languages committee  It's my pleasure. It's just that particular model. I can't see which one you are wearing, because you're quite small on my screen. It's just the Plantronics 310, which has a very distinct design as well. Particularly when you only have one side on your ear, it's not suitable fo

Official Languages committee  Yes, it can, but it will not address the central problem. We need a fixed bandwidth connection between all participants.

Official Languages committee  Yes. There is a whole host of ISO standards and also of best practices that sound engineers and sound technicians use. This would go far beyond the scope that we can discuss today, but this is an established science. There is a human component. There is the outer ear canal. Medic

Official Languages committee  This is precisely my point. The system that connects the House of Commons system to where you are currently located, where you're speaking from, that goes over the Internet. There is a way to connect over the Internet with good quality, but that's quite expensive. You cannot do t