The principal of the school I teach at a couple of hours a week recently asked me about my opinion on video remote interpreting, since he had just learned of it and was extremely fascinated and utterly taken with it.
While he saw only the positive sides and opportunities of it, my first thought was of a more sober nature: it’s harder to do (in my experience, consisting of having to interpret from an adjoining room with only the feed of a stationary camera and one microphone that wasn’t being passed around – read more here) for a variety of reasons, and it will inevitably bring down prices in the already low areas of CI and legal interpreting (court and especially police).

Seems I’m not alone with these thoughts: the Professional Interpreter, Tony Rosado, wrote a very interesting post on his blog last November detailing exactly the problems I am fearing. Have a read over here: Video Remote Interpreting: Agencies do not see what I see.

And take the time to read the comments, as well, they’re excellent!