SANFORD - At 2:15 p.m. Monday, Seminole County Judge Carmine Bravo put on his black robe and sat down for a daily ritual: first appearances.

Every day, people who have been jailed overnight must appear before a judge, who explains their charges and sets bond.

This time, however, Bravo was not in a courtroom at the Seminole County Jail. He was in a cramped 15-by-15 foot office at the Seminole County Courthouse six miles away that was wired with two television cameras and three video monitors.

The defendants were at the jail with their own camera and video monitor.

"We're going into the 21st century," said court clerk Patricia Hardesty.

It was Seminole's first plunge into video criminal hearings, day one of a weeklong test of the computer-based technology.

There were a few gliches. The signal went down for about 10 minutes, causing a short delay, and the pace slowed to a crawl when the prosecution, sitting beside the judge, had to negotiate with a defense attorney, who was sitting with his client at the jail.

Instead of being able to hash things out face-to-face, the way they normally do, the lawyers had to do it by phone.

The problems, though, can be smoothed out, said Horace McMorrow, the deputy court administrator in charge of the project.

Video arraignments and first appearances are common in other counties in Central Florida. It's standard procedure in Lake and Osceola counties, and Orange County has been doing things that way for more than a decade.

It has been a long time coming to Seminole. The $280,000 computer network that is the heart of the system was fully installed in December 1998. Getting all the key participants - judges, clerks, prosecutors, defense attorneys and the Seminole County Sheriff's Office - to sign on has been the hard part, McMarrow said.

The State Attorney's Office and Sheriff's Office are enthusiastic about the new technology.

"First appearances worked like clockwork," said Sgt. Ronald Shaw, a Sheriff's Office manager at the jail.

County Judge Mark Herr also likes the idea. "I'm ready to give it a try," he said.

If it works as promised, it will save time and money and mean fewer security headaches, Herr said.

But it's not clear how many other judges will use it. County Judges Ralph Eriksson and Donald Marblestone are not ready to commit.

It may be high tech, Marblestone said, but he is not convinced it is more efficient.

Early on, it appears to tie up more jailers. Normally, first appearance hearings can be managed by two deputies. The first day they were done by video it took five, Shaw said.

Still, Shaw said he likes new system.

"It was just a matter of logistics," he said.

The new system if the first step toward getting witnesses to testify at trial by video hookup, something that could mean major cost savings, said Assistant State Attorney Chris White.