Two of the Olympus digital voice recorders certified for use with MacSpeech Scribe are the Olympus DS-3400 and DS-5000, both from the Professional series of digital dictaphones from Olympus, these are serious digital dictaphones. They both come with DSS Player Version 7 Plus for Mac which simplifies the task of getting the audio off the recorder. The software lets you also setup users on the recorder, set noise cancelation levels, playback and edit your recorded dictation and direct record using your digital dictaphone as a high quality mic.

Out of the box both the DS-3400 and DS-5000 will record in DSS Pro digital audio format, these files have a suffix of .ds2 – files of this format can not be loaded into MacSpeech Scribe so some file conversion needs to take place, this is where DSS Player Version 7 Plus can help. On a Mac it is not possible to set the DS-3400/DS-5000 to record in .aif format by default.

For file conversion you have two options. 1. you can manually convert each file 2. you can set DSS Player Plus to automatically convert audio every time your DS-3400/DS-5000 is connected. Both are very simple:

Manually Convert DS-3400/DS-5000 Audio To .aif Format

To manually convert .ds2 audio files to .aif on a Mac using DSS Player Version 7 Plus simply right-click on the .ds2 file you want to convert and select Convert to AIFF File, your converted file will be placed in the same download folder tray as the original file. If you want to save the .aif file to an alternative location simply highlight the audio file to be converted and click the Convert to AIFF File icon .

Automatically Convert DS-3400/DS-5000 Audio When The Recorder Is Docked

If you prefer to convert every audio file during download to your Mac when your digital dictaphone is connected then open the DSS Player Preferences and click the Download tab. Here you can tick “Convert to AIFF file during download” which will have the desired affect. Your .aif files will appear in the download tray folder configured and are then ready to be loaded into MacSpeech Scribe.

At the recent MacWorld 2010 Expo in San Francisco, the place for companies developing technologies for the Apple Mac and iPhone to show off their ideas, MacSpeech announced the launch of their new software product MacSpeech Scribe.

MacSpeech Scribe will do what alot of existing MacSpeech Dictate customers have been asking for, transcribe from a digital recording of their voice. Now you no longer have to be in front of your MacBook or iMac to dictate audio to be transcribed. Using one of the certified MacSpeech Scribe digital voice recorders you can record your thoughts anywhere. Then at a time convenient to you have MacSpeech Scribe transcribe the audio for you.

This is similar concept to the Philips LFH0667 (formerly LFH0660/10) which was a cut down version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 for Windows which would only take audio from a digital recording.

MacSpeech Scribe is a stand alone product and is not an add-on to MacSpeech Dictate. If you already own MacSpeech Dictate and have created and trained a profile for your voice that profile can not be imported into MacSpeech Scribe, you will have to start from scratch with a new MacSpeech Scribe profile.

Only a small number of digital voice recorders have been certified by MacSpeech to work with MacSpeech Scribe. These are the iPhone, iPod Touch (2nd Gen up with a mic) and a few Olympus digital voice recorders. Of the Olympus recorders on the certified list only the DS-3400 and DS-5000 are currently available in Australia. MacSpeech Scribe can take audio in .aif, .aiff, .mp4, .m4a, .m4v and .wav format so in theory a huge number of other voice recorders will be compatible (although not certified). Remember, its all about the audio quality, so just because the $20 USB recorder you bought off eBay records in one of the supported audio formats the quality of that recording may leave you disappointed – stick with Olympus and you won’t go wrong.

MacSpeech Scribe is available now for download from the MacSpeech Australia store for $199. We hope to have a copy in the next few days and will blog a review of the setup, training and performance.