iDictate – Digital Voice Blog

Olympus Imaging who this year took over the distribution of Olympus voice products in Australia have recently allocated Gold and Platinum status to a select few Olympus resellers Australia wide. This restricts the number of resellers able to sell the Pro range of digital dictation and transcription products and software; the DS-5000, DS-3400 recorders and the AS-5000 transcription kit and AS-5002 transcription module software. We at Dictate Australia are proud to have become a Gold Olympus partner.

What does this mean this to the resellers. Well not much has changed for most of us, we are required to keep a healthy stock of all Pro line recorders and we are all required to be trained in the Pro recorders and software, all of which we already are. We also have more direct access to our own personal Olympus representative who can assist us and you in making sure you get the right solution for your business. Your business could be a one person shop with outsourced transcription or a large hospital or legal practice with offices around the country, both Dictate Australia and Olympus will be there to help you plan for your needs.

As we are based on the NSW Central Coast, our office is in Erina, we are able to offer demo’s of the Olympus products in our office, just call to arrange a time. If you are in Sydney we can arrange to come to you for a demo and a chat, of course this is all obligation free and there is no hard sell (I am personally not a fan of hard sell as I will buy anything if subjected to it – I currently own several time shares in Spain and frequently change my phone/internet/gas/electric provider when they come knocking at my door ), this is just an opportunity for you to have a hands on look and feel and a chat about how the recorders and transcription kits work.

As we are a national reseller for Olympus those of you outside Sydney don’t lose out either. We are available as always by phone for advice and information at any time, if you have a question about any aspect of dictation or transcription just give us a call. We can also support you remotely using our direct connect support software can connect to your PC or Mac and help you with any issues. We run both Windows (XP, Vista, 7) and Mac in the office.

MacSpeech Scribe just released by MacSpeech lets Mac users record their voice to a digital voice recorder and then have MacSpeech Scribe transcribe it for them. The only certified digital recording devices for MacSpeech Scribe are the iPhone, iPod Touch (2G+ plus a mic) and some of the Olympus digital voice recorders.

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.

Download sample .dss and .ds2 audio files at the end of this blog post …

#UPDATE# As of Express Scribe version 5.30+, the Windows version can now 

play .ds2 files from Olympus and Philips - click here for more details

This is a hot topic in the transcription world currently. The new DSS Pro (.ds2) audio format now in use by default on all the Olympus digital dictaphones: DS-2400, DS-3400, DS-5000 and DS-5000iD. It is a hot topic for a couple of reasons, often a transcriber can not play the new .ds2 audio files because:

1. Transcriptionist has an older Olympus transcription kit (AS-2300 or AS-4000)
2. Transcriptionist uses free Express Scribe software

There are a number of ways to get around this glitch and the options depend on what you have already and what operating system you use. I will try to cover all possible solutions, if I miss one please let me know and I will update this post. What I will say right from the outset is that these solutions are work arounds for typists who choose not to stay up-to-date with the latest software. By purchasing an Olympus AS-5000 transcription kit (or just the DSS Player Pro transcription module software AS-5002 if you already own an RS-28 Olympus foot pedal) all these issues will go away. The latest DSS Player Pro transcription module is fully compatible with the DSS Pro (.ds2) audio files.

So let me try and cover all options for those who do not have the latest DSS Player Pro transcription module. More

Traditionally June has been the month for Olympus (and others) to launch their price list ready for the start of the next financial year. As we had already seen some price changes from Olympus Voice in February nothing much was expected in the annual June pricing updates and sure enough thats what has happened, not alot. Of note though are the following changes/additions annouced:

• Olympus DS-40 price reduced to RRP $595 incl. GST
• New model Olympus DS-55 priced at RRP $695 incl. GST
• Olympus DS-2300 price reduced to RRP $695 incl. GST
• New model Olympus DS-3400 priced at $795 incl. GST
• New accessory, RS30W remote for LS-10 recorders at RRP $195 incl. GST

So we see price cuts on the DS-40 (down to the old Olympus DS-30 price) and also a cut for the DS-2300. These models are facing their last few weeks/months of life before being discontinued in favour of the new models already here.

More

News filtered through this week that on a flight from Japan a load of new Olympus digital voice recorders has arrived at the Melbourne headquarters for Olympus Voice, the Olympus DS-3400. This makes the past few weeks busy ones for the Olympus folks as they also took delivery of the DS-50 replacement the DS-65 (see this post).

New Olympus DS-3400 Digital Dictaphone

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On a quiet Tuesday evening, nothing much to do, thought I would do some surfing on the web. Called into one of the most static sites you will find, the Olympus Voice Australia website. Clicked on the what’s new link and boom – DS-3400 Coming Soon !

Why was I surprised by this? Well, apart from the fact that the site rarely changes, with Dictate Australia being one of Olympus’ top online resellers we thought we might have, you know, been told!

Here is some information I have gleaned so far. Nobody seems to know when this is coming to Australia, I would estimate towards the end of Q3 2009, but this is just a guess, nothing official from Olympus Voice as yet.

Pricing is also a guessing game, I have the recorder on my site at an estimated RRP of $540 incl. GST, this is going from the RRP on the Olympus America website. My thoughts are that it will be around the same price as the DS-2300 model which is due to be replaced shortly by the DS-2400. Time will tell and there will be updates here as soon as I know.

A quick skim through the specs the things that jump out at me are: there is no cradle as there is no power option, this one runs on batteries only. As is the trend at Olympus this will record in the DS2 (DSS Pro) format although the recorder comes with DSS Pro software so “classic mode” may be available. There is no slider on the side like the DS-5000, instead there are push buttons, similar to the old DS-3300.

More news as and when it comes from Olympus on the new digital dictaphone …

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Digital voice recorders are split into two distinct types, digital dictaphones and digital notetakers, both have fairly specific uses. In this blog post I will try and explain the difference so you will know which type of voice recorder to lean towards, should you ever need to record voice. If you are still not sure please call or email and get some advice, often people buy a voice recorder without fully researching a product only to find that the recorder they buy does not have the functions they thought they wanted or needed.

Slider Switch On The Olympus DS-5000 Digital Dictaphone

So here I will try to clear up some of the confusion between the two digital voice recorder types and will attempt to explain what each is commonly used for. Generally speaking the functionality of the recorders includes:

Digital Notetaker

• Typically used to record multiple speaker audio: lectures, interviews, meetings, focus groups etc.
• Audio is usually recorded in one take or with few interruptions.
• High quality mic is required to pickup all the speakers.

Digital Dictaphone

• Typically for single speaker audio – just one person dictating.
• Typically used for recording letters or short notes.
• For people who are interupted alot during their dictation session.
• Includes rewind/review functionality emulating the old analogue tape dictaphones.

Above are just a few generalisations about to two recorder types. Here at Dictate Australia we tend to find that the digital dictaphones usually go to people who are converting from analogue tape dictaphones and are usually in the medical or legal industry. Digital dictaphones have a rewind/review function, this allows the recorder to emualte the old analogue tape systems. The rewind/review function is typically activated using a slider switch, the image to the left is the slider on the Olympus DS-5000 digital dictaphone. The user can stop and start recording at will and the key point here is that when recording is re-started they are able to “rewind” the digital audio a little, hear what was said last and then continue recording from that point onward, much like a tape. When they have completed their dictation they press a button and one distinct audio file is created. Digital dictaphones tend to utilise the DSS (Digital Speech Standard) audio format which results in very small digital audio files (.ds2 or .dss), making them easy to transfer across the internet via email.

With a digital notetaker, these are generally used to record an audio session, typically lectures, interviews, sound bites, meetings and focus groups. Although alot of people do use these for single speaker notes also. These types of voice recorders are very simple to use, press a button to start recording, press another button to stop recording. This then produces a single digital audio file. It is possible with most notetaker models to pause/resume recording however unlike the digital dictaphones you can NOT rewind/review audio and then continue recording.  Digital notetakers tend to record in more proprietry audio formats like .WMA (Windows Media Audio) as well as the more common .MP3 (MPEG-3 layer) format. Many can now also record very high quality PCM .WAV files. Because of the high quality of the audio the file sizes tend to be much larger than those produced by the dictaphones. Add this to the fact the a meeting/interiew/focus group could go on for hours the files recorded would be too large to email.

Moving large files around the internet is common practice, most good transcription companies, like The Transcription People, have their own secure webservers for client audio files. You can also use free or cheap services like Dropbox to move files around.

Digital notetakers tend to have excellent all round audio pickup as they are designed for multi speaker recording. Conversly, the digital dictaphones tend to be poor when used in meetings situations. We have seen that in the past with the Olympus DS-4000 dictaphone, when used in a one on one interview the audio pickup was very poor. Olympus have rectified this in the newer DS-5000 model which as a top of the range professional recorder can easily cope with a large number of multiple speakers aswell as being probably the best digital dictaphone around for single speaker notes and letters.