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).
read moreWelcome to Australia – New Olympus DS-3400 Digital Dictaphone
Some surprising news out of Olympus Australia yesterday, the Olympus DS-50 digital voice recorder which was perfect for large meetings and focus groups has been discontinued in Australia and replaced with a new model the Olympus DS-65.
With the demise of the DS-50 I would assume that the days are numbered also for the popular DS-30 and DS-40 recorders, likely they will both be replaced when the DS-55 comes down under in the near future.
From the outside the blue DS-65 looks the same as the DS-50, same size, same fantastic stereo mic tagged on the top. The difference between the models lies in the internals. Some of the key differences with the Olympus DS-65 are:
The Olympus DS-65 comes in at the same RRP as the DS-50 which is currently $795 incl. GST and is available now from Dictate Australia and other official Olympus Australia distributors.
Here are the full specifications for the Olympus DS-65…
read moreNew Olympus DS-65 Digital Voice Recorder Launched In Australia – DS-50 Replacement
In the dark and mysterious world of transcription, well not really dark and mysterious just needed to make it a little more exciting than it really is, the most common software used by transcription typists is Express Scribe from NCH SwiftSound. This is great software for two key reasons, 1) it is free $0 2) it is Australian made, NCH Swift Sound are an Australia company based in Canberra.
Primarily because of key reason 1 above this makes it very popular with the army of Virtual Assistants (VAs) around the world who like to include transcription in their portfolio of services offered. Sure on its own Scribe works really well and for some, especially those with no transcription experience, having no footpedal is not a big deal. But for the serious transcriptionist or for people converting from analogue transcription kits (ahh those trusty Pearlcorders), a good reliable foot pedal is a must.
read moreReview: Philips 2310 & 2320 USB Foot Control – Express Scribe Compatible
I love my job. One of the main reasons for that statement is that I get to speak to broad range of people from all walks of life all across Australia daily. One minute it might be a family member in the bush who wants to record a grandparent telling stories of their life for future family generations to hear and for them to transcibe into a family history record. Next minute it might be a journalist in Melbourne looking for the best voice recorder to grab quick, clear soundbites of someone in the news ready for them to quote in a story later that day.
One thing most people who buy a digital voice recorder have in common is the need to listen to the audio while typing up notes or a verbatum account of the audio. For those who are not in the know, this usually involves playing the audio back through Windows Media Player or QuickTime flicking quickly to Word to type a few words then flicking back to the audio player to stop and rewind so you can hear the last sentence or two again. This in itself will very quickly become tedious and a truely painful experience.
Have you ever finished a phone call and thought gee I wish I could have recorded that conversation? Maybe you are a journalist and regularly interview people by phone or you have regular business meetings by phone? The TP-7 telephone pickup mic from Olympus is a microphone that can be used with any Olympus digital … read more
The Olympus DS-5000 records by default in DSS Pro .ds2 format, this can be changed to standard DSS .dss format by switch to Classic Mode, heres how.
Olympus Australia discontinues the DS-3300 digital dictaphone.
Welcome to the start of what I hope will be a long and interesting voyage through the world of digital voice, be it recorded on a dictaphone or notetaker or recognised by your PC or Mac. The digital voice recorder world in Australia has long been dominated by Olympus Voice and closely shadowed by Philips … read more