Move to digital voice recorders?
Many of the spies and secret agents from the Cold War era would have so much to envy us for today. It used to be that they were the only people on earth with access to tiny gadgets that could secretly record conversations. Today, not only more and more cell phones and PDAs can do the trick with unmatched clarity, digital voice recorders have also become very versatile and so easy to hide.
In the past, we would look to Olympus and Sony to find microcassette recorders. These diminutive tape recorders were the best that were available to use. They were quite small, sturdy, and they could record and playback at half the normal tape speed so that you could have twice the recording time per microcassette.
Back in the 1980s, Olympus was considered the leader, with its sleek, strongly built and high-quality Pearlcorders. They still make them today. Sony was simply the name that would pop up in your mind the moment you thought of buying an electronic gadget. However, Sony did not really make a showstopping microcassette recorder like the Pearlcorder.
And then in late 1990s Samsung gained a strong foothold in the semiconductor industry. Suddenly you saw Samsung's Voice Pens everywhere. People like them, because they are small and can easily fit into shirt pockets. They can easily be camouflaged as a real pen.
Of course, the two big names did not sit still and let Samsung grab the entire market share. Both Olympus and Sony -- in addition to several other electronics companies -- began marketing voice recorders that no longer used minicassettes.
Clearly, how long these digital recorders can record a conversation depends on how big their memory capacity is. The quality of recording that you choose also determines how long you can record. The higher the quality that you want -- and it is usually called SP -- the more data is stored per minute and the shorter your available recording time. The lower the quality -- as in LP -- the longer you can record, given the same memory capacity.
What are the advantages of a digital voice recorder? Because it creates audio files, it makes it easier for you to archive your interviews, dictations, negotiations, etc. All you have to do is download the files to your PC, or store them directly on a CD-R using your CD-RW drive.
While still on the recorder, the files can be indexed. They can be stored in different folders -- just like the data files on your hard disk. If you record multiple interviews, you can easily find the beginning of each. A cassette recorder, on the other hand, is linear, so you have to go back and forth to find the beginning of the segment that you want. Of course, there is a counter that can help you, but most of us forget to take down the numbers for the beginning of each recording segment.
Besides, you can use voice recognition software, which will convert the voice into text. Too bad, there is no such software for the Indonesian language yet, and, you know, there will not be any for a long time. If you are an entrepreneur looking for an idea, perhaps you can start a business by offering online transcription services. Let your customers send you the recording files via e-mail, and you transcribe them for a fee.
A cassette recorder can be set to play back faster if you just want to listen to the recorded material, or to play it back slower if the speaker says a word that you do not recognize. However, changing the speed usually changes the tone of the voice as well. A good digital voice recorder may have the capability to slow down or speed up speech without altering the tone.
Besides a PDA or a cell phone with a digital recorder, what other combinations are there? Just to give an example, Olympus has a digital voice recorder that comes with a digital camera. Granted, the camera on this W-10 (US$ 99) would not compete with Canon's Digital IXUS, but it is a nice combination to have. With a 16 MB flash memory, it can record up to three hours conversation or store up to 250 images at a mere 640 x 480 resolution.
What to look for when choosing a digital voice recorder? First, the recorder should preferably have a large LCD screen that allows you to manage your files easily. Second, if you do a lot of interviews or dictation on the road, you will need to find a recorder with removable memory card, such as a Memory Stick, CompactFlash, SD Card, whatever. Just make sure it is the same memory card that your other gadgets use. So, for example, if you do not need the CompactFlash card for your digital recorder, you can use it with your digital camera.
-- Zatni Arbi