Digital Voice Recorders

Today, most professionals have made the switch to digital voice recorders as the optimum method for creating instant digital audio files. The benefits of this new technology are:

• Audio recordings - or speech dictation files - are highly compressed, and are saved as DSS (Digital Speech Standard) files
• Digital recorders use removable SmartMedia (Flash Memory) cards, with a 128 MB card able to store 44 hours of audio in LP (Long Playback) mode, or 22 hours in SP (Standard Playback) mode
• Fast downloads to your computer are achieved through a USB (Universal Serial Bus) connection or optional USB Flash Card Reader
• Advanced search functions
• Ability to create different folders
• Integration with Voice Recognition Software (IBM ViaVoice)
• Minimal battery consumption

The staff at Adjusters Asia currently use the new Olympus DS-3000 Digital Voice Recorder for transcription recordings, and a write-up on this nifty little device will be found shortly under the Publications section of our site.

Other Sources

Digitizing sound from a source other than a digital voice recorder requires the following:

• Microphone
• USB (Universal Serial Bus) Port on your computer for microphones equipped with a USB connector
• Sound Card with a Mic-In input for microphones equipped with a jack plug
• Sound Card with a Line-In input if digitizing sound from external tape recorders or tape dictation devices
• MP3 Maker/Recorder software

Digitizing Sound to MP3 Format

Digital audio files, if not created in DSS format, must be saved and/or converted to MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3) format.

Like DSS, MP3 files are highly compressed - about one-twelfth the size of waveform files (standard Windows sound files) - and are therefore ideal for transferring over the Internet.

Never send waveform (.wav) files over the Internet, as these files are far too large and can take forever to download, particularly if receiving multiple audio files in a single day.

See our section on Creating MP3 Files as the next step in digitizing sound.