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Author Topic: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?  (Read 7578 times)

brotherS

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dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« on: November 13, 2006, 01:20 PM »
Hi,

I'm planning on doing interviews for a project and need some kind of dictaphone for that task. I saw some for about 20 bucks at ebay, but doubt that that would be a good buy.

Do you have any experience with such hardware? What would you recommend? The interviews will be person-to-person, inside of rooms, so I don't think I need external microphones and stuff - the smaller the better. I think something that will let me record directly to mp3 files would be best.

Oh, and it shouldn't look extremely cheap if possible :)

alxwz

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Re: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2006, 03:58 PM »
How about using your cellphone for that?
I sometimes use my Sony Ericsson K750i for it (just for taking reminders-to-self) and have created a joystick shortcut for "record".
Your phone may vary, and sensitivity may be an issue (external microphone possible?), but it does the job for me. Recording capacity may be a problem, too, if it doesn't use a memory card for that.
Accessing the recordings and even seeing there are any recordings on the machine to remember sucks, however, on my phone.

brotherS

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Re: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2006, 05:09 PM »
That's a good idea, but my cellphone is not up to the task. So I really need some other device...

urlwolf

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Re: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« Reply #3 on: November 14, 2006, 01:37 PM »
I considered these devices for a while (didn't buy any).
I think the best when I looked would be the sony. It is horrendously expensive in the UK and rest of Europe.
http://www.sonystyle...DigitalVoiceRecorder
I tested it at the store and it sounds good. Probably not as good as I expected (but I only heard the small speaker it comes with, using a decent pair of speakers may be different).

brotherS

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Re: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« Reply #4 on: November 14, 2006, 02:08 PM »
I considered these devices for a while (didn't buy any).
Thanks, I'll check out the details and compare it with others.

It's beyond my understanding though why they sell it for $299.95 and only offer 32MB capacity!

app103

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Re: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« Reply #5 on: November 14, 2006, 02:38 PM »

brotherS

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Re: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« Reply #6 on: November 15, 2006, 12:12 PM »
Thanks, that's more in the price range I thought of :)

urlwolf

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Re: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2006, 10:43 AM »
The reason it may be worth it to go for a good one is that it does pretty well when integrated with Dragon Naturally Speaking. Again, I have not tried this.

app103

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Re: dictaphone needed - any suggestions?
« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2006, 12:20 PM »
The reason it may be worth it to go for a good one is that it does pretty well when integrated with Dragon Naturally Speaking. Again, I have not tried this.

I think that is only for recordings of your own voice...not when there is multiple voices in the recording or a voice other than what you have profiles for in Dragon.

Each person has to train it themselves. Dragon doesn't respond well to voice patterns it doesn't know.