Looking for a good digital dictaphone or HI-MD recorder
Saturday, August 12th, 2006I’ll be on the look out for a decent recording device in the next while; can anyone recommend me something that has the following (HI-MD or dictaphone are suitable);
- Decent level of capacity (enough to hold a high quantity of content at a high quality)
- Mic-in jack so I can attach an external mic and don’t have to rely on a built-in one
- Where possible a decent built-in mic with a good range (not a must)
- Allow me to upload all content to my PC as an mp3 or other non-propriety format.
- Allow a range of record qualities; the higher the better.
- Be as neat and small as possible (not a must either).
Just to make it clear; I’m not looking for something to listen to mp3’s on as well; just a device that I can record interviews etc. on and will have a podcast (or higher) quality bit-rate. Naturally the cheaper the better but at the same time I know there’s no point buying a cheap device that will let me down very quickly.
Any suggestions? All ideas much appreciated!
Blogs elsewhere
August 12th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Hi Adam - I recently bought a Sony ICD-SX46 to record research interviews. It comes with voice recognition software (which is surprisingly good) for the primary user. I can also plug it into the laptop and control it by using the function keys which makes transcribing really speedy. I then use the freely available Switch programme to convert the recordings to MP3 for storage on my computer and on DVD (me being paranoid and all that!). Hope that’s useful..
August 12th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Thanks for that Annette; looks pretty good to me… Looking at the reviews and it seems to have decent storage (over 11 hours on SP, what kind of quality is that?);
Doesn’t seem to have a mic in jack though, from what I can see anyway…
Thanks for the suggestion though, seems like a decent quality and a good price too.
August 12th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Well it depends on what you want it for? I used the recorder on SP with a meeting involving 8 people and the whole thing was audible enough for me to transcribe. In one to one interviews I’ve sent the recordings out for transcription and they’ve come back virtually perfect. I’m pretty pleased with it all round.
August 12th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Are you coming to the bloggers meet up on Saturday (venue to be decided!), if so, I’ll bring it along and you can have a look for yourself..let me know
August 12th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
Thanks for that; not sure about the bloggers meet-up; might be away… won’t know until later this week!
It sounds pretty decent alright, the only thing being the lack of a mic in jack (which would be handy for recording phone interviews etc.); but I’ll let you know if I’m going and if you were able to bring it along that’d be great; thanks!
August 13th, 2006 at 12:14 am
The recorder has a mic in jack - there’s a cover on the side which houses the small usb port and the mic in - I’ll bring it along on Sat