Olympus DS-50 Discontinued In Australia - Replaced By New DS-65

News filtered through to the Dictate Australia office today that the classy Olympus DS-50 digital voice recorder, commonly used for larger meetings, focus groups, podcasting etc has been dicontinued in Australia and has been replaced by a new model, the Olympus DS-65.

From the outside the DS-65 looks the same as the DS-50, except it is blue. The differences are internally. The DS-65 has double the memory of the DS-50 and now supports Audible files (.aa) so you can listen to your audio books aswell as music when you are on the move.

The doubling of the memory means the recorders can now save a whopping 33 hours plus on the highest quality audio mode.

Review: Express Scribe Compatible Philips USB Foot Control - 2310 - 2320

For years now transcriptionists around the world have been using Express Scribe, the free software from NCH Swift Sound. Able to take just about any audio format you throw at it (on Windows) Scribe is the software of choice for many transcription typists.

For those who come from an analogue transcription typing background or those who spend hours transcription typing they will prefer to use Scribe with a transcription foot control. Connected via USB the foot pedal allows the typist to control the audio playback via pedals on the foot control.

Some of the best USB foot controls which are Express Scribe compatible are the 2310 and 2320 from Philips Dictation. With no software required, these plug and play foot controls can be connected and working with Express Scribe in under a minute.

With a great ergonomic look and feel the Philips pedals do come in a little higher in price than the cheaper two pedal USB foot controls like the VEC. But you get what you pay for and with a big name in the digital dictation and transcription world like Philips Dictation you know that it will be a pedal you can use day in and day out for years to come.

MacSpeech Dictate Announce Paid Upgrade To Version 1.5 - What Does This Mean For Australian Users

In a press release out today from MacSpeech they have anounced a new upgrade available for their popular voice recognition software for Mac, MacSpeech Dictate.

This however is the first paid upgrade, all previous upgrades have been free. This has caused some consternation from US MacSpeech users in the US on both twitter and the MacSpeech forum.

What does this mean for Australian user for MacSpeech Dictate?  Click on the blog title above for a run down of whats in the upgrade and common questions Aussie MacSpeech users have.

Philips Dictation Australia Price Rise For The Popular DVT Digiital Voice Tracers

We have heard that a price rise is on the way for the Philips range Digital Voice Tracers (DVT). It will be effective from 1st June, 2009.

Philips blames the increase on the state of the Australian dollar against the Euro, the dictation arm of Philips is run out of Vienna. To be fair, they have held off as long as they could, Olympus jumped back in February with an across the board price rise.

On average the DVTs will go up by around 25% on their current pricing. Even with the increase these voice recorders are still excellent value. The are rich in features (and a couple of gimicks), easy to use, look great and record very well.

Olympus Australia Announce, Kind Of, The DS-3400

Yes it hasn't actually been announced by Olympus Voice Australia more snuk in (sp?), it appeared on their "whats new" page of the website - www.olympusvoice.com.au

This came as a bit of a surprise, I know that the DS-2400 is in the pipeline for Australia but I had not heard anything about the DS-3400. 

It has the same look as the DS-5000, sleek and black and uses the DSS Pro technology to record .ds2 audio files. It will be compatibe with the AS-5000 transcription kit but it is unknown as yet if like the DS-5000 it can be set to classic mode or not.

No official release dates from Olympus and no pricing, so we are all in the dark on this one for the moment. As soon as there is news I will blog it and will update the DS-3400 page on the Dictate Australia website.