Sansa, Rockbox, Free Software for antiques (was: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux)
Seth Cohn sethc...@gnuhampshire.org writes: It's worth shopping around for these, too: NewEgg offers Sansa products, refurbished, at quite a bargain. They've got a 2Gb Clip in today's mailing for $24.99. Woot! often has refurb Sansas at good prices. Also, consider installing Rockbox on many different models for better Linux compatibility. Also, note that there are outstanding issues with Rockbox on the newer Sansa hardware (anything manufactured in the past year or so), cf.: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaAMS ... but, if you're buying a refurbished one, then maybe you'll be able to get one that's sufficiently old. I'm a longtime Rockbox user, and I'm still very enthusiastic about it, but the whole `firmware for reverse-engineered platforms (produced by more-or-less hostile third parties)' premise of the project has resulted it being a sort of learning-experience that leads me to be /more/ enthusiastic about `open hardware' projects when I see them-- things like what Neuros, Openmoko, Qi Hardware, OpenPandora, et al. are doing. Luckily, the Sansa devices seem to be nigh indestructible--so if you get one onto which you can load Rockbox, you shouldn't need to worry much about how you'll never be able to replace it when it breaks :) If my Rockbox'd iPod breaks, on the oher hand I guess I should figure out how I'm going to handle that -- Don't be afraid to ask (Lf.((Lx.xx) (Lr.f(rr. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Sansa, Rockbox, Free Software for antiques (was: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux)
On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 02:59:21PM -0400, Joshua Judson Rosen wrote: Luckily, the Sansa devices seem to be nigh indestructible--so if you get one onto which you can load Rockbox, you shouldn't need to worry much about how you'll never be able to replace it when it breaks :) I've been using Rockbox on a Sansa e260 for quite a while; the big select button has gotten a little flakey but still usable. Recent Rockbox even knows how to drive the USB port so you can directly use it access all of a large flash memory card from your computer, instead of having to use a separate card reader like before (not a huge deal but a nice one). mm ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux
I have an Olympus WS-110 from I DON'T recommend the sound quality. And the batteries don't last very long. It has an auto-off function that appears not to work. But on the good side, the device records into a USB key, and Linux reads it fine, and Audacity plays my files. You can also use the USB key to back up a file or two, and take it with you. If you want a cheap note-taking device, this MIGHT be it, if you could find one that is rechargeable. Otherwise, don't waste your money.I bought it for an emergency trip where I had to record a couple of interviews. The sound is good enough if the subject is not too far away and the microphone is pointing in their direction. And I spend something like $89 on it. Unhappily yours,Susan-Original Message- From: Arc Riley <arcri...@gmail.com> Sent: Sep 22, 2009 12:43 AM To: gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Subject: Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux The sandisk is a much better deal.2gigs flash for just $30 *and* has a microSDHC slot. Mounts as a standard USB drive. Small, bright OLED screen, and you can dual purpose it to play all your .ogg and .flac files. "downside" is voice recording only works to .wav - you can encode from there on your computer easily enough.On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 12:27 AM, jim.mcginn...@att.net wrote: If a price around $150 is in your range, I can recommend the Zoom H2. It's a lot more than a dictation machine, though. http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h2/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VBH2IG It can record directly to MP3 on SD cards. We never tried plugging its USB port into Linux, though. -- jmcg ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux
Arc Riley arcri...@gmail.com writes: http://www.sandisk.com/products/sansa-music-and-video-players/sandisk-sansa-clipplus-mp3-player-.aspx Voice recording and plays MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC. Inexpensive too. Arc, Thanks a lot! This is far more feature-rich than any of the devices I was looking at. And, it's got an FM-tuner with timer-record option so I could record things and listen in the car later! I think the 2GB model will be just fine, especially given that it supports expandable storage via SD cards! Thanks again, so much better than what I was looking at! -- Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux
Arc Riley writes: The sandisk is a much better deal. 2gigs flash for just $30 *and* has a microSDHC slot. Mounts as a standard USB drive. Small, bright OLED screen, and you can dual purpose it to play all your .ogg and .flac files. downside is voice recording only works to .wav - you can encode from there on your computer easily enough. I've got some sort of SanDisk Clip right next to me right now and I can confirm that it records voice to WAV files: $ file /media/flash/RECORD/VOICE/VORC001.WAV /media/flash/RECORD/VOICE/VORC001.WAV: RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft PCM, 16 bit, mono 24000 Hz I just listened to a voice recording that I made with the thing and the quality was acceptable to me. My Clip is a 4GB $50 model. It works pretty well. The only downside I can report with the thing is that every 3-4 months it seems to suffer a failure when I mount the thing that causes every single song that I wrote onto the thing to disappear. This is when I am glad that I made backups. It also works very well with my favorite ripping tool, Cretin (http://sourceforge.net/projects/cretin/) . Regards, --kevin -- GnuPG ID: B280F24EGod, I loved that Pontiac. alumni.unh.edu!kdc-- Tom Waits http://kdc-blog.blogspot.com/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux
On 09/22/2009 09:07 AM, Paul Lussier wrote: Arc Rileyarcri...@gmail.com writes: http://www.sandisk.com/products/sansa-music-and-video-players/sandisk-sansa-clipplus-mp3-player-.aspx Voice recording and plays MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC. Inexpensive too. Arc, Thanks a lot! This is far more feature-rich than any of the devices I was looking at. And, it's got an FM-tuner with timer-record option so I could record things and listen in the car later! I think the 2GB model will be just fine, especially given that it supports expandable storage via SD cards! It's worth shopping around for these, too: NewEgg offers Sansa products, refurbished, at quite a bargain. They've got a 2Gb Clip in today's mailing for $24.99. I picked up a refurb'ed Sandisk Sansa 6 Gb a couple of years ago and have been beating it up during daily workout and it's worked like a champ. -- Ted Roche Ted Roche Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux
It's worth shopping around for these, too: NewEgg offers Sansa products, refurbished, at quite a bargain. They've got a 2Gb Clip in today's mailing for $24.99. Woot! often has refurb Sansas at good prices. Also, consider installing Rockbox on many different models for better Linux compatibility. linkage: woot.com rockbox.org ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux
It's worth shopping around for these, too: NewEgg offers Sansa products, refurbished, at quite a bargain. They've got a 2Gb Clip in today's mailing for $24.99. Note that there is a difference between Clip and Clip+; as I understand the new Clip+ has Ogg and FLAC support. For the small price of a Clip+ you might as well splurge a little and get support for decent audio codecs instead of being stuck with MP3. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux
jim.mcginn...@att.net wrote: If a price around $150 is in your range, In that range, I've been happy with this one: http://www.music123.com/Musicians-Gear-MUSICIANS-GEAR-HANDHELD-STEREO-DIGITAL--RECORDER-58-i1432656.Music123 (In case the link breaks, try this one: http://bit.ly/1U1W7N ) It mounts as a USB drive with a standard cable. Upsides: Superb sound quality, compatibility, wav or mp3, comes with external mics, AAA batteries (included!), SD card slot. Downsides: Filesystem is ...odd. Battery life is just OK. Size. I began recording with the internal microphones and from about 4 feet I could *clearly* hear a VERY quiet whisper. It came with 2 lapel mics, headphones, USB cable, and AAA batteries. It is much larger than the audio recorders you normally see. This thing is a low end Pro Audio quality recorder meant for bands and it shows. There are 128 MB of internal storage and an SD card slot. The machine saves as 44KHz MP3 files by default, but can be set to save as WAV in 8k-44k sampling rates. It boasts a 5 hour battery life in record mode and a 6 hour playback life. It also comes with a line out and separate headphone jack. I opened an MP3 file in Audacity and it worked first try with no hassles, no software to install, no drivers needed, etc. Brian -- --- | br...@datasquire.net Proprietor: http://www.JustWorksNH.com | | Computers and Web Sites that JUST WORK | | Work: +1 (603) 484-1461Home: +1 (603) 484-1469| --- ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
