Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-21 Thread Arc Riley
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.


On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 11:06 PM, Paul Lussier wrote:

>
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm looking for a decent digital voice recorder.  Can anyone recommend a
> good one that allows for PC connectivity and can be accessed from Linux ?
>
> I've seen several which are "PC Compatible".  All the ones from Sony
> mention special software, which I assume comes with the recorder and
> runs only on Windows or Mac OS.
>
> Some of the Olympus models mention being "PC Compatible", but don't
> mention anything about any software.  I take this to mean that the
> recorder probably shows up as a removable storage device with direct
> access to the files.  Though, there's no mention what format they're in,
> one description of the device mentioned WMA-compatible files.
>
> Obviously it would be great if the device recorded directly to MP3, but
> I'll settle for anything I deal with under Linux.
>
> I'd appreciate any input anyone may have
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Paul
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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-21 Thread Jim . McGinness
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

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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-21 Thread Arc Riley
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,  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
>
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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-21 Thread Brian Chabot


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|
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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-22 Thread Susan Cragin
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 
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

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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-22 Thread Ric Werme
I have a Sansa Fuze MP3 player bought solely because I heard
it worked well with Linux.  (Not entirely true, and classical
music meta data doesn't map well into artist/album/song display
format, let alone the long names that start with "Symphony".
Python to the rescue, needs more work, I forget what I wrote.)

I used its voice recorder to record most of a weekend climate
change conference and the audio was a lot better than I expected.
It records to .wav (mp3 on the fly is tough), it only records
to internal memory (it has a micro SD card that good to setup
mp3 files on with Linux), but the low end model with 2 GB
holds a lot.  I was quite impressed with the low noise level
and good quality sound.  They only advertise voice quality, so
I figured it would be phone call quality, but it's quite a
bit better.

Recordings are named by date stamp.

It also has a decent FM tuner and record by clock, so I can record
Car Talk.

I haven't tried its video or photo features, they may require Windows
access.

  -Ric Werme
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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-22 Thread Paul Lussier
Arc Riley  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
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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-22 Thread Kevin D. Clark

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/ 
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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-22 Thread Ted Roche
On 09/22/2009 09:07 AM, Paul Lussier wrote:
> Arc Riley  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

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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-22 Thread Seth Cohn
> 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
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Re: Digital Voice Recorders and Linux

2009-09-22 Thread Arc Riley
>
> > 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.
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