Re: [tlug] [IME] :P Which IME does everyone use?

["Lyle H Saxon" <llletters@example.com>]

On 8/11/07, steven smith <sjs@example.com> wrote:
> I think both Olympus and Sony have a proprietary audio
> format.  I was looking ito this for use in class and Sony
> says "will play back mp3" on their top end recorder but I
> think record must be accessed via their software which will
> allow you to save as a .wav.  I'd be really hapy to hear I'm
> wrong.

Well, in more detail, it's like this:

- I bought an Olympus Voice-Trek DM-1 that uses a SmartMedia card
(Orwellian name, that!) and *only* records in a proprietary format.

- I worked at a company a few years bad writing and editing articles
for an in-house magazine, and one of the managers brought back a
micro-tape of an interview he had taped with an old recorder.  There
were two problems with this tape; 1) the sound quality was really bad
and 2) he had set the recorder to VAR (Voice Activated Recording) and
the beginning of many sentences and paragraphs were cut out!  The
result was that the (important) interview could not be transcribed and
said manager was put into the embarrassing position of having to
explain this to the president of the company.

- I talked said manager into buying a new Olympus IC recorder that
would record not only in a (boo-hiss-hiss) proprietary format, but
also in .wav.  The sound quality was great, the manager was greatly
pleased, and I was then able to work with clear recordings.  Since I
took some of my work home to do, I installed the software that came
with the newer recorder on my home machine and since it also works
with the (boo-hiss-hiss) proprietary format, that's what I used for
the Shuttleworth meeting which was made with the older Olympus that
came with far simpler software.

- The newer (newer than the old one that is, the "newer" being around
2004 and the older 2002) software from Olympus also allows you to
convert the proprietary format into .wav.  The sound isn't good, but
at least it makes it something you can use in other applications.  I
made the recording of the roundtable discussion available to the
Ubuntu people to check in this way.

More recently (a few weeks ago), I bought a Sanyo ICR-RB76M that
records in MP3 by default.  I bought is specifically because it
includes an AM/FM tuner and by pressing the record button while
listening to the radio, you can make MP3 files of the radio broadcast.
 This is a good way to get some of the cool Japanese language
interviews into MP3 files for re-listening.  (Some of those radio DJ's
have very nice voices....)  The sound quality of the AM tuner is
abysmal, but the FM part sounds okay.

I only tried using it as a voice recorder once, but it was windy and I
spoke too close to the microphone, producing really bad quality sound.
 I'll have to test it some more.  (It came with a separate mic by the
way, in addition to the built-in one.)

Lyle