News

The dust has settled and we are all getting used to have a new dominant male in the Olympus dictaphone pack, the Olympus DS-7000. Having relegated the previous king of the digital dictaphone the Olympus DS-5000 to the retirement village, now is a good time to have a good close look at the nitty gritty - the real difference between these two power house digital dictaphones.

There really is no major changes between the two that would make you raise your eye brows. If you currently use DS-5000's in your business adding the DS-7000 into the mix will be no problem, the two will work together nicely at any site feeding dictation into the AS-5000 or AS-7000 digital transcription kits.

The key changes are:

• New bigger, colour screen
• DS-7000 has a different rechargeable battery to the DS-5000 which lasts for longer and charges quicker
• Can now use larger memory cards, both SD and microSD
• Stronger security with 256 bit encryption
• New Dictation module software, ODMS, replaces DSS Pro. However they look very very similar so users going from DS-4000 or DS-5000 will have no issues picking up the new software
• DS-7000 ODMS (R6) software is Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10 compatible
• DS-5000 DSS Player Pro (R5) is now discontinued, no longer supported and only Windows 7 compatible
• Higher rating from Nuance for voice recognition accuracy when using Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Windows (see notes below the table)

Announced last week in Sydney by Olympus Imaging was a refresh of the Professional range of Olympus digital dictation voice recorders and a new Olympus digital transcription kit.

Of note was the replacement of the hugely popular Olympus DS-5000 with a new model called the Olympus DS-7000 (nobody is quite sure what happened to the DS-6000, maybe 6000 is an unlucky number in Japan?). Also announced were replacements for the DS-3400 now called the DS-3500, the DS-2400 now logically called the DS-3500. And finally a revamp to the AS-5000 digital transcription kit now updated to AS-7000 bringing with it a brand new USB foot control (RS-31). The RS-31 replaces the RS-28 and now has four foot pedals and a new ergonomic design with some thought out into the various styles of shoes worn by transcription typists into the design.

Click here for more details on some of the new features of the Olympus DS-7000 on our main blog.

Olympus Australia have just announced a revamp to the hugely popular WS series line of digital recorders as well as a bump for the student friendly, budget VN series digital voice recorders. Click here for the Olympus announcement.

The complete range of both WS and VN series have been replaced by brand new models.

Gone: WS-650S, WS-750M, WS-760M, VN-8500PC & VN-8600PC

All replaced by: WS-811, WS-812, WS-813, VN-711PC & VN-712PC

For more details on the new range and new features click here to head to our main blog.

Supplied with the Pro range of Olympus digital dictaphones (DS-3400 & DS-5000) is software for both Mac and Windows users. On the Mac the software is called DSS Player Plus v7 and is slightly different to the DSS Player Pro v5 Dictation module software that you would use on a Windows machine.

One key difference is that on a Mac you have to manually email your digital dictation. This is not big deal and is very easy to do from the DSS Player Plus software. In our main blog we explain how to do this for single or multiple dictation files when emailing with Mac Mail or Gmail.

Click here to read the full blog on emailing .ds2 audio files from a Mac.

In this series of blogs, Voice Recorders In The Community, I want to highlight how digital voice recorders can play a small part in enhancing not only peoples jobs but also their lives.

This is a little gem that we have been keeping our eye on for a while now. The Microcone from Gold Coast based Dev-Audio is a leap forward in small meeting voice recording with it's multi-channel recording, Dragon voice-to-text for tagged audio and its great looks. Having already won an Australian Design award last year (2011) the Microcone has just picked up a prestigious Best In Show Award at this years (2012) MacWorld Expo in San Francisco.

The Microcone is powered by a single USB connection on your MacBook or iMac and recording is controlled either via the Microcone Recorder app from the Mac App Store or via Microcone Remote which is an iPhone app. A Windows version will be coming soon.

For a more detailed review of the Dev-Audio Microcone click here

For some of us January is a busy month keeping a close eye on the latest innovations from our favourite tech companies as they gather for the yearly CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Olympus are one such exhibitor and this year they didn't fail to impress by launching a plethora of new digital voice recorders, some of which (the new WS series) contain some very neat new features.

The Olympus DS-5000 Professional dictation kit comes jam packed with goodies to make your daily dictations a breeze and not a chore. However, from time to time people have been known to mislay cables, docks, cases etc. All of the contents of the DS-5000 kit are replaceable (except the actual recorder).

So if you are looking to replace a part from your kit or to buy extras for use on a second PC or Mac head to our main blog where we have a definitive guide to the parts you will need.

Click here for the spare or replacement parts for the Olympus DS-5000

Olympus regularly update their range of digital voice recorders, dictaphones and interview/meeting recorders. Even I am often taken by surprise at the speed of which a range can be over hauled making use of the continuously dropping memory prices and advances in technology. As a result people often look to replace their older model digital voice recorders only to find that it has been superseded by a newer model. Often it is not always easy to find the latest equivalent model for your older recorder.

In our latest main blog post I have attempted to list as many old Olympus digital voice recorder models and show their current model equivalent.

Click here to go to the blog post and view the full list of old models and their current Olympus voice equivalents.

Nuance Australia are keen for educational users to embrace Dragon (NaturallySpeaking for Windows and Dragon Dictate for Mac) to empower students and teachers. There are so many benefits for using voice to text speech recognition, in particular letting students written creativity flow by simply speaking their thoughts rather than being held back by their typing speeds. Not only that but Dragon can dramatically help students improve their core reading and writing skills and prepare students for the 21st century work place.

VLA's or Volume Licence Agreements are available for education use and only a minimum of five licences are required to start a VLA. We are a Nuance Australia Gold Certified reseller and as such can supply and advise on site licences for your school, university or TAFE. Educational licences are substantially discounted so please contact us for more information.

Click here for more information on Dragon site licences for schools and universities from our main blog.