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Olympus Australia are running a promotion from 1st September 2014 until the end of October 2014, trade in your old dictaphone, analogue or digital and in any condition and receive up to $100 cash back.

For example, trade in an old tape dictaphone which may or may not work against a brand new Olympus DS-7000 Professional digital dictaphone and receive $100 cash back from Olympus. Making the effective price of the Olympus DS-7000 only $469 incl. GST and delivery, bargain !

Here is how it works.

1. Purchase brand new, qualifying Olympus Professional Dictation recorders from an Australian Olympus Authorised Professional Dictation Reseller, e.g. Dictate Australia, with an Australian Business Number (ABN) between 1st September and 31st October 2014. 
2. Complete the online claim form found at https://www.olympus.com.au/promotions.You will need to upload your proof of purchase (or it can be sent via post), so please ensure you have this available.
3. Send Olympus your trade-in product according to the instructions found within the terms and conditions of the Promotion. Trade-in product may consist of any Olympus or competitor’s analogue or digital professional dictation recorder.
4. Once Olympus have received your old equipment and verified against your online claim, Olympus will confirm receipt via email.
5. Your Trade-in payment will then be made via bank transfer or cheque from Olympus Imaging Australia within 6 weeks from the date we confirm receipt of your old equipment.

We have just launched the ability to purchase gift cards on our store. Our electronic gift card can be given you someone, perhaps as a birthday present or as congratulations for an achievement such as graduation or starting university to redeem against any of our products.

Digital voice recorders are a very handy part of just about anybodies bag these days. For journalists they are an essential tool of the trade, used to grab soundbites, record interviews or press conferences. For students, sometimes the ability to stay awake in long lectures after all night study sessions can be a bit much, flick on the digital voice recorder and you will never miss a lecture again.

The Dictate Australia eGift card can be redeemed against any products in our store; digital voice recorders, microphones (the TP-8 is a perfect additional for budding journalists as it can be used with a voice recorder to record phone interviews) even our software like Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows or Dragon Dictate 4 for Mac voice recognition software.

Olympus Audio Australia recently revamped the DM range of digital voice recorders which are aimed at the professional business market. The DM series are the work horse models for recording focus groups and large meetings. Like all Olympus recorders they are filled to the brim with features and functions yet straight out of the box are simple and easy to use, always returning crystal clear high quality audio recording to capture every word, even in the most feisty of meeting or interview.

One thing you can't take away from Olympus is innovation. With every round of refresh of recorders they push the limits of voice recorder technology. Always improving on the things you expect like microphone pickup and audio quality. But also adding some nice new features like in the case of the new Olympus DM-901 by building in wi-fi to the recorder. It's the simple things, most of us used to voice recording are familiar with reaching across the boardroom table to start the recording just as the meeting is about to start. Not any more, with the wifi enabled DM-901 just launch your Olympus Audio Contoller app on your iPhone or Android phone and remotely start/stop recording. When the meeting is over opt the traditional USB connect and download the audio or now, share the audio via your wifi connection.

Fancy yourself as a bit of a smartphone photographer? Now you can take pictures and tag them to the audio, perfect during a press conference, interview or while gathering the delegates in a meeting. All done via the new Olympus Audio Controller app.

When your meeting is over, the audio can be immediately downloaded to your smartphone via wifi. The free Olympus app (app version 1.2.2 and up) can also be linked to your Dropbox account for instant upload and sharing. The days of always having to carry a Mac or PC to grab and share your audio have gone, if the audio you recorded needs to be out quickly this can be facilitated all from your mobile device. Journalists and can feel you smiling right now !

The DM-901 is now available in Australia and replaces the DM-3 model. 

With all he hoopla over the last few weeks about the new Olympus Dictation App for iPhone and Android, the announcement of ODDS (Olympus Dictation Delivery Service) and the new model DS-7000 Air and DS-3500 Air our thoughts turn to those customers already using the professional digital dictaphones, non Air models (pre October 2013). How can you get into the action and use your DS-7000 or DS-3500 for truly mobile dictation?

Well the answer is the Toshiba FlashAir card. Pop one of these into your DS-7000 or DS-3500 and away you go, you can connect to the Olympus Dictation App on your smartphone via wi-fi and transfer the audio from recorder to smartphone.

We have managed to source some FlashAir cards from the same supplier that Olympus use. You need to make sure your DS-7000 or DS-3500 have at minimum firmware version v1.20 (details on download and install of this firmware version click here).

The Toshiba FlashAir cards are 8Gb and class 6 - click here to buy one

Olympus Australia Pro resellers started to receive their new model DS-7000 Air and DS-3500 Air this week (late October 2013).

The Air models come with a Toshiba FlashAir card and the latest recorder firmware pre-loaded (v1.20). These devices can be used just like an ordinary professional digital dictaphone with the added benefit of having the wi-fi enabled memory card which can transmit your dictation to your iPhone or Android smartphone running the free Olympus Dictation App.

This is Olympus' attempt to cover the mobile dictation market, you can use your trusted DS-7000/DS-3500 or opt to record direct to your smartphone using their new app.

We have just created a quick, well it's nearly ten minutes , video showing an overview of the new Olympus Dictation App running on an iPhone (iOS7), the app is also available for Android phones and is a free download from both the Apple iTunes store and Google Play.

The app itself has multiple features and functions which differ depending if you have an ODDS (Olympus Dictation Delivery Service) 12 month subscription or not (just using the free version). On our main blog we cover the difference between using the Olympus Dictation App free vs ODDS Paid subscription so have a read for more information on what ODDS can do for you and your business.

Click here to read our blog - Olympus Dictation App for iPhone and Android - Compare Free vs Paid ODDS Subscription

Below is our video overview of the Olympus Dictation App, the first one to appear on YouTube

Any questions about the Olympus Dictation App, ODDS subscriptions and obtaining a FlashAir card for your current Olympus DS-7000 or DS-3500 digital dictaphone then please get in touch with us.

Lots have been happening at Olympus this week as the world was officially introduced to the new Olympus Dictation iPhone and Android app which can be used as a platform to transfer dictation recorded on your DS-7000/DS-3500 via your smart phone to your office. This is done using a Toshiba FlashAir memory card which has onboard wifi built in to connect your dictaphone to your iPhone or Android device. 

The firmware release is required to add the necessary support for the FlashAir cards. Click here to read all about the firmware release and for download links.

We will be writing extensively about the new Olympus ODDS (Olympus Dictation Delivery System) and the new Olympus Dictation app over the coming weeks. Please contact us directly if you require specific information now.

We have just posted an article on our main blog site titled "Transcription Typists, Tame The Dragon Don't Fear It" where we touch on the occasional fear and animosity that many a transcriptionist has for Dragon, the NaturallySpeaking kind, which automatically converts voice to text. In the post we show how as a transcriptionist now would be a good time to actually embrace this technology and become the voice recognition expert on your practice or firm.

For single speaker audio, this is only one person recording dictation, then Dragon is now a viable option to transcribe most of the audio. The key to that last sentence being most, Dragon is not 100% accurate, although it is getting very close, there will always be a need, especially in medical and legal practices, for computer processed voice-to-text to be proof read. Transcripts will still need to be formatted and accuracy checked. This is where the office transcriptionist comes in.

Using Olympus ODMS transcription module, included in the AS-7000 Professional Transcription Kit and likely what most professional businesses are using for their transcription needs, you can now push dictation audio to Dragon and have it transcribe your audio. When complete all that needs to be done is proof read the finished result, add some formatting and paste the text into your usual letter template or into your medical or legal system of choice.

In our tests this has significantly reduced the physical time taken to produce a transcript. We have found that proofing a Dragon transcribed document will take at the most only 1.5 times the audio length (e.g. a one hour of spoken dictation will take one hour and thirty minutes to proof) compared to the 3 to 4 hours of transcription time it used to take. These are significant time savers for your typists, allowing them to concentrate on other more productive and satisfying tasks.

From the perspective of the person dictating there is absolutely no change, they can continue on using their digital dictaphone. They do not need to train Dragon, you can do that for them using the audio you already have of them speaking.

We cover this in our digital voice blog along with a video to show how the Olympus ODMS transcription module software links to Dragon and how Dragon transcribed text can be proof read. If you would like to know more or just have some basic questions please give us call (In Australia 1300 787 092) or send us an email sales@dictate.com.au

Olympus have just released the latest update R6.2.0 to their professional dictation and transcription module software for Windows. 

This update is mainly an enhancement release with some minor functionlaity tweaks added along with compatibility for the latest version of Citrix' XenDesktop virtual PC software. 

For those keen on voice-to-text this release also confirms compatibility with Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 Legal and Professional editions allowing full integration with Dragon from the dictation module for both live and background voice recognition of digital dictation.

The full list of changes is detailed below:

1. RS32 (Hand Controller) is supported. This is not yet available in Australia.
2. Direct upgrade from DSSPlayer Pro R4 to ODMS is supported. – DSS Player Pro R4.10.4 is only supported. – Both Standalone system and Workgroup system are supported. – Settings in R4 will automatically migrate to ODMS. – Operating systems supported after upgrade will comply with what ODMS supports. – ODMS license is required.
3. “Adaptation”, function for voice recognition can be executed on PCs on which Text corrections has not been made. This allows the author to perform Adaptation on the text that other people have corrected on the other PC.
4. Added function to copy all the text on the editor displaying results of voice recognition.
5. Added option to set Lighting time 2 minutes and 5 minutes for the DS-7000/3500.
6. Added option to change the following items in Edit Job Data dialog. – File name – Worktype ID – Priority, Priority Level – File Locked
7. Czech is supported.
8. Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 is supported.
9. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 Professional/Legal Edition is supported.

The entire range of Olympus digital dictaphones - DS-2500/DS-3500/DS-7000 and the Directrec tethered USB mics have all had a bump to the highest Dragon rating possible - six out of six. The somewhat old fashioned looking Dragon scale is Nuance's measurement of accuracy when used with their Windows based voice recognition speech-to-text software, NaturallySpeaking. 

More on this and the official press release from Olympus Imaging Australia at our main blog - click here