Olympus DS330 Digital Voice Recorder

I am a physician with a subspecialty practice in GI. In this type of practice I dictate my notes so my referring physicians get back timely, legible notes. The Olympus DS-330 has been working very well in this application. The recorder has a solid feel. The buttons are easy to push. The display is very easy to read, even with my presbyopia. The ability to enter each note as a separate file is great for patient transcriptions. There are also 5 folders built in so that you could dictate a different day of the week in a different folder. The ability to insert into the middle of a dictation is also available, something you could never do with a tape. (This is not just talk over the middle of the tape. It is just like you spliced in extra dictation in the middle without losing anything already dictated.)

At first I kept the dictations on the handheld until I was sure they were transcribed. The software has an option to delete file after upload. I have been so comfortable with the reliability of the transfers that I changed the setting to delete after upload. I sent files to three different transcriptionists and all were able to read the dss files exported by the device without problem. This is very nice because the files are quite compact. A typical 5 minute dictation yields a file size of about 500 kb. With over 2.5 hours of record time in standard quality mode you could dictate 30 patients before having to upload. Batteries seem to last about 2 weeks. There is a visual battery guide and the display says low battery once it goes low.

The DS-330 has a snap in cradle and a USB cable. You pop in the device, the display says REMOTE and it uploads as soon as the application is started. The only annoying thing about the unit is it needs to have the stop button pushed before popping it into the cradle or it won't upload, sometimes I have to pop it in and out a few times before the USB driver talks to it right. It seems if you switch it to the hold setting and put it in the cradle you confuse it. The cradle is very good. The contacts are large, gold plated and protected by recesses in the device housing. They clearly will allow thousands of insertions and removals. The DSS program needs to be started before the upload will work. Once the upload starts the files pop out very well. There is a mini-USB outlet on the device marked PCI/F if you want to plug it in with an adaptor cable (not included with the packge).

The software is very clear. You can manage settings and files from the computer. You can even push dss files out to the device. The audio on my Macintosh iMac plays the sounds very well. The control panel is ok for occasional transcription. It has a setting that allows selectable playback speed, but the software controls the pitch so that no matter how fast or slowly it plays you do not change the frequency. With a tape player you would have a Mickey mouse sound on playback. The software keeps that from happening on this device. For heavy duty dictation you need software built for that purpose with foot pedal controls.

This system has really improved turnaround for me. I dictate the patient visits with the patient in the office. The files are sent by FTP to my transcriptionist who gets it back to me the next day. What has really changed is dealing with missed words. Sometimes the transcriptionist doesn't understand a word and she puts in a blank spot. With tape I don't have the tape to listen to. With this system I have copies of the dictations. I just play back the spot and no more mystery words to worry over. I do this about twice a week. Works very well.

I use Macs at work, unusual for a medical practice. The software is very nice on the Mac. Seems like it was written for the Mac. Good interface that meets the Aqua interface guidelines. I am running OS X 10.2.6. USB driver loaded easily. CD installer worked without a glitch.

Recommended

I did a lot of research before finally plunking down the cash to buy this recorder, and I'm glad I did my due diligence. The Olympus DS-330 is a very solid digital voice recorder, packing a lot of functionality into a small package (as an aside, Sony does make them smaller, but IMHO, too small gets to be unusable).

First the features: Files are recorded in DSS (Digital Speech Standard), but the PC/Mac software allows you to convert files into WAV format. The unit has a Conference/Dictation sensitivity setting for different recording situations. The unit is customizable, so you can change folder names and assign comments to files. You can add indexes to demark key points in files, and you can even set up an alarm to play a certain file at a certain time (which is good for reminding yourself to do something). You can even lock files one at a time to prevent deletion of important information. It has voice activated recording controlled by the volume knob. The LCD display can be scrolled among how long the file is, the full date the file was created, the time the file was created, and an assigned comment. If worse comes to worse, you can format the recorder and start from scratch via the PC/Mac software. It comes with an external microphone jack and external earphone jack. The unit can also be connected to a PC via the cradle or a PC I/F connector on the bottom of the unit. Comes with a leatherette case.

Second, the good things about this recorder: Batteries are included. The buttons are large enough for those with big fingers, and are easily accessible for one-handed recording. The erase button is also easily accessible, even though it is less prominent to avoid accidental deletion (it confirms that you want to delete something as well). The unit is light (the batteries supply most of the weight). Sound quality is fairly good through the small speaker, and sound quality of the digital files is best in SP mode. Conference/Dictation sensitivity settings were good enough for my tastes. When the unit is in Hold mode, pressing any key will momentarily display the battery condition, date, and time (so it's useful as a a clock when turned off). The mic jack and earphone jack are spread apart so as to not interfere with each other. I had no problems installing and using the USB cradle and software under Windows ME (when the recorder is placed in the cradle, the software comes up automatically). I can manipulate files very easily using the supplied software.

Finally, the bad things about this recorder: There's an AC adapter port, but no included AC adapter (it's sold separately). LP mode is decipherable, but if you don't have the time to decipher your files, recording in LP mode may not be worth your time (so you can't take advantage of the unit's potential 5 hour record time). I believe the Play and Stop buttons should have been on the side of the recorder (like a tape-based recorder) instead of on the front of the unit, and the New and Folder/Menu buttons should have been on the front. The "Power On/Off" button is actually the Hold button, and was not intuitive. The volume knob is really small, and even though I have small finger, I had a little trouble at first handling it. The volume knob also is counter-intuitive: moving the knob downward increases the sound level through the speaker (you may think moving it down should decrease the volume).

This recorder is ideal for lecture recordings and personal notes. I'm using it for documentation of meetings and for idea recording. I believe it's good points make up for it's bad points, and would recommend it to most people (i.e. those not requiring outstanding sound quality -for that, you might go for a higher-end Olympus).

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I am a newspaper reporter for a living and I have been looking for a good/great digital voice recorder. This is the best I've found so far.

Like other reviewers, I found that my Dell with Windows XP also had trouble installing the driver. (However, once I figured out what was wrong, the situation was easily corrected by directing the driver search function directly to the software CD that came with the recorder).

That said, this recorder and the PC software with this recorder is otherwise FANTASTIC. The sound quality is good. The indexing functions are awesome because you can actually visualize the indexes on sound files on your PC with little red marks. For me, this means I can find the quotable sections of interviews very quickly. A quick read of the directions also helped me find invaluable features, such as noise control.

I figure it will be another six months before Olympus comes out with really strong voice recognition software to transcribe all my notes for me. That will be invaluable, and for that, they could charge me a lot more than ... this sweet little recorder cost. I'm already planning to buy another one of these as a backup ...

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I just bought this so take my review with some salt, but still this seems like a pretty cool toy.

It's very small, very lightweight, and has a lot of features.

Voice activation, 2.5 hours at good quality, usb interface with your computer.

The voice activation feature works quite well (just turn your recorder on and leave it in a room to find out what happens when you're gone: very James Bond).

I'm particularly impressed with how well it interfaces with my computer (a Macintosh). The files pop up on my screen and are easy to transfer over (and translate to MP3s, if you have the software).

The downsides are the price and the sound quality. The sound is reasonable but not fantastic. There is a SP (standard) setting but no HQ (high quality) setting. The SP records at 12khz, unlike some higher quality recorders which do 22khz. Still, for most voice purposes 12khz is fine.

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I've read some of the reviews about the recorder being able to record lectures really well, even from far away, but I've found that this recorder will pick up more of the surrounding noise than the lecture if you're more than 6-10ft away from the person speaking. I really love the fact that you can store and listen to recordings on your computer. It definitely saves money and space from regular tape recorders. The battery life I've found last maybe around 2 weeks. Like maybe 6-8hrs each week if you turn it off and on. I bought Rayovac's 15min rechargable batteries for the recorder. It records about 2hrs and 30mins? on SP speed and about 5 hrs or so on LP. I prefer the SP speed because the quality of the sound is better on playback, but I've had to download the files on the recorder more frequently. This recorder is best if you have only 2 classes a day that run about an hour each, or maybe even 3 classes if you want to record at LP speed. Overall it's a great recorder.