Surviving and Thriving - Reviews

Voice Recording Technology

By: Gary S. Kearney

Experienced interviewers agree that making a recording of an interview is an extremely good idea. Very few people can write fast enough to keep up with the flow of ideas in an interview, and note taking can also interfere with the interview process. Most interviewers do try to take notes as well, to remind them of questions to ask later in the interview or note other ideas that are not directly related to the present topic. However, the recording is essential for completeness and accuracy.

Recording Options

There are two basic options for voice recording: cassette recorders, digital voice recorders. Some PDAs and digital music players also offer recording options.

Microcassette Recorders

With a price as low as $25 and a tape size over 50% smaller than a standard-sized tape, Microcassette recorders are an affordable, compact solution for recording meetings or interviews and dictating.

Despite their small size, Microcassette recorders are designed to withstand heavy use and have a tape quality superior to that of a regular cassette recorder.

One factor to be considered is that if you want to archive your recordings the cost of the tapes may eventually mount up to a significant amount. The cost of media is on the order of one dollar per one hour cassette with slightly higher prices for 90 minute and two hour tapes. The recorders themselves vary from $25 - $150. Units specifically designed for transcribing from tape may be even more expensive but useful if you do a lot of interviewing.

Digital Voice Recorders

Digital recorders are available at prices ranging from around $50 to $300 at the high end. The major factor affecting prices is connectivity and the size of memory included. The more expensive models usually include some type of removable memory as well as USB connectors for interfacing with a PC. A 128 MB memory module at an extra cost of $60 will provide about 22 hours of recording time. The lower priced models have fixed memory to hold two or three hours of recordings and may also lack the ability to connect directly to a computer. This would limit their use as an interviewing tool, since you would need to transcribe your notes before you could erase them.

The features to be aware of are: voice activation (some models save space by only recording when there is sound actually present), USB connectivity, memory size, battery type and size, number of possible files and folders and how the data is organized.. Some models offer other features such as an included digital camera or MP3 player. You may also need to consider whether you might want additional batteries, microphones, or headsets.

Voice Enabled PDAs

There are some palm computers that can also record and playback audio. The problem here is that it is difficult to take notes on the PDA and record audio at the same time. The feature is primarily designed to allow people to make short notes to themselves, and as such is not very well suited for recording interviews. I tend to use my PDA to keep my notes, and it would be difficult to do both tasks with the same unit. I find my PDA is quite valuable when I want to take large amounts of information to an interview, since it provides search capabilities as well as containing a large amount of information in a small package.

There are also add-on modules available for some PDAs, but they have the same problems as units with built in capability. If you already have a PDA and are mostly interested in recording your own thoughts, these might offer an alternative to portable keyboards or using the handwriting recognition. I'm old enough to have learned some speedwriting techniques for taking notes, so I tend to use those instead when I'm in a hurry.

Speech Recognition

Since a digital recording is just a sound file, if the file is recorded under a high quality mode it can be used in conjunction with speech recognition software. All you need to do is download your speech file, then launch the voice-to-text software. The software does the rest. The problem with this scenario is that speech recognition software is not very accurate unless it is trained on the user's voice. This means that you may be able to use it with reasonable accuracy on your own words, but not on recordings of interview subjects. The speech recognition software is available with some digital recorders as an option for installation on a PC and is also available separately at around $100.

There are also services that provide transcription for both files downloaded from a computer or cassette tapes. These will be rather expensive however since most seem to be directed toward legal professionals and minutes of formal meetings for publication.

Specifics

If you intend to transcribe your notes immediately and are not interested in archiving the original recordings, then one of the less expensive digital note devices may meet your needs. They are small, easy to carry and provide other functions such as alarms and reminders.

I was intrigued by the Olympus W-10 which has a digital camera included with its digital voice recording capability. This could be handy for recording diagrams or pictures along with your notes, but the resolution on the camera is too low for serious photography. If you intend for the pictures to be published, you will probably need a better camera. The unit is a fairly good value at $99, but it only allows recording for about an hour. It does have a USB connection, so if you expect to have a long interview, you might be able to take a break and download the first session to make room for more.

The Olympus DS-330 seems to be a reasonable solution at $150. For someone doing a large amount of serious interviewing it should provide all the necessary features. The Sony ICD-BP150 has a similar price and similar features. It is also available as a bundle with Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software for $250.

There are higher priced units available, but I wouldn't recommend them unless you find a specific feature that fits one of your particular requirements. One important advantage of the higher priced units is that they do allow the use of additional memory modules to increase recording time.

Cnet http://shopper.cnet.com/ is a good place to check prices, and I got some good information as well as prices at Dictran.com http://www.theprogrammers.com/digitalrecorders.html. Doing a Google search on the terms "digital voice recorder" will likely get you more information than you want, and you may need to spend some time searching through the results. PC-World http://www.pcworld.com/ and ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/ are both good sources for information on technology products.