Olympus pushes out DS-5000 and DS-5000iD non-fascist Dictators

Olympus, who seems to be single-handedly keeping the digital voice recorder market alive and well, has cranked out yet another duo in the sector today, and neither of 'em come cheap. The DS-5000 and DS-5000iD both offer up support for dual memory cards (SD / SDHC and microSD) and feature a backlit LCD, digital dictation software, USB connectivity, up to 28 hours of battery life and a new QP recording mode for enhanced sound quality. The latter also features an integrated fingerprint scanner for the super sleuths in the crowd, and there's even an optical barcode scanner if you're looking to really transform your voice recorder into something MacGyver would approve of. Sure, both units come with a transcription kit, USB cradle, carrying case and 512MB microSD card, but we're still a little hesitant to lay down $499.99 / $599.99 to pick either of them up.

[derX @ Feb 12th 2008 4:02AM]

What a perfect title. As soon as I saw the picture, I thought, "If Mussolini were to record a conversation, he'd definitely be using one of these."

------

I am for convergence in anything (usually), but WTF could you possibly need a voice recorder/barcode scanner for?

[Boing @ Feb 12th 2008 4:16AM]

Why so pricey though? My i-river H320 has a built in mic and digital encoder and it only cost £250 three years ago!

[roflercopterer @ Feb 12th 2008 4:23AM]

Pocket space...when I scan stuff and say stuff in the same trip I'd rather do it by carrying only one device instead of two!

[gadjitfreek @ Feb 12th 2008 4:28AM]

Try the Zoom H2...it's a two-track recorder that records to SD and can act as a USB audio interface to your computer. It's $200 and the sound quality is amazing. It records to WAV or MP3 with whatever sound quality you want.

[bobbywigs @ Feb 12th 2008 9:03AM]

amen to that. love my Zoom H2

[aardvark sandwich @ Feb 12th 2008 7:12AM]

As a fascist, I resent that.

[strider_mt2k @ Feb 12th 2008 7:21AM]

The voice recorder market needs to wake up to the fact that technology advances have made their devices "not so special" any more and adjust pricing accordingly.

Unless you're gonna roll out pro specs for something like this you can save the chatter for AFTER the deep price cuts.

[Craig @ Feb 12th 2008 2:37PM]

Because it's not really practical to give your cell phone to the transcriptionist at the end of the day when you're done dictating.

[Fraggle.Rock @ Feb 12th 2008 4:45PM]

Voice recorders like the DS-5000 are actually still needed and wanted, despite what some of you may think. The 5000 and the 5000iD are professional voice recorders, used by journalists, dictation specialists, researchers, and so on. The biometric reader used to secure the 5000iD recorder is interesting because often times the recordings contain sensitive information, and this will obviously limit the potential unintentional access to that data.

Sounds good to me :-)

[simon_berglund @ Feb 12th 2008 5:55PM]

These sorts of devices are aimed at the professional high volume user, especially lawyers and doctors. The barcode capability is for use in the medical industry whereby scanning a barcode associates the dictation and eventual transcription with the correct patient record. Very few lawyers and doctors are happy to use a device without the kind of hardware user interface and software capabilities that these devices (and similar from Philips and Grundig) supply.

Devices like the iRiver and Zoom are useless in these environments, both because their user interfaces are designed for generic sound recording, not dictation, and they are not integrated to legal and medical information or workflow systems.

However, the Olympus / Philips / Grundig devices also have a "Conference" mode for use in recording meetings... not much help when the typist cannot tell who is speaking! For that function, users would be better off using something like the Acappella Conference Recorder and Playback Assistant http://www.acappella.com.au which tells the transcriptionist when they are typing up the document who is actually speaking.

[Bret Williams @ Feb 13th 2008 8:53AM]

When we work with customers to decide on what kind of recorders to buy, we explain that recorders fall into two general categories: dictation and events.

Dictation is for folks like simon described: professionals, generally, who want to record, back up, review, correct, insert, delete, etc., in the recorder to product a final piece for a transcriptionist.

People who want to record meetings, lectures, music, interviews, etc., are looking for an event recorder. When you don't have to have the mechanical and electronic controls for dictation, you can use higher quality recording formats, and keep the price down.

We have people every day calling us to ask why they can't edit their dictation in a VN-4100 PC they bought at Target. That's because for $50, they can't provide the engineering for that.

Additionally, people who aren't dealing with sensitive information are expected to "lay down" money for the DS-5000. But ask a doctor about HIPAA compliance, and he'll be all over the extra security features.

BTW, one technical correction to your review: the DS-5000 does not include a transcription kit. The AS-5000 Transcription Kit will be available soon. The DS-5000 also includes a USB cable and AC Adaptor, as well as the latest Release 5 of the DSS Player Pro software. For anyone serious about dictation and transcription workflow management, the new software is amazing.

You might also be interested to know that this unit is the first to employ USB 3.0, which will soon become a standard.

Of course, the DS-5000 is not available yet - just with pre-orders. It's expected to ship sometime in Late March/ Early April.