Review on 🎙️ OM Digital Solutions VN-5200PC SEO-Enhanced Digital Voice Recorder by David Moreno

available Update 07/17/2009: Olympus has this new just presented digital voice recorder Olympus VN-6200PC. The VN-6200PC is identical to the VN-5200PC in terms of features and capabilities, but now has twice the memory, 1GB, at the same recommended price as the VN-5200PC. My VN-5200PC is great, but the VN-6200PC should be even better! If you are looking for a high quality, affordable digital mono voice recorder that easily records Windows Media Audio (WMA) files and quickly transfers them to your computer via a USB 2.0 connection without any additional software, the Olympus VN-5200PC is a good choice . It outperforms the popular Olympus VN-4100PC digital voice recorder in almost every way. More memory, more recording time, more battery life, more folders and files, more frequency response, more output levels. Over 221 hours in LP recording mode and over 35 hours in HQ mode. That's a range from 200 to 13,000 Hz, good enough for humming or playing spontaneous musical inspirations if you're into songwriting. It also features variable voice activation and dynamic audio level mapping. Perhaps the only feature of the VN-4100PC that the VN-5200PC lacks is timer recording and playback when you really need it. In order to become familiar with the operation of VN-, you need to read the instructions several times and practice a little. 5200PC but once you get the hang of it it's very easy and intuitive to use. There are 5 folders, each of which can contain up to 200 files. A new file is automatically created each time you start and stop recording. Files and folders are simply transferred to your computer via a USB connection. Just plug it into your PC and your VN-5200PC automatically looks like any drive or mass storage device on your PC with a Windows directory showing files and folders. Just select "all" and move or copy files to disk to save files in one operation. To play files, you just have to click on the audio file icons and Windows Media Player will appear and start working. You can easily play all files in a folder in sequence with just one click on Windows play option, which will automatically create a playlist of all files. Files can be easily renamed both on the disc and on the VN-5200PC. It can be any name you choose. They don't have to be in any particular format. Any file of any type with any name (text files, PDF files, etc.) can also be copied and saved on the VN-5200PC. However, in order to play an audio file on the VN-5200PC, it must be in WMA format and copied or moved to one of the five defined audio folders on the VN-5200PC. The Olympus VN-5200PC has no editing functions. . You can easily add and remove index marks to quickly return to specific file locations in playback mode, but any editing of the files must be done on the computer. Although Windows Media Player lets you select and organize files through a playlist, if you want to edit or merge files, or convert them to other audio file formats like MP3 or WAV, you'll need to purchase separate software. One annoying feature of the VN-5200PC is that the headphone jack is mono and isn't compatible without an adapter with the stereo headphones that everyone has for iPods or older Walkmans. This is just stupid of Olympus. Even my old GE mono tape recorder has a stereo headphone jack. A 1/8" stereo jack to 1/8" mono jack adapter can be purchased from Radio Shack for $2.99 to solve a problem, expense and inconvenience that should not be necessary. Another problem is that the USB cable that Olympus supplied with the VN-5200PC is only 6 inches long. This is normal on a laptop computer, but a USB extension cable may be required on a desktop computer. Target sells a 6 foot Belkin USB Extender (AA) for $7.99. You can also use a USB cable with a Type A connector and a 5-pin mini connector. In short, the Olympus VN-5200PC is designed for note taking, meetings, lectures, dictation, sending audio emails and even writing songs. Its functions are simple, the price is modest and the quality is good. If you love live music and MP3s, news interviews, stereo sound and fancy features then go for the more expensive Olympus digital recorders. A NOTICE. Free, full-featured software (no "demo") to download and open source. for editing and converting audio files. SUPER© by erightsoft runs on Windows platforms and converts almost any audio file format to any other audio format. Sourceforge's Audacity is a full-featured audio file editor that runs on Windows and Mac. Audacity is not licensed to import and convert WMA files directly, so third-party software is used to convert WMA. With Audacity 1.2, you can use SUPER© or iTunes to pre-convert WMA files to a format that Audacity accepts, such as . B.WAV. Audacity 1.3 Beta uses the free, separately downloadable ffmpeg import/export library to seamlessly import, export and convert WMA files. (Currently, to use on a Mac, the source code of the ffmpeg library needs to be converted to binary first. Only works for "Mackinaurs"!)