Dictating Machine

Hope this is the right forum as it is work related. Have got some work transcribing interviews but the problem is they are on CD. In the past when I've done this they were on little mini tapes and I could listen to them through a machine with foot control to stop and start them as I typed. Question - is there a similar machine out there for CDs and if so does it have a name and would anyone know if it can be hired for a few weeks. Thanks.

just google "digital dictation" or "digital transcription" and you will see loads of products. You need a footpedal (which connects to your pc) and some transcription software. NCH have a good free transcription software product. Many others can be downloaded on a free trial basis. A footpedal can probably be bought for less than €120.

Thanks MOB for reply. It's obviously a long time since I did this kind of work and am totally out of touch!

No you don't necessarily need a footpedal. There are a couple of freeware programmes which use hotkeys to slow down/speed up & pause dictation on your computer. They are fiddly though and if you're doing any large amount of dicta-typing I would recommend investing in a footpedal!

You can actually use the footpedal off your old machine with the computer software systems (ok my hubby is an electronics engineer but it's not that difficult to work out how to chop off the old plug, and wire it into a plug that will attach on to a computer port although you may have to do trial and error to ensure back is still back and not forewards!).

What I think you should watch out for is the terms and conditions of your work. A lot of these jobs look great to start with but in fact the company will reject a lot of your work for "inaccuracies" and pay you a low "training" rate. Years ago, the UK telework association used to regularly get contacts about these issues.

You get the picture... Just be sure that you know what you have to do in order to get paid and be aware that there are many educated English-speaking people on the Indian subcontinent happy to do this work for much less than the Irish minimum wage.

All the best

Imogen

Still struggling with this one. Bought an Olympus kit with software, headphones and footpedal but from what I can figure out (could well be wrong on this one) it will only work with Olympus recorders. Problem is I only have a CD that was recorded using a household CD player (nothing fancy as you can see). Is all the transcription software geared towards working with machines or is there any hope for using this CD. Thanks in advance for any replies.

My office uses Olympus dictation products. The Olympus should work fine. I suggest you:

1. Copy the CD files - presumably .wav format? onto your PC

2. Move the sound files into one of the dictation folders (as set up by the Olympus CD when you installed the software)

3. Find the setting on the Olympus software for reading .wav files (the default file format is .dss, but the Olympus software will read almost any sound file format).

hope this helps.

If this does not work, try downloading the NCH product and configuring the footpedal to work with it.