WMA is supposed to provide better quality at the same compression ratios but
I'm not sure that's such a big factor when one's recording speech. In either
case I suspect you'll probably want to record at at least 32 kbps (14MB/hr)
mono. In either case you'll get good quality speech recordings. I doubt
you'll get much benefit from using WMA over MP3. Either will work fine.
Other factors such as using a decent microphone, positioning the microphone
properly, killing ambient noise, etc. will have a much greater impact on the
quality of the recordings.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Cartwright" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2002 1:54 AM
Subject: Re: 2U4U DMR-300 WMA Player
Dan,
I think you will find that CTANKS and CISAID will play wma files
directly. Indeed the CISAID disk contains a copy of the wma encoder -
which I think gives better quality sound in smaller files than MP3.
Regards
Alan
At 16:34 26/10/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>I stumbled accross the 2u4u DRM WMA player reviewed on the internet
>today. Although it is called a "player" presumably because it is
>marketed as an entertainment machine, it has a line-in port, compatible
>with any audio device including microphone and also an internal
>microphone for recording. It will record in WMA format which (I believe)
>can then be loaded digitally onto a PC via a USB connection. If I am
>correct in this, it means that it should enable recording directly onto
>the machine and then miss out the real time recording onto PC step - as
>from minidisc - which always seems to be the most frustrating bit of the
>process!
>
>My questions are.
>
>1) Has anyone used this product and is it suitable for recording
>interviews with an external mic?
>2) Does the WMA have to then be converted to MP3 for use with
>transcribers such as CTANKS (which we use in my department)?
>
>I would be very interested in any experiences, info or similar products.
>
>Thanks
>
>Dan Munday
>Centre for Primary Health Care Studies
>University of Warwick
Alan Cartwright PhD.,LRPS
Developer Code-A-Text MultiMedia Products
Email [log in to unmask]
Code-A-Text Web Page <http://www.code-a-text.co.uk>
C-I-SAID: Powerful Multi-Media Software for Analysing Interviews and
Dialogues.
CTANKS: Word processing, Recording, Transcription, Searching and Report
Generation in a single user friendly package.
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