How To Determine File Format

[Robert J. H.]

FFmpeg 2.2.2 supports QCELP and G.729, at least. If you had used MediaInfo as Gunnar suggested, we could have seen the information provided as to the exact codec and container. However you should get the version of MediaInfo without the installer, because the installer can be confusing or dangerous.

It may be worth installing Audacity 2.0.6 from http://audacityteam.org/download/windows then installing FFmpeg from http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... tml#ffdown .

If FFmepg recognises the files it saves you a lot of effort.


Gale

Sadly enough, this all doesn't work with this device.
Some Olympus products indeed allow only capturing the output via the head phones output. What's more, this doesn't seem to work very well.
It's the major complaint in reviews and forums.

[rabbithutch]

I'm afraid my project is a lost cause. I cannot find a way to get the information off of this device. It is an inexpensive Olympus dictating and note taking device. It has a mic jack and an earphone jack and no other connection capability. I thought that I might be able to transfer the sound from the device to the LineIn port on the PC just like I do with analog cassette tapes, but Audacity does not seem to recognize the signal (which is really nothing more than analog sound, I think, even though the device is digital) coming from LineIn. That's why a posted a screenshot of my Audacity settings . . . I thought I might have them wrong and was looking for any suggestions for changing them.

My computer is home-built from assembled parts: Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40 GHz, 16 GB RAM, ECS Z77 H2-A3 Mobo Windows 7 HP 64-bit. There is an NVidia graphics card but nothing for audio except what came on the mobo. I have about 5 terabytes of hard disk storage including both internal and external drives. For digitizing and saving old cassette tapes, I use an old Advent cassette deck that is attached to the LineIn port with a 3.5 stereo jack. I start the tape deck then start Audacity and in a few seconds I see the graph showing the signal being received. I also listen on the PC's speakers as I play the tapes. I was hoping that I could do the same with the Olympus but apparently LineIn is not seeing the signal or Audacity is set up incorrectly. I have the cable in the earphone jack on the recorder and LineIn on the PC; so, obviously, I cannot monitor the sound while transferring.

Sorry to have used up so much bandwidth without providing adequate data. I hope this answers any questions, but feel free to ask any others I might not have thought about.

Again, thank you, all, for your advice.

[Gunnar]

rabbithutch, we need to distinguish two things here:

1) Will you be able to copy the files over from your recorder to your PC? From all what you described so far, the answer is no

2) Will you be able to re-record the stored audio through an analog audio connection? Definitely possible! It's sub-optimal, yes. But if there is no other way, it should be better than nothing, I suppose


So what you need to do is: Connect the "earphone jack" of your recorder with the "line in" port of your PC's soundcard, using an analog cable. Then you play the track on your recorder and, at the same moment, you record it in Audacity. The file format that is on the recorder doesn't matter at all here, because we just grab the analog signal from the earphone jack! "Audacity does not seem to recognize the signal" is not even possible, don't worry

(If Audacity doesn't record the audio signal that you feed into the "line In" port, i.e. your recorded file only contains silence, this means you have selected the wrong "recording device" in Audacity - or the recording volume is way too low)

[rabbithutch]

Thank you, Gunnar!

I will continue to try the method you described. It is exactly what I do to capture cassette tape analog signals while digitizing them and later exporting them as MP3.

Again, thank you for the help!!!

[Gale Andrews]

Indeed the VN 7000 has no USB or SD Card capability - I just checked.

Your settings here look OK, although your recording level might be low:


Make sure when you play the file on the recorder that the volume is turned up. Turn on Transport > Software Playthrough in Audacity then you can hear what is being recorded in the computer sound device. Try Effect > Amplify... on what you record. If Amplify shows "New Peak Amplitude" of -Infinity, you are recording absolute silence and something is wrong with the cable or the connections.

Note that the output of the earphone may be too low for your line-in. Try connecting to the computer microphone input. Then turn the playback volume down on the recorder, change the Audacity input to microphone, turn the Audacity input level down, then record.


Gale