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Olympus DM-20 Digital Voice Recorder/Music Player/Data Storage
Date: Sunday, September 14, 2003
Author: Jsgolfman
Provided By: Olympus
Page: 1 of 2
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Introduction
While Olympus is well known for its quality line of film and digital cameras, less is known about their other products. One that I will be looking at today is the DM-20. It's billed mainly as a digital voice recorder, but triples it's functionality by incorporating a music player and USB data storage device into its duties. It's sleek, portable, versatile and comes equipped with enough accessories to justify the $299 SRP. The one location I was able to find it online, DM-20 (click here), listed it for $269. If you were to look for a voice recorder, MP3/WMA player and USB storage separately you can count on spending three times as much for similar quality devices.
Specifications
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Recording Format
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DSS (Digital Speech Standard)/WMA (Windows Media Audio)
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Recording Media
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128MB integrated flash memory.
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Recording Time
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SHQ mode: 4 hours 20 minutes
HQ mode: 8 hours 45 minutes
SP mode: 20 hours 55 minutes
LP mode: 44 hours 45 minutes
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Sampling Frequency
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SHQ mode: 44.1 kHz
HQ mode: 44.1 kHz
SP mode: 12 kHz
LP mode: 8 kHz
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Overall Frequency Response
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SHQ mode: 300 to 8,000 Hz
HQ mode: 300 to 7,000 Hz
SP mode: 300 to 5,000 Hz
LP mode: 300 to 3,000 Hz
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Battery Life
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Voice Recording: Alkaline
Recording: Approx. 16 hours
Playback: Approx. 9 hours (based on our standard testing procedure)
Voice Recording: NiMH
Recording: Approx. 12 hours
Playback: Approx. 8 hours (based on our standard testing procedure)
Music Player: Alkaline (Approx. 10 hours)
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Size
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109.5 x 39.5 x 15 mm (without protrusions)
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Weight
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85g (including batteries)
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OS Supported
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Windows: Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 Professional, XP Professional, Home Edition
Mac: Mac OS 9.0/9.1/9.2/10.1/10.2
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The times listed in recording time are for the voice recorder, for the music player you can store up to 340 minutes of audio depending on the bit rate of each file. The higher the quality of the music the less recording time you will have. At the highest sampling rate you will end up with about 1 ½ hours of music. There is considerable battery life for any of the applications, be it music, voice or data. Not too shabby considering all that powers this goodie is two AAA batteries. It is small and light, about the size of two Zippo lighters placed end to end.
Installation/Operation
Even if you are running Windows 98, you should have no problem with installation of the software and operation of the unit. I installed it using XP and it went flawlessly. Once you insert the CD you will see this screen:
Just click on the language of your choice and you are presented with an option to install three programs - Olympus DSS Player, Windows Media Player 9 and Adobe Reader (to read the manual). I declined to install Media Player and Adobe having already had them installed. The installation of DSS Player took only seconds. When you fire up the program you are presented with the main menu screen:
From here you can view all the audio files that are in the recorder, which folders they are in, transfer files, etc. You can play the files if you wish, delete them or any other operation that you would normally perform with files.
The process to place files in the recorder is fairly simple. Place a CD into your PC, start Media Player (MP) and copy the tracks you want. Once you have the songs copied to your PC, use the MP file menu and copy to device (you can select which folder you want to place them in also). After you have copied the tracks, start DSS again and you should have them listed. You can change the order at this time too. Below is a screenshot of DSS after I copied a track to it:
There are various options one can use to enhance the experience such as WOW effects. There is also an equalizer, though it is limited.
On the voice side, you can use the microphone built into the recorder itself, the remote unit microphone or another external microphone. If you choose to use a stereo microphone then you have the option to record in SHQ mode for the highest quality. The recording in voice mode can be accomplished in one of two methods. You can choose to manually press the record and stop buttons or you can use the built in Variable Control Voice Actuator (VCVA). You simply turn it on via the menu button and the recorder becomes a voice activated device. When the threshold limit is reached the records starts, when it falls below the limit it stops, simple as that. This saves battery life and eliminates "dead air". You can also choose the microphone sensitivity by adjusting between conference and dictation modes. Conference is the high sensitivity mode suitable for, you guessed it, conference settings within large rooms; whereas dictation would be used for taking mental notes : and 2 person meetings. Once you are done recording, to listen to the message press the rewind button and then press play. An additional setting is noise cancel, to eliminate excess noise produced during a recording.
As far as the data storage component, it can't be any simpler. Plug the device into your USB port, it is detected as an external device and shows up as another HDD. Double click the icon, open the desired folder location (there are 5 to choose from) and then it's drag and drop time. Using an USB 1.1 connection it took 4 minutes to copy a 58MB zip file. To remove the files later just delete as usual.
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