Technologies used by 1st Class Secretarial Services

Digital recording equipment
We would always recommend that interviews are transcribed on a digital recorder. These are no longer the expensive pieces of equipment that they used to be and something like the Olympus VN-3500PC Digital Voice Recorder will meet your requirements for one-to-one interviews.

For focus groups, add a multi-directional microphone to make sure you pick up all your speakers.

Some points to consider when buying a digital Dictaphone:

• Make sure that it has a USB connection so you can download the sound file to your PC
• Has it enough internal memory? – You don’t want it to stop recording half way through a long interview because the memory is full!
• If you are doing telephone interviews there is specialist equipment available to make sure that both interviewer and interviewee are recorded
• What file formats does it save in? - Although we can transcribe from any file format, MP3 and WMA are the most compact generic file formats and saving files in these formats makes for an easy and quick transfer of files to our secure client area

We do accept other audio formats, such as audio cassettes and video. We do not transcribe direct from these media but will transfer them to a digital file format for transcription. There is an administrative charge for this service so it can be financially beneficial to invest in a digital recorder before you start your interviews.

1st Class would recommend Speak IT as a provider of digital dictation equipment. Having been a loyal customer for nearly 10 years we have recommended them to many clients and transcriptionists. We have received nothing but positive feedback on their customer service and if you give them full details of the style of interviews you will be undertaking they will advise you on the best equipment for the purpose.