Using a Joystick to control Audio Files?

Anthony_McAuley

Ok guys and gals, here's the deal.

The company I work for recently purchased a couple of MP3 player / recorders and a piece of software called MemoScriber, which includes a pedal controller for play/pause and shuttle search, in order to allow the secretary to replay recorded memos and type them up (both products from Sanyo). Unfortunatly, the MP3 players they bought are incompatable with the MemoScriber software :shakehead (it does not recognise the format of the audio files no matter what I try to do to them!!) and I have been charged with finding an alternative.

I found a suitable replacement from the website http://www.playatrax.com/ This is shareware and I have tested it and found it to be pretty good.

However, the client has now asked me to find a "Boxed Copy" software to do the same thing that they could either order from an online store (amazon for example) or from a shop (like PC World) . I have run several searches and found no other commercial software that fulfils their requirements.

I just thought I'd throw the question here for a few days before I tell the customer that Playa!Trax is their only available solution!!

BlackHawk

I really don't understand what the hell that MemoScriber does, but googling shows that it's mostly used in the medical field and courts. You could try searching there.

-Edit-
IMHO you're better off showing that there's no difference between a boxed program and a downloaded one except for the actual box. If they want a box so much, download the program, burn it on to a cd and make a box out of cardboardbox and put the logo of the program in magic marker

Anthony_McAuley

Here's what they have bought, except the MP3 recorder was the updated ICR-B170 (can't find that on their website

http://www.sanyo.com/business/dictation/digital/index.cfm?productID=417

BlackHawk

OK. What I don't seem to understand, is MemoScriber a program used or the actual recorder? If it's the program, what does it actually do? Convert voice to text?

TheBaron

and what format does it put these files in

Anthony_McAuley

The MP3 recorder is basically an MP3 Dictaphone, which saves audio in MP3 format. This can then be downloaded to the PC via USB and emailed / copier to a server and played in the normal way. The memoscriber was designed to act as an interface between the PC and the MP3 recorder (or email / server space) and allows the files to be stored and played back like normal, but it also runs the foot pedal that comes with the software. The pedal has 3 buttons for rewind, fast foward and play / pause. The problem I get is that no mater what I try the Memoscriber software does not accept files from the MP3 recorder or from the local machine (downloaded previously from the MP3 recorder). The error message was constantly "File Format not supported", so I tried software to convert the MP3 files to wav, cda, and several other different types but without success. When I spoke to sanyo they told me that the MP3 recorder was unsupported by the memoscriber software.

I notice, in the course of events, that Windows had also detected the foot pedal as a "6 button gamepad", and when calibrating the device the 3 buttons corresponded to buttons 1, 2 and 3. This is when I started trying to find software that would either allow me to control Windows Media Player with a gamepad, of for any Audio Playback software that could be controlled by playback (this is when Playa!Trax entered the scene.)

In short, memoscriber allows the user to control the speed of audio playback, but only for files that are imported into the program.

I hope this helps.

BlackHawk

Try looking here.

Xwire

Hello, I represent SlimSlam Solutions and our product Playa!TraX. We have sold other copies of Playa!TraX for transcription/dictation purposes because although Playa!TraX was originally developed for the computer gaming industry it is also perfectly suited for transcription/dictation and is much more feature rich than other solutions for that purpose. It can be controlled by virtually anything that can be plugged into your computer (providing the device is hid compliant and nearly all devices are) and this includes devices from foot pedals to space orbs. Playa!TraX also can handle virtually any media format that there is a direct show filter for, and once again there are direct show filters for virtually all media formats. As far as being available in a boxed format, at one time we did consider this. A boxed format of Playa!TraX would triple the cost but at $14.95 * 3 it would still be a reasonable price. The primary reason we do not offer a boxed version is because Playa!TraX is updated so frequently( about once every 1-3 months ) so even if you did get a boxed version chances are you would be updating it right away anyways, and Playa!TraX updates are full replacements not patches because the file size is relatively small ( I might also mention that our next pending release has a built in auto updater). I hope this helps to clarify some things and if you have any questions feel free to drop us an email.

Anthony_McAuley

Thanks Black Hawk, I think thats the answer.

Xwire, Thanks for the info, there was no problems with the Playa!TraX software , just a fussy customer who wanted a box version for the future (if we have to rebuild their PC for example!!) It's their money I guess!