October 12, 2006
Don't get a Panasonic digital audio recorder
Not that you were going to, anyway, but I just want to go on the record saying that you shouldn't buy a Panasonic digital audio recorder. Not because of the device itself, which seems fine, but because of the software it requires. I borrowed a Panasonic RR-US360 last night to record an interview and when I got home I went to Panasonic's website to download a driver so I could copy the recording to my computer. They don't have one. You have to have your original CD. I finally found a copy from driverguide.com, which made me wade through a couple dozen ads before I was finally able to download the driver and transfer software.
Why on earth wouldn't Panasonic provide this software? It's not like it's some awesome audio editor or something -- it's a clunky and badly written get-my-files-off-this-device transfer program. And digital audio recorders are something that are used by people who are on the road a lot and might end up in a colleague's office or something and need to download files from their DAR. So, boo to Panasonic, I say.
Posted by Fuzzy at October 12, 2006 1:26 PM
Comments
Actually, there are a few audio recorders that are like that. Olympic doesn`t archive many of their drivers. After my criver got corrupted, I had to get my original CD shipped to me, in order to pull files off of my olympus voice recorder. It was the same issue you were dealing with. Lame, get-your-files-off-the-recorder program, but for some reason, only available on the original CD.
Posted by: dan at October 12, 2006 9:33 PM