Take it from someone who knows, attending press conferences can sometimes be a bit of crush. Imagine the disappointment of finding enough room to finally sit down and type up some notes from a handheld audio recorder, only to find that the words are muffled behind sounds of rustling clothes or are not loud enough to register on the device. Olympus says that its pocket-friendly VP-10 audio recorder makes both issues a thing of the past.
In addition to the VP10's built-in noise-cancellation algorithm, users can also call upon something Olympus is calling Anti-Rustle technology. This filter is reported capable of identifying the difference between a voice and those annoying brushing sounds you get when a hidden microphone rubs against clothing during an interview, and cuts out the rustling to leave a clear, high quality voice recording.
There's also a Voice Balancer function to help bring quiet speakers to the fore in a multiple speaker situation, while also lowering the volume of shouty types. One touch recording reduces the likelihood of missing the start of an important interview, firing up the portable audio recorder even when the power has been turned off, and a handy transcription mode has been included which helps those taking notes from recordings by stop/starting the device. This function automatically plays back the last 3 seconds when playback is resumed to check over what's been captured.
The 5 x 0.67 x 0.67 in (12.7 x 1.7 x 1.7), 1.32 ox (37 g) VP-10 comes with 4 GB of internal memory, which is said to be enough for 1,620 hours of audio recording before needing to dump files on a computer. When a user is ready to offload digital recordings, there's no need to worry about forgetting to include the right cable in the travel bag as the VP-10 sports its own full-size USB plug, which is used to charge the portable recorder's AAA-sized Ni-MH battery, too.
Olympus has included four recording scenes for audio capture tweaked to match a recording environment. The pocket mode, for example is geared towards recording a wide range of voices when the compact, pen-like device is placed in a shirt or jacket breast pocket.
The device records to PCM, WMA or MP3 file formats and its omni-directional stereo microphones have an overall frequency range of between 50 Hz and 17 kHz. For private monitoring or playback, there's an earphone jack at the top, or for more of a public airing there's a 90 mW dynamic speaker.
The Olympus VP-10 is due for release at the end of next month for an estimated street price of US$99.99.
Have a look at the promo video below for an overview of the main feature set.
Product page: VP-10 pocket recorder