powerseed

iMac G5, OS 10.4.7 Olympus DM-20 DSS Player 6.0.4 -------------------- Mac users: Be advised that the current version of the Olympus DSS Player software is extremely buggy, unreliable and poorly documented. It is clearly deceptive marketing for Olympus to tout "MAC COMPATIBILITY" given the crude state of this software. My current frustration is with the music player side of the Olympus DM-20 recorder/player. Olympus has an extended section in their doc describing how to upload music/etc files to the Recorder using the Win version of WMP which recognizes the recorder as a removable disc and allows drag and drop transfers. There is no doc on uploading to Macs other than the enigmatic statement "Please use your favorite application software according to your use". The WMP for Mac has none of the above capabilities and appears to be a just a player. I see no way to use it to upload files to the Mac. I wanted to upload mp3 files of Italian language lessons but the DSS Player software will not recognize MP3 files created in iTunes or Audacity (they are grayed out). When I have been able to trick it into uploading one of these files, it loads about 30% then chokes and freezes and even Force Quit won't shut down the DSS Player...necessitating a hard button hold shut down. The Olympus tech person said these MP3 file types have proprietary header coding that prevents the dss player from accessing the file. I thought an MP3 was an MP3. Any work-arounds out there?

iMac G5, OS 10.4.7 Olympus DM-20 DSS Player 6.0.4 Mac users: Be advised that the current version of the Olympus DSS Player software is extremely buggy, unreliable and poorly documented. So much for Olympus touting the "Mac Compatibility" of their software--very unprofessional! Assuming you have been able to follow the vendor's tortuous DSS software upgrade path to v. 6.0.4, here are some tips that may be of assistance: Re error message "Can't load DSS Player" the bug is that the program can't allocate memory to load! The work around suggested by escalated Olympus tech staff (who blamed the problem on Apple) was to first open GarageBand and then quit the program. This apparently allocates memory that DSS Player can access. Now start DSS Player and it does open...for me at least;-) For those who must transcribe dss file content to a Mac using Express Scribe, you might try to convert your dss files to aif's and then to mp3's. It's a bit convoluted but it might work for you (and faster than having to capture an audio stream as in Hijack or Audacity). Be advised that I am a novice at this stuff so there may be a much better way, in which case, I'm all ears:) My DSS Player MP3 Conversion Procedures: Download AIF files Set DSS Player prefs to auto download and create both dss and aif files when the recorder is placed in its USB cradle. Go to DSS player folder in your computer downloads folder; sequentially open the DM-20's folders containing files, and... Sort by type to group the dss and aif files Create new folder; select and move all aif files into it Convert to MP3 Open iTunes with refs set to not save an aif copy to music folder (but will save the mp3 version) With OPTION key held, under Advanced on menu bar select "Convert to MP3"; then select aif folder from ensuing dialog; files will then be converted en masse and the mp3 versions will appear in the i-tunes music library. These can be pulled to the desktop for transcription (haven't tried this, but the Mac version of Scribe say it handles mp3's). To Burn MP3 disk Select converted MP3 files Make playlist Select "Burn mp3 disk; insert blank disk viola! My current frustration is with the music player side of the Olympus DM-20 recorder/player. Olympus has an extended section in their doc describing how to transfer music/etc files to the Recorder using the Win version of WMP which recognizes the recorder as a removable disc and allows drag and drop transfers. There is no doc on uploading to Macs other than the enigmatic statement "Please use your favorite application software according to your use". The WMP for Mac has none of the above capabilities and appears to be a just a player. I see no way to use it to upload files to the Mac. I wanted to upload mp3 files of Italian language lessons but the DSS Player software will not recognize iTunes or Audacity created MP3 files (grayed out). When I have been able to trick it into uploading one of these files, it loads about 30% then chokes and freezes and even Force Quit won't shut down the DSS Player...necessitating a hard button hold shut down. The Olympus tech person said these MP3 file types have proprietary header coding that prevents the dss player from accessing the file. I thought an MP3 was an MP3. Any work-arounds out there?