Just as with every other form of electronic communication, the world of dictation and transcription is going digital.

It has several advantages over the old method of using tapes for dictation.

One that your transcriptionists are sure to appreciate is how much easier it to clean up noise.  In just a minute or two, a noisy and hard to transcribe recording can be cleaned up and be relatively easy transcribe.  If you’re using tapes, the process is unwieldy and cumbersome.

Another consideration is backup and archival.  If you need to go back and get the original recording off a tape, it can take some time to locate it and find it.

On the other hand, a 1TB hard drive (costs about $100) can store nearly 25,000 hours of audio.

Computer Software

There are a few software suites on the market so you can do all your dictation on the computer and then immediately send it to your transcriptionist whether she be down the hall or across the country (and recordings can be encrypted).

Also, you no longer have to wait for your tape to be full – just do your dictating and send it off to be transcribed as soon as your done.

There are two very good software suites worth considering – Quikscribe and Winscribe.

Best Brands

If you’d rather stick to standalone units (many still do), you’ll find the top brands in digital dictation are Dictaphone, Philips, and Sony.

Recommendations

If you need the best of the best, Dictaphone is the head of the class and the 0421 C-phone is an amazing piece of equipment.  It’s not cheap, but I’ve never head anyone complain about them.  If buying new isn’t quite in the budget, just head on over to eBay, you can pick up a used model at an excellent discount.

Two others worth considering are the Philips Desktop 9750 and the Sony M2020A.

Have anything you’d like or anything you feel I left out in the world of digital dictation equipment… let me hear it by posting in the comments below.