picture: PocketREC screenshots

The PocketREC user interface has been optimized to the needs and requirements of professional field journalists and reporters. All important recording controls can be accessed by the touch of your finger - no need to use the PDA stylus while you have a microphone in you other hand. You can start and stop the recording, set markers, start and stop an immediate playback, adjust the recording and playback volumes, control functions like microphone AGC and monitoring, etc.

During the recording and playback the graphical waveform display helps you to optimize the recording quality by getting a constant audio level. Beside the quality assurance, it is an optical orientation that assists you to find certain points and sections of the recording in the later steps of editing. In addition, markers can be placed directly within the waveform as you record. Each new recording gets a new waveform color to help orienting amongst all recordings.

The PocketREC microphone cable sets for iPAQs (type A and B) allows you to simultaneously attach a microphone and headphone. You can use this either for a higher quality playback than with the PocketPC integrated speaker, or for realtime monitoring of the recorded signal. This represents a powerful tool for quality assurance in loud environments.

PocketREC is able to record either via the internal or an external professional microphone with up to 48kHz, 16bit mono with all (PocketREC Certified PocketPC) devices without any further hardware expansion necessary. Of course, the recording quality can be configured (11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 32, 44.1 or 48 kHz, either 8bit or 16bit mono). S/N ratio depends on which PocketPC model PocketREC is used with. A direct DSP low level control for PocketREC certified HP iPAQs enables a maximized audio performance and quality on these devices. For recording with higher sampling rates or stereo, PocketREC can record up to 96 kHz, 24 bit stereo by using external audio cards, e.g. the PDAudio Compact Flash card for S/PDIF input.

Append a new recording to an existing one at anytime you want e.g. to have all interviews about a certain topic merged into one audio clip. Automatic color coding of the waveform for each recording section helps to orient in the later processing of the audio material.

Basic playback functions have been integrated to the recording module to a fast review of the recorded audio and correction of marker positions. For more sophisticated audio editing , you can switch to PocketCUT by a single click.

Most important metadata information like title and comment can be entered at any time during the recording. You can also label the markers that you have set.