VITO Technology AudioNotes V1.0

VITO AudioNotes is a handy replacement for the audio notes application built into the Pocket PC/Windows Mobile operating system allowing you to make recordings of meetings and other conversations for later listening or archival purposes.

It allows recordings to be held on storage cards keeping main memory free.

It can be used to record telephone conversations on Windows Mobile Phone Edition devices, claim tested below.

Supports recording to mp3 and wav in three quality settings for each - low, middle, high (not really a surprise there)



Supplier: VITO Technology
Product: VITO AudioNotes V1.0
Cost: $19.95
Device Support: Windows Mobile Smartphone & Windows Mobile 5.0
Trial: Yes - 14 Days
Format: zip (492KB), exe (495KB) or cab (1.3MB) downloads

Thanks go to Konstantin @ VITO for the review copy







Installation

The package can be downloaded from the VITO website as a zip, exe or cab file (see above).

Installing to the device depends on the file downloaded but once on the device it installs as any other application. I installed to Storage Card as the footprint is about 1Mb (see screen shot).


Configuration

VTIO AudioNotes is simply configured using the menu softkey (see below). Options are: -

Screen Refresh
Turn Off Screen, options are Never, 10secs, 30secs, 1min, 2mins
Record To... , options are Main Memory, any storage cards such as CF or SD. Beware if you have unlocked the Extended ROM on your device as it shows up and seems to prevent recordings going to other storage cards even if selected. Not really an issue as most devices shouldn't have it visible to the main OS
Recording Format - MP3 or Wav in three quality settings for each
Language - English or Russian
About - Program details and Registration page (see below for registration screen)
Exit - exit program

Once these are set, you are not quite ready to go....

You need to visit the device's main Control Panel to check on the Automatic Gain Control for the Microphone - set it to on/enabled otherwsise recordings could be a little low in volume.






Using VITO AudioNotes

The first thing you will want to do is a test recording....

That's very simple - just hit the soft key for Record or tap it with the stylus - not difficult really is it! You can adjust the gain in the recording in real time with a bar below the recording levels showing current gain and by using the arrows at either end you can take gain up or down. Whilst recording, the soft key now says 'STOP'. Tap it and the recording stops! You should have something like the screenshot below, except I have changed the name of the recording to something meaningful. This is simply done by a tap and hold on the newly visibe recorded file and selecting Rename from the menu. Other options are Play, Location, Delete, Cancel.






The file once recorded is shown in the main window along with the size of the file and the date and time of recording, notice the date is in month, day, year format which may catch out some people looking at a collection of older recordings if they use the day, month, year format for dates on the device. A minor issue but it had me checking whether I had set the regional settings in Control Panel correctly. I hope this is rectified in later releases.

There are a number of ways of playing the recording. Firstly, as described above, a tap and hold on the file with the stylus brings up a menu and Play can be selected. Alternatively a double tap on the file with the stylus starts playback.

The context menu, available by executing a tap and hold on the file shown in the main window, gives options beyond Play - you can Rename, Relocate and Delete the file, as mentioned previously. So there are a number of ways of interacting with the file, which is what I like to see and shows the programming team have thought about the user interface.

Remember, audio recordings can seriously eat into your storage space. VITO should be praised for allowing recordings to be made direct to storage cards. That said, a 1m 30s mid quality mp3 file took 674KB, a 4m low quality mp3 took 1MB and a 2m 30s mid quality mp3 telephone conversation took 1.4MB. A half hour meeting at mid quality will be looking at nearly 20MB! Thank goodness for GB cards


Recording a Telephone Conversation

In VITO's details for the product the claim is made that you can record telephone conversations, like Sir Ian Blair of the Met Police!

This proved to be a bit hit and miss! I use an O2 XDA Exec and this can use either wired or bluetooth headsets or in built loudspeaker and microphone. If I used a headset, AudioNotes only recorded my part of the conversation, however, if I used the Exec on the desk as a handsfree telephone using in built mic and speaker, the conversation recorded fine!

I won't get into the arguments about recording a conversation with a third party without their consent but will tell you that AudioNotes does NOT issue a bleep every so often to alert the other party so is covert in operation. Budding 007s will be happy

The 'feature' needs to be experimented with on your particular device and with VITO offering a 14 day trial, I recommend you take advantage of it if this is important to you. Just remember the legal issues if you use it! I believe it is illegal to record a conversation without consent of the other party in the UK (and possibly other countries) so just be aware of that fact.




Value for Money?

The program installs as a 14 day trial version so you can try before you buy which is always a good thing from a developer. That said $19.95 is a lot of money for an application you will use occasionally but good value if you are a heavy user of recordings in either meetings or for personal reminders, directions etc. A mixed result here then. Expensive for occasional users but good value for regular users


Summary

For
Simple to use
2 Recording Formats, WAV & MP3 with three quality settings for each
Can record telephone conversations with some experimentation
Can record to cards (CF, SD) for longer recording times
14 day trial

Against
Recording Telephone conversations needs some experimentation
Expensive for occasional use
Can seriously eat into your storage space on longer recordings.





Conclusion

4WM Rating 80%