A la recherche du temps perdu

December 22, 2008 5:49 AM

What's eating my recording space? Olympus voice recorder mystery.

I have an Olympus WS-311M recorder that I use for interviews. I remember quite clearly being able to record 15+ hours on it when I got it. Now it will only allow me a maximum of about 5 or 6 hours (I haven't changed the recording quality settings). Is this a known phenomenon? Is there anything I can do about this?

posted by NekulturnY to Technology (10 answers total)

From Olympus's support site, which I got to by googling for "Olympus WS-311M":

How much recording time is available in the WS-311M?

Stereo XQ mode: approx. 8 hours 50 minutes
Stereo HQ mode: approx.17 hours 40 minutes
Stereo SP mode: approx. 35 hours 25 minutes
HQ mode: approx. 35 hours 25 minutes
SP mode: approx. 29 hours 40 minutes
LP mode: approx. 138 hours 40 minutes

Are you sure you aren't in Stereo XQ mode, and not Stereo HQ mode?
posted by gregvr at 6:00 AM on December 22, 2008

Response by poster: it says ST HQ...

seems I'm right about the original recording time at least
posted by NekulturnY at 6:01 AM on December 22, 2008

Best answer: Weird!

Okay, here's my other idea-- Do you hook it up to a computer?
posted by gregvr at 6:03 AM on December 22, 2008

Best answer: What I'm thinking is that there are some files that the PC left behind when you connected it.

OR just something weird happened.

What you could try is to reformat the device.

Go to the menu, choose "Sub Menu", then "Format", then "Start"

(obviously, this will erase everything, but you might get your capacity back!)
posted by gregvr at 6:06 AM on December 22, 2008

Response by poster: [x] you nailed it

When hooking it up to my PC, a folder named "Trashes" appeared, filled to the brim with old interviews. Emptying this folder brought back my recording capacity to 16 hours. Thanks, AskMe (and gregvr, obviously).
posted by NekulturnY at 6:11 AM on December 22, 2008

"Trashes" will come back next time you hook the thing up to a Mac, and it will start filling up as you delete things.

Macs are not keen on irrevocable deletion.
posted by flabdablet at 6:28 AM on December 22, 2008

Just make sure you empty the trash while the device is plugged in, and that should kill all those "deleted" files. No need to reformat each time.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 6:52 AM on December 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

On the PC, if you select the files, hold down Shift, right-click and select "Delete", it'll prompt you, and then delete them permanently.
posted by Class Goat at 10:54 AM on December 22, 2008

I use this technique a lot, and only very occasionally swear at myself for irrevocably deleting something I shouldn't have done. Gnome has a similar feature. I wish Macs had this somewhere I could find it.
posted by flabdablet at 1:47 AM on December 23, 2008

Hey, this is happening to me with my Olympus recorder/Mac combination, too. Thanks for solving the mystery!
posted by toomuchkatherine at 10:03 AM on December 23, 2008