PC help: Recording lectures

Q I want to be able to record lectures at university in a form I can use on my PC, but don’t want to have to take a notebook computer with me. Ideally, the gadget should be small enough to fit into my pocket or bag and have an excellent pick-up range.
Geraldine Downing

A Many MP3 players have a built-in microphones that may be good enough to record a lecture, so you may have the correct equipment. Windows should detect the MP3 player as an external hard disk when it is plugged in, regardless of the software used to transfer music. It should then be possible to drag and drop the recording into a different folder.

The MP3 player may be able to record at different quality settings and it is best to choose the highest possible quality. This brings us to the other important thing to check – that there is enough memory left free on the player to complete the recording. Don’t cram the player as full as possible before recording. As even a 512MB player will have enough space for hours of recording, so it may be a good idea to buy a separate player just for this purpose.

A few MP3 players also have a line-in jack socket that a microphone can be plugged into if the built-in mic is not good enough. An example of this is the MSI Digiplayer 600, which has both a mic and a line-in socket, and costs £35 for the 1GB version. It connects to a computer with USB, so it is simple to copy the recordings to a computer.

For the best possible recording, sit as close to the front as possible and make sure that the mic is pointing at the speaker. If you are able to choose a mic, make sure it is labelled as unidirectional or shotgun to avoid picking up sounds other than the speaker. One example is the Stereo/Mono Condenser Microphone from Maplin – which at the time of writing was available for £20.

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