MP3 player and ACT files
08 Nov 2004Speaking more regarding my MP3 player/voice recorder/toy in general.
Update: The software listed here doesn’t appear to be working for newer hardware. There is updated software available in a more recent post, here.
I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to do a direct digital transfer of voice recordings made on my little MP3 player thing. Turns out it is. This applies not only to my Pavo PM-505, but also to BenQ’s Joybee range (obviously only those capable of voice recording), and any other player which saves files with an .act extension. The utility I’ve found also handles .rcd and .rec files, however I’m uncertain as to what players save files with these extensions by default… I know I could set mine up to save with different extensions if I fiddled with configuration files, but I haven’t, as I see no point in this.
As you may have imagined, I’ve come across some software which is capable of converting these formats into something rather less obscure, namely WAV or MP3 file formats. The software, named “Sound Convert Tool 2.0″, is available freely for Windows systems from a Geocities website, at http://www.geocities.com/sound_converter/. In the interests of longevity, and given the ability of Geocities to come and go faster than Cities and Thrones and Powers according to Rudyard Kipling, I’ve mirrored the application here. (418.4 KB ZIP archive)
If you’re the rights holder to this application, and would prefer this utility wasn’t hosted here, I’d request you contact me and I’ll take it down. There is a notable absence of any and all attribution on the Geocities page, so not only did I have no-one to contact, I also don’t even know for sure that the Geocities page was the original place this software was published. Dubious ground, and if you know any better, please, get in touch to clear things up.
The readme is fairly self explanatory, and it converted a recording slightly over an hour long (one hour and three minutes twenty-five seconds, to be exact) to MP3 format (which involves converting to WAV, then encoding an MP3) in probably around five minutes… I wasn’t clocking it, though. Tis nifty.
Other manufacturers who may have branded this equipment: JP’s, JNC, Acer, BenQ, Pavo, iRiver, EFX, .BXCUTE, Digital, DX, Speed, Datum and probably others. Yes, that was blatant Search Engine suckery, but there’s a distinct lack of clear information out there regarding this conversion, and these MP3 recorder type things are popping up everywhere. If your player/recorder isn’t there, and records ACT, REC or RCD files, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.