I’ve been having some hassle with DS2 files on Express Scribe. Now I am a big fan of Express Scribe’s programme – it opens more file formats than any other so is very flexible.
But they’re clearly not listening to their customers. I’m not the only one experiencing problems their support forums are littered with unhappy people – the DS2 files open fine, but the audio cuts out some way into the audio and you get left with blank tape towards the end. Their technical team’s response is:
“ds2 files sometimes are reported to have partial decoding problem on Express Scribe though dss files should work fine. You may refer to the information at https://www.nch.com.au/scribe/kb/1769.html for alternate method for converting them and then use it.”
So basically they expect you to tell your clients to convert the files! That’s not acceptable to most VAs as the reason they are using our services is to make their lives easier, not get bogged down in technical data.
The work around is pretty simple – ExpressScribe can’t open DS2 files properly, so you need to convert it to a different format before loading it. But before you merrily download NCH’s Switch or another conversion programme, you need to make sure that it can open the DS2 file properly in order to convert it properly. There are very few of these – and we’ve seen a few have their support withdrawn…
UPDATE:
Talking to Olympus (who own the propitiatory DS2 format) their solution is to purchase their own ODMS R7 software for some £99+VAT. But I’ve found a good workaround which doesn’t leave you with “scrambled” audio:
