My secretary has ExpressScribe 5.13 running on Windows 7 Professional. I use the SpeakWrite app on my Motorola Droid-X smartphone running Android 2.2 (Froyo) to dictate when I'm on the go. SpeakWrite records audio in 3GP format. MediaInfo (http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en) identifies the files that SpeakWrite creates as:
Container: MPEG-4 (3GPP Media Release 4)
1 audio stream: AMR
1st audio stream: 12.8 Kbps, 8 000 Hz, 13 bits, 1 channel, AMR (Narrow band)
The ExpressScribe webpage (http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/index.html) states that it can handle 3GP files. However, my secretary cannot play them IN EXPRESSSCRIBE. However, she can play them just fine in Windows Media Player 12 and VLC (Video Lan Client) 1.1.7. When she tries to play 3Gp files in ExpressScribe, she gets an error:
Video frame index generation failed.
Couldn't open video file.
I appreciate that 3GP can contain video, but video content is not required (nor is audio required) to make a valid 3GP file. As long as you have video or audio, that's enough. I can't change the fact that SpeakWrite was written to use the 3GP container for audio. Although there are several good dictation apps available for iPhone, SpeakWrite is the only one for Android that I've found which isn't 100% poo. It's not great, but it works well enough.
I know that she can convert on her workstation from 3GP to another format for her to transcribe. That's a work-around, but not a solution.
Why isn't ExpressScribe playing these files? Is it confused by the lack of video content? If so, that's a bug, as far as I'm concerned. Is the bit rate or sampling rate too low for ExpressScribe?
What's the solution?