Olympus VN-480PC

Overview
The Olympus VN-480PC is a hand-held digital audio recorder with a USB interface for offloading the recordings it makes.

Models
The 480PC is one of several different models sold by Olympus, generally increasing in storage capacity with each new model. The "PC" suffix indicates the presence of the USB port; most models also have a non-"PC" version available at lower cost. Models include:
 * VN-120PC Digital Voice Recorder
 * VN-240PC Digital Voice Recorder
 * VN-480PC
 * VN-960PC
 * VN-2100PC
 * VN-3100PC

Linux
Unfortunately, the device comes only with drivers for Microsoft Windows, and does not appear to use a standard data-transfer protocol. lsusb identifies the device as "Olympus Optical Co., Ltd Digital Voice Recorder VN-240PC" (although the 240PC is actually an earlier, smaller-capacity model).

The ODVR project support this device (http://code.google.com/p/odvr/).

The Windows software seems to install properly under WINE (although there is an error dialog saying that an .inf file couldn't be run), and the icon of the device detector appears in the KDE task tray, but it does not appear to be able to detect the device. This may be an issue related to USB support in WINE, or possibly the .inf file error.

Links

 * Product Support from Olympus
 * 2005-12-30 [music-dsp Olympus voice recorder - mystery codec]: summary of issues encountered by someone trying to decode the protocol. The linked page with more technical info on it is gone from the original URL, but there is a copy on archive.org