laptop & components to record live lectures

Computer klutz? In what sense of the term?

pencil + paper

your daughter needs to learn how to take notes efficiently. honestly, recording a lecture is probably the worst thing you can do.

I dont agree with that.

I think recording and taking notes is very efficient. Once you are looking over your notes, if you feel you might have missed something in a certain area, you can just listen to your recording and thats it.

Also, I believe it is more like:

Notebook (laptop) + Recorder (if needed, but if you type fast, the notebook is fine)

Good idea, but i think alot of the professors dont like their lectures getting recorded. Maybe a small audio recorder is the way to go, or u can hook up a decent mic to ur lappy if it picks up the lecture instead of noise from the background.

Huh? I record lectures at work and it is no easy job. Camera and microphones are not even near the ability of human eye and ear to make sense of things. And what a laptop does have to do with lecture recording?

Btw, if you record 8 hours of lectures on hard disk in DV format, it takes up about 104 GB of hard disk space.

I was wondering about the same thing w/ the laptop. Doesn't really fit into the equation. Wish I had $4000 to spend on a recording device. Hot dang.

Take Maxvla's advice w/ the pen & paper and augment it w/ an MD player w/ mic or a small digital recording device that can be had for ~$50 or so. Pen & paper for the gist of it and the recorder for going back and double-checking.

MD player. That device has been the joy and pain in my life. I've bought a netMD about 2 years ago as a music device but soon after i got an iPod. Without question, the ipod clearly dominates over the NetMD as the better music device so i never touched MD again until recently that i read that there are High-capacity minidisc that can store up to 1 gig of info in 1 disc. But guess what, NetMD isn't capable of using Hi-MD!!!

Anyways, MD is probably a good device, although i dont know how well thhe sound quality will be .

A laptop is not such a great choice for this purpose. Better would be a voice recorder, or minidisc or dat recorder.
If you want the recordings to be in a computer format, how about an iRiver H140. It is a 40GB mp3 player like the ipod, but also has a built in mic and can record straight to mp3, giving 1500+ hours of recording time. You can transfer the files over to the laptop later.

Speaking as someone who just graduated with my masters from one of the most wired college campuses in the nation, pencil and paper is still the way to go. Backup audio notes wouldn't be a bad thing though.

That's not to say a laptop isn't a great thing to have at college--it is. To take it around a bookbag, think LIGHT. Bookbags are heavy enough already, an 8 lb laptop is no fun.

Look at the IBM Thinkpad X40, Dell 300M, Panasonic T2, Fujitsu P5020D, Sony TR3a, or Toshiba R100 for good ~3lb notebooks.

Another one to look at is the Toshiba Portege M200 series--it weighs a bit more (4.4lbs) but has the added benefit of being a "convertible" laptop--you can rearrange it to look flat like a pad of paper, and comes with a pen which you can write notes directly on the screen with.

http://shop.pcconnection.com/web/Sho...ookie%5Ftest=1

Hi

I use an Apple Ipod with a microphone line-in adapter (made by belkin) paired with my own lecture-style recording microphone. My Ipod holds 20gigs and thats over 7000 minutes worth of audio recording. I can play them back and listen to them with headphones on the ipod or transfer the files over to my computer for storage.

All of this works directly with the ipod interface, no additional software upgrades r needed.

He's right if you do decide to use such a set up make sure she get's the 'ok' from the professor first.

Cheap voice recorder

This is your daughter's first year at college? Is it a public or private school? These kinds of things will make a big difference in whether or not you will be able to record lectures; a lot of schools, public and private, are now doing "online courses" that offer video streams to people wanting to learn in domestic and even international locations. Of course, colleges can charge quite a lot for these types of advantages, and therefore administration might raise an eyebrow if they saw free copies of their lectures out on the web.

This being said, I would definitely check with your university, or better yet your daughter's professors before buying an expensive rig for video recording. And even if they do allow it, I would advise just getting a voice recorder instead of a video recorder, for three reasons: 1) much less storage space required 2) video is unnecessary in many lectures 3) cost will be much less to you.

Check out this amazing device I got a few months ago: Archos Gmini 220

http://www.archos.com/products/overv...bykjykkbykk2yc

Built-in voice recording, CF card reader, high-quality mp3 player, huge screen (2''), line-in options, 20 gig HD, super fast transfers (USB 2.0 I've gotten 10gb/min), way smaller footprint than Ipod (a little bit thicker).

All this to break the bank? Harmonycomputers.com --> about $270 after ship.

I know, seems like Ipod charges a heck of a lot for a scroll wheel nowadays. ;p Get a decked-out hypersonic / ibuypower with your extra cash. Good luck with it.


Aikeo

People speak like audio recording and video recording would be no problem. I don't know which kind of rooms and audio environments the classes take place, but I would presume that one would require a good long-range microphone, such as Sennheiser K6 and Sennheiser ME66 (a shot gun microphone). Don't you think so?

My recording experience shows a PZM like the cheap Radio Shack (discontinued) or a Boundary Effect mic work best for this type of recording. I have recorded many public meetings and interviews using one and for ease of setup and resulting audio clarity they can't be beat.

I've never heard of PZMs before. I browsed the web a bit and it seems that they are designed for omnidirectional use. Wouldn't you need to situate such a mic just in the front of the lecturer? May be it would capture noises of the audience (paper riffling and chair scratches), too?

I'd say that a normal mic (similar to AKG C-1000S) would be best in the following situations:
- lecturer uses a mic and speakers in an auditorium
- lecturer likes to move a lot

A shot gun mic would be best if:
- you are in the back seat and the lecturer doesn't move

A PZM would be best if:
- the lecture is held in a small room
- the lecture is interactive so that the lecturer and students talk a lot with each other

I was going to suggest the Belkin ipod attachment, except, doesn't it record directly to wav rather than mp3?

Tablet PCs are the bomb for recording live lectures...especially with Microsoft OneNote; you can even record audio...

as for the Toshiba Portege M200, does it come with a camera built-in to video record as well, or just audio?