wrote:
>
> Hi Everyone
> Well, there has been a lot of talk about the mini disk recorders, which I am
> enjoying. My question is, does anyone have an opinion or has anyone tried the
> digital PC card (type II PC card) recorders? Is there any advantage or
> disadvantage to this technology?
> Stan Tekiela
The biggest problem is that it's very expensive for the cards. The cards
are also quite vulnerable to the sorts of things they might encounter in
the field, like moisture, static electricity.
The cards also have a fairly limited life and cannot store the
information for long term. It does not matter when you run out for a
evening's recording from home, but doing it half way around the world?
Or for science where the permanence of the originals still is often demanded?
I'm holding judgement on solid state memory. If they ever sort out the
cost factor, it might be possible to deal with the other problems. Until
then it's a lot better to use a couple bucks worth of optical disk than
hundreds of bucks worth of memory chips. The optical disk technology has
a long track record of extreme reliability and durability that's going
to be hard to beat.
The other little clinker is that most of these devices are designed
around the mp3 craze and compress like mad. They also have mic pre's
that are virtually a afterthought and very poor. They are really line
input devices driven by the demand for the maximum amount of music in
the minimum memory. There are a few exceptions, mostly pro priced gear,
Marantz makes one, for instance. It will record uncompressed .wav files
as a secondary choice. Though solid state for uncompressed is really
expensive due to the memory requirements.
The other route you did not mention is using a even more delicate
medium, hard disks. This is the route pro music gear seems headed. But
those folks will hardly stick their nose out the door of their studio.
When they talk of field recording they mean in some other building than
their studio, complete with weather protection, trucks to haul the gear,
and AC power. And I don't think we would like what happens the first
time we drop the hard disk, or even bump it hard while it's running.
It's unclear what the future holds, but I'm expecting the optical disk
route to be around for quite a while. The disks themselves have all the
advantages, they are relatively cheap to make, are as tough as nails,
and hold the recording forever, or close to that.
The big worry is that nothing suitable for good field recording will
come out and in time what we have will no longer be made. It is a real
possibility. Nature recordists are a tiny market.
Walt
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|