From: Aaron Ximm <>
>
>
>>Though I see little interest in actual field recording in what people
>>are talking about regarding it in this list. So, maybe sony understands
>>their customers.
>
>
> Depends on your type of recording ~ for me, maximizing storage,
> portability, battery life, and fidelity in a cheap consumer format are at
> the heart of the kind of recording I do: carrying gear for a month or
> more, often in places where recharging batteries is not an option, stealth
> is essential, etc.
>
> Also, for the kind of work I do, I tend to do large amounts of tranfering
> at a time and anything approaching even USB speeds would be a real boon...
>
> In these respects, this has the potential to dramatically improve my
> working conditions both in the field and in the studio...
>
> ...though I would be the first to admit I'm probably more than a standard
> deviation out on the curve...
With my emphasis on the recording front end, practicality, determining
the worth of equipment in actual field use, I often get the feeling I'm
much more than just a standard deviation out of the curve in, maybe a
different direction. The end of the input and field use for this new
recorder seems to be getting pretty little discussion, while the
transfer of already recorded material gets the lion's share. So you are
not as far out in this group as you think. The group is much more
indoor/studio recordists and much less nature recordists out in the
field than it was when founded.
If anything, the more I learn, and the more I concentrate on quality
recording, the less hours of recording I produce per year. In spite of
all the landmark (for me) things I managed this last year, my total
production ran just over a dozen MD's. Though some of that was that I
did almost no survey work. And was occupied a lot with non-nature
recording tasks.
To me the real point of this new development is in what it means about
the future of MD, not what the first round of machines are like. Sony
has put a lot of development money into this, they don't do that without
expecting to get it back. That means MD will be with us for some time
yet. And combine that with Fujitsu moving ahead with improving the 3.5"
MO disks and the MO disk format looks in less danger than it did a
couple years ago. Though hardly safe.
It also is, to a certain extent, a backing off from the solid state
memory chips Sony has been focusing on. I was fully expecting that their
replacement for MD would be a memory stick recorder. Sony tends to lead
and others follow, so the future may not be as cut and dried as it seemed.
Walt
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