The meltdown in flash memory card prices continues. This is good news
for field recordists using digital recording gear.
Today, the cost of a standard 1GB flash memory card is a little less
than $20 (all prices USD, taxes and shipping extra). That's impressive
when you recall that a 1GB card cost $700 when introduced in 2002, and
$350 in 2004.
That ratio of 1GB for $20 holds true in larger sizes too: A 2GB
Compactflash or Secure Digital card costs about $40, and a 4GB card
costs about $80.
At about $130, the new 8GB Compactflash cards offer an even better
ratio of price to capacity.
Manufacturers selling at these prices include Transcend, RiTek, A-Data
and PQI. More heavily advertised names like Sandisk, Lexar and
Kingston often cost a few dollars more. Most offer lifetime
guarantees on their products.
The 512MB Compactflash cards have become a nuisance to retailers, and
are regularly offered for as little as $5 to $8 after a mail-in rebate. =
Flash cards that cost more than these amounts usually are rated for
higher data transfer speeds. A standard flash card speed is rated
around 40X, where X =3D 150,000 bits per second. Faster cards carry
ratings of 80X to 133X.
The higher rates of data reading and writing are not necessary for
audio recording under most circumstances. A 40X card is capable of
writing data at a rate of (40 x 150,000) =3D 6 million bits per second.
If you're recording stereo with a quantization rate of 24/96, the
data stream is 4.6 million bits per second. That's within the range
that the 40X card is designed to handle.
So there's no need to purchase the fast flash cards, often labeled
"Ultra," "Extreme," or "Pro," for audio recording. (You may wish to
use the faster flash cards for digital photography, where the higher
card speed decreases the time you must wait between exposures.)
You'll want a flash card bigger than 1GB when recording at high data
rates or for longer time periods.
2 channels @ 16/44.1 =3D ~1.5 hours of tracks on a 1GB card
2 channels @ 24/48 =3D ~1 hour per 1GB card
2 channels @ 24/96 =3D ~30 minutes per 1GB card
When shopping for flash memory, I usually check online retailers like
www.newegg.com, www.mwave.com, www.zipzoomfly.com and www.buy.com.
I also look to www.dealram.com for current flash memory prices.
A good source for today's bargain pricing is www.eDealinfo.com
Look in the "Categorized" section under "Electronics - Digital Memory"
--oryoki
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