Posted by: "Derek Holzer"
> There are PCI interfaces for
> desktops and Cardbus interfaces for laptops (although maybe the cardbus
> interface is getting phased out),
What has happened is that the card slots are being phased over to a new
slot standard. Unfortunately it already has two different card sizes (at
the plug end). My new MacBook Pro has the ExpressCard 34 version, the
other version is the ExpressCard 54. The numbers tell the card width in
mm. The 34 can fit in either type of slot, while the 54 is limited to
it's own slot. The actual connector in the slot is the same for both so
I expect in time adapters for the 54's will become available. The 54's
are intended for desktop computers, the 34's for laptops as I understand
it. These cards are a lot faster than the PCMCIA cards, as I understand
it they are based on serial connection (USB2.0) rather than parallel
(PCI) as in the older cards.
The bad news is that your old cards won't work in these slots even
though they are sometimes referred to as PCMCIA slots. (It's a PCMCIA
standard for both types) There are very few adapters to the new format
from the old, and I don't know anything about how well they work. I have
two of the new ExpressCard 34's, one for SD memory cards and one for CF
memory cards. Both work, and work fast with the ExtremeIII cards I have.
There are quite a few types of the new cards available.
Here's a link for general info on these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard
Also I don't know if it's out yet but Core Sound is developing the 4Mic,
which will put 4 channels of digital sound onto two high sampling rate
channels. Might be a alternative for those with high sampling rate
recorders.
It will have 4 high-quality, high-gain preamps, a built-in A/D
converter, and software that takes a 4-track input and turns it into a
multiplexed two-track file that goes into the digital input of a
conventional digital 2-track recorder. Then there's computer software
that unwinds the file back into four audio files. If you come in with
four tracks at 48 kHz, 24-bit, it will wrap them together to create two
tracks at 96 kHz, 24-bit. Or I think that's the way it works.
Walt
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