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MP3 Recorders?

Posted by Cliff on from the look-ma!-no-tapes dept.

ilbrec asks: "A friend of mine is a field biologist who studies frog calls. Recently when I was talking with him, he was interested in a MP3 recorder for his research use so that he can record the frog calls and analyze the sound on his computer later on. No, he does not care for DAT at all. He has one himself that he has so much trouble with. He is looking for a small device that takes at least 64 MB or so of solid-state removable memory that is easy to use. Sound recording quality does not have to be great, as frog calls can easily be analyzed at 96 kbps, according to him. No, he does not care for DAT at all. Does anybody know a good one?" Well, we have embedded devices that can playback MP3s...why not ones that can record live audio and use CompactFlash (or Smartmedia) cards, instead of the old cassette?

3 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Why MP3? by yabHuj · · Score: 3

    Why does he want to have an MP3 gadget to record the sounds? I'd recommend a plain old music cassette recorder ("Walkman"-type, e.g. http://www.prodcat.panasonic.com/shop/product.asp? sku=RQ-L30&CategoryID=223). You have 45 or 60 minutes recording for each side, media is EXTREMELY cheap (compared to any digital portable). Plus the recorder itself is cheap enough (~ $40) to be replaced easily in case is is dropped accidentally into the swamp. Some of these things even have voice-activated recording, so you can set it near the frogs, go away and just wait. Transfer to PC is done with any cheap soundcard.

  2. It's the conspiracy by dubl-u · · Score: 3

    A recent Slashdot article pointed to a long essay by John Gilmore, originally found on cryptome.org where, among other things, he basically claims that MP3 players don't record because their manufacturers are afraid that they'll get the pants sued off them.

    It seems plausible, but does anybody have facts to back it up?

  3. MP3 recorders will never exist by Socializing+Agent · · Score: 3

    Look at this excellent rant for why mp3 recorders will never exist. Minidisc is your best bet. You can get up to 149 minutes of monaural on a single minidisc, and the results will be very high quality. I personally used a minidisc for ornithology research back at Uni, with great success.