King Ghidora

There was nothing "exaggerated" in my post. I happen to be a bona fide expert on WWII and the Japanese culture that led up to that war. Japan is a nation still stuck in the past in some certain circles. And when I see them even remotely assume the role that propelled them to their heinous actions I feel obligated to point it out. They certainly do so in regards to everything about our western culture. You can say it was just a publicity stunt if you like but the whole idea of anyone's culture sinking to that level scares me. We aren't that far removed from a time when barbaric excess was the norm. Of course your own country was ground zero for a part of that excess but apparently you think that's a distant memory. The new totalatarian movement of Europe scares me worse than Hitler did. But fortunately much of Europe has awoken from their insane slumber. France and Germany both have elected people who oppose PC thinking. Much of your own culture has moved to the island possessions because you can't live with the Muslims you embraced with open arms. Sounds like a great place to live. If you don't want such things discussed on this board that's fine. I'll go find a board that isn't afraid of the truth. But I'll put my knowledge of historical Japanese culture up against anyone you can find. My comments were NOT exaggerated. If anything I left out the gory details If you insist on defining how every subject should be discussed I think I'll just move on to where political correctness doesn't resemble censorship so much. I've been helped a great deal on this board and I've spent a lot of time helping others but I'll not have some blowhard moderator tell me what's exaggerated when that moderator is completely out of his league concerning this issue. I was a history major in college sir and I spent a great deal of time studying WWII. It would be almost impossible to exaggerate what happened at Nanking and Bataan. And who are you to decide what's relevant discussion matter anyway? Just another moderator masquerading as the PC Napoleon is my guess. How dare you assume you can reject anyone's thinking when you yourself are so obviously dreadfully uninformed. Since you think you can off hand declare my post irrelevant to the conversation how about you describe what happened at Nanking so we all know you have the foundation to make such a declartion. I'd die of shock if you could even give a basic description of what happened there without looking it up first. Censorship and insults from the moderators is positive proof that it's time to abandone this little cracker box of a web site. You could have asked politely but instead you attempted to glorify your own opinion as far more important that that of anyone else. Political correctness ruined your country. Now you want to export it? How do you like living in a country where the crime rate is probably the highest in Europe because of your heroin addict problems and the Islamic contingent murders anyone who disagrees with them? Yeah that political correctness stuff really worked out well for you. Ha. Your country will be under Sharia law within a decade and your people don't have the gumption to stop it. Makes me want to move to the Netherlands and laugh at you for a pastime. You insulted the wrong person sir. I can embarass you from dawn to dusk on an issue like this. You feel free to support that "anything goes" mentality your country has embraced for so long and the rest of the world will watch the native culture of the lowlands get swept away like a hurricane over a dike. If you don't think bloodlust is relevant to this conversation then you must be really spending too much time in those Amsterdan coffee shops. It isn't just Japan that is at fault. The west has embraced the games they produce in Japan. At some point enough becomes enough and when they start promoting what was a fantasy game with real dead creatures then something is badly wrong. I pointed out that Japan has a history of not respecting life in the not so distant past. Ooohh that was so out of touch with the issue. It's exactly the issue IMO. Just like it's exactly the issue that people in the west and in the USA in particular have glorified violence for too long. Starting with Jesse James and Billy the Kid the US has looked at violence as a good thing even when it's done by completely evil people. I see Hollywood types almost worshipping mafia figures. Sooner or later this will all come around to bite us on the ass and those who stick their heads in the sand and ignore the problem (and even go as far as demand that others do the same and censor them if they don't) will have blood on their hands too IMO. How much did western bloodlust affect Tim McVey? We know that video games inspired the Columbine killers. We know those video games almost exclusively come from Japan. It's time we recognized the problems but you belittle those who think it's important. Smooth move there Dutch Boy.

I have completely lost all respect for Sony after this. I won't be buying any more of their products which is a big change for me. I don't care if their products are better or not. This isn't the first company I have boycotted and it probably won't be the last. Once I decide to abandon doing business with a company it's over. I have to bring up the history of the Japanese people on this one. Their culture has remained brutal in many ways after the end of WWII. During that war their people did some monstorous things not just to goats but to people. I see this as a throwback to that mentality. Check out the history of the Bataan Death March. The Japanese have been some of the most brutal people on earth at times. It's become common to completely ignore Japan's role in starting WWII in their culture today. They blame everything on the USA which is pure BS. They cry about the nuclear attacks but forget Pearl Harbor. They blame Pearl Harbor on the US putting trade sanctions on Japan but forget to mention that was done because of the Rape Of Nanking which was another horrific example of Japanese cruelty and total disrespect for life. There has remained a culture among certain Japanese people that admires the old ways and continues to preach Japanese superiority and glorifies their bloody military history. Even in this country we have glorified the Samurai which was the inspiration for all of the Japanese attrocities in WWII. I don't understand how our culture can make heroes of such a brutal icon. We might as well be making heroes of mass murderers. But then I guess we do that too. Japan itself has taken a HUGE step backward with this IMO. It's their culture that makes such things ok IMO. They have shown that they are just as bloodthirsty as they were in the past and that is a horrible past to say the least. I am not a racist or a Xenophobe but I recognize evil when I see it. And this is nothing but old fashioned evil. Western culture has embraced the bloodlust too especially in the form of some video games. I am not one to harp on cleaning up video games but there must be a point where enough is too much. I think we have passed that point and the Japanese have been feeding it to us all along. Shame on both our cultures.

Yeah I figured that trying to hold a tripod like a boom pole would be pretty tough. I was just joking about having the painter's pole for other purposes of course. I built a mic boom using a tripod and some PVC pipe though. It worked pretty well but the mount broke eventually because it was trying to support too much weight on a cheap tripod. I think I could make a good one with a good tripod but since good tripods cost as much as a good mic boom there isn't much reason to do it. Actually I can convert a painter's pole to a mic boom pretty easily using this clip on mic mount. It's actually designed to hold a mic with the clamp but I just reversed the whole idea and put the clamp on the pole and attached a standard mic clip to the threads. It works pretty well and it can be done in just a few seconds. My painter's pole is 12 feet long I think which makes for a decent mic boom when I have someone to operate it for me. I can post a photo of how this works if anyone is interested.

You shouldn't need both unless you want to use 2 mics at once for some reason. Well that works of course but don't blame me if you need to paint your great room ceiling and you don't have a painter's pole. You could get one now and be set in case you decide to do some painting or recording. Painter's poles are pretty light and strong but there are other benefits to booms because they are designed to do recording. And yes it's a straight mount with the Rode boom. No need for an adapter of any kind there.

It just hit me that we don't know what type of mics you will be wanting to use Nolonemo. The MX-34 only accepts XLR inputs or a line level minijack. It would be great if you want to use XLR mics but not if you want to use a plug in power type mic. Some of the stuff I mentioned before is also XLR only stuff. I'm sure the MX-34 will be great with XLR mics but if you want to use the kind of mics most of use with MD then I don't think it would be such a good choice for you. No doubt Rolls makes quality equipment and it does fall into your price range. But if you already have a mic and it's a minijack mic you might not get much benefit from it. As I said earlier you would do well to get XLR mics. They are generally better quality mics than miniplug mics. But they also cost more. I don't know what made me think you wanted a miniplug type mixer before. I mentioned that some stuff was XLR and assumed that wasn't what you wanted. I should know better than to assume stuff. So maybe it will help to let us know what types of mics you have or intend to get.

I actually put something in about the way you set up the mics in my post at first but when I tried to post it my internet connection hiccuped and it didn't get posted. You're right. If you set these mics up in a traditional stereo type array (like an XY setup) then they should sound ok on loudspeakers. I intended to say that in my second post (the one that actually got posted) but I forgot to mention it. I also talked about how companies mis-use the term "binaural" in my first post. This mic could be setup either as a binaural or a XY and get entirely different results. In fact unless a person knew how to set up a binaural they wouldn't get a binaural recording at all. Mic placement always means a lot and this is a perfect example. I'm not sure why the people at Sound Pro's label these mics as binaural. I don't know if they include instructions on how to set them up as binaurals but the alligator lapel clips they include would not give a person a binaural setup at all if you actually attached them to your lapel. It would be more of an AB mic setup.

I suggest you read the Wikipedia article on binaural mics on this web page. A binaural mic recording sounds quite bad when played back through loudspeakers. They sound great when played through headphones though but they are not designed to be played through speakers. Download the audio file and compare it on speakers and through headphones. You'll hear the cross talk and distortion on the speakers and you'll probably hear the fabulous 3D sound when played through headphones. It all depends on how you will be playing the recording back whether you want this SP mic or not. I prefer true stereo mics myself because you can play them through speakers or headphones and do well through both. They aren't as good as a binaural through phones but they are MUCH better through speakers. The cheapest MD recorders are the original MD recorders. They sound very good but they are hard to come by these days. They have been out of production for several years now. I would suggest that you get an iriver IFP-890 mp3 ecorder if you want to go the cheapest route to a decent recording. They sell for under $20 on eBay and they have a mic input. The pre-amp isn't the best in the world but it isn't bad either. You could combine that with a AT Pro 24 and have less than $100 in a decent system. I would suggest though that you spend $200 on a Zoom H2 when they come out in the near future. They record in 24 bit and they have their own built in mics. IMO they are the future of portable recorders. They are a tremendous value for a recorder but they aren't much as a player. The iriver I mentioned would be a better player if you want a device that will record and play your recordings. I say this because the H2 will be much bigger to carry around than the iriver.

I know someone who was looking for a HIMD. I'll try to steer him your way.

I've been very interested in the H2 myself but the H4 comes with the connections for your Shure mic (again I'm also assuming you have a SM58). That alone might make it worth the extra money for you. You wouldn't need the adapters mentioned by Guitarfxr. I'm making another assumption - that the phantom power on the H4 can be turned off. Is that the case Guitarfxr? The SM58 isn't set up to work with phantom power. Most equipment allows you to turn off phantom power I believe. You wouldn't want to forget to do it because likely as not it would fry your mic. I'm interested in the H2 because it's cheaper than other quality recorders including HIMD recorders and it comes with M/S mics. Plus it will work with the mics I already own. If the built in mics are any good you might be able to just use the H2 without any other mics. The H4 also has built in mics too btw. From what I hear they are pretty good mics.

FWIW it's possible to build a boom pole out of a painter's pole. For a good quality pole and a mount to make it work you're likely to have $35 to $40 in it though. I already had a painter's pole so that was about $25 of the total. You're going to get a better boom with something made for this purpose but if you have a painter's pole already then you might consider this. I actually use a boom mic stand because I rarely have anyone capable of operating a mic boom well since my son is almost always away at school. I use this stand for most of my work. I just use a cardiod mic on it and I try to get my subject to sit still. This is a decent stand with a long boom but it's even more expensive than a mic boom. And as Guitarfxr says, you can get an adapter for the threads on the Rode to make it work with US style mic stands and booms. The threads on the Rode are the same size used in Europe and other places. I have an adapter for my Rode. It cost me about $4 I think. I got it at B&H. I can't help you with a wind screen. You'll probably get better advice on that from someone who owns a AT822.

Those are two excellent mics. You could very well use the AT822 and the HIMD for the ambience portion of your audio. Pre-amps on cameras aren't terrible or anything especially for voice. The Rode comes with a good shock mount for a hot shoe also. You can mount a Rode VM to a boom pole though if you pay attention to keeping the person speaking in the sweet spot of the mic's pick up angle. The one thing I might caution you about is that when mounting the Rode to your camera you will need to have your camera pretty close to the person speaking. Shotgun mics really aren't better at picking up from a distance though some people think they are. You should always record within a few feet (5 at most) to get the best audio. Any farther than that and it's best to use a boom or a lav attached to a recorder that you can put in the speaker's pocket. I wouldn't say that about the SP mic. There's always a reason to use a good mic. I always like to have at least one backup plan for everything I record and usually I have 2 backups. You just never know when something is going to go wrong with a recording. MD recorders still sometimes fail to write the TOC for a sound file if you aren't careful. Sometimes batteries die unexpectedly. You might just forget to start the recorder (I've done that too - embarassing but true). IMO you can't have too many mics and the more you have recording at important times the better. I think I'm probably more paranoid than most about such things but I don't like the idea of losing a one time only chance at recording something important. So I use at least 2 cameras and all the audio recorders I can start up.

I always suggest a single point stereo mic as the first mic a person should own. I think they are more versatile. The AT822 and the Rode SVM are both cardioid mics so both are excellent choices. I would probably choose the 822 because it has a longer track record so you know it's durable. There are of course good mono cardiods. There's such a long list of them it's really hard to narrow down the field for me. You might get better advice from someone who actually owns one and I currently don't. The Sound Pro mics always get great reviews. The Sony is a good mic in a lot of ways but it is not really a full range mic. It drops off at low frequencies. That makes it ok for voice but not as good as it could be for music etc.. The Sound Pro mics are certainly good investments and I don't think you would be disappointed with them. If you have the money I would go with them. With a HIMD like that I wouldn't worry about upgrading for quite a while. You have an excellent piece of recording gear there and only a very few people would really notice the difference between it and a 24 bit recorder (that's assuming the H2 really does a good job as a 24 bit recorder which may be assuming quite a bit). I'd stick with the RH1 for quite a while before considering an upgrade or just an additional recorder. It's really pretty hard to improve on the RH1 or any HIMD for that matter. They do sound good. That sounds like a good plan. I use my HIMD for the front channels though and use my camera to record the rear channels because the pre-amps in consumer grade cameras aren't as good as HIMD pre-amps. As for what mic to use when it really comes down to having the right mic for the situation and that means having a bag full of different mics for different jobs. I use my Rode VM, my Nady CM-2S, my 2 Giant Squid mono omni lavs, my Sony MS907 and my Aiwa CM-S20 stereo omni lav all for different purposes. I often mount my Rode on a boom mic stand because as long as the person is sitting where you want them the sound will be excellent. For anything the Rode misses I use the GS's as a backup or sometimes as the primary with the Rode as the backup depending on the situation. I also use the Nady on the boom quite often because it is a good cardioid. And which recorder to use is another question that needs to be answered on an individual basis. You really just can't get away from learning what different mics do well and learning which mics to get and when to use them. There are sites that are pretty good in getting you started with your collection of mics and knowing what to do with them. There are still quite a few mics I want to add to my collection. I'm thinking about the H2 with the mic that comes with it. I also need a good mono cardioid and I need a good handheld mic. Then of course I'll probably start to want better mics in each category. You might start doing some research on sites like the mic faq on this web page or possibly the mic glossary on this web page is very useful. I also have used Wikipedia often to learn about mics. I like this web page quite a bit also. It explains things well IMO. Ty Ford has some very useful info on his site. It's the Audio Bootcamp but I can't remember the url right now. You can find it through Google I'm sure. And there's a FAQ that I think covers a lot of important ground for recording audio for video especially as M/S design mics relate to recording voice etc.. It's on this web page. There's a lot of technical stuff there too but there's some important info on mic design that helps on determining what mic to use when. There are actually quite a few other places to look but this should give you a good start. I could write a lot of this stuff down here again but it's already written out and explained better than I could explain it on these sites. I'd give them a whirl if I were you.

It's not so much that a stereo mic would be better but it's a less directional mic that would be better even if it's a mono mic. A hyper-cardoid or a cardioid would be best for boom work. If you have someone experienced with a boom then you could get by with a shotgun maybe. Lots of people do use shotguns on poles but it's just a little trickier. The sound professionals mic would certainly be better. But it's double the price too. You might get an AT Pro24 in the same price range as the Sony but it lacks the M/S mic setup which I think makes for excellent voice recording. Yeah that's it. But I would wait to make sure it's as good as I think it will be. It's still new on the market. But if you have a HIMD already you should be set with what you have. If your MD is a standard MD I might think about upgrading. The Zoom H2 is likely going to sound some better than a HIMD because it's 24 bit but there's other considerations. You won't know for a while if it's going to be great. The H2 does come with it's own mics though and they are M/S design. The H2 will also record in 5.1 surround sound mode which is something special for a device with only one mic really. It's a brand new design so again a wait and see attitude would probably be best. That's what I'm doing. MD has a lot going for it too though. For one thing they make great portable players which the H2 really isn't designed to do. So if you want a dual purpose device then a HIMD is very hard to beat. That's why I'll likely keep my HIMD even if I get a H2. IMO HIMD's are superior to MP3 players as portable players but I'm sure I would get some argument on that from some boards. But the MP3 players I've seen (both of my kids have Ipods - an original model and a Nano) don't sound as good as my HIMD. And you can keep a lot of discs around for an unlimited number of songs. Mine also takes AA batteries which is a big advantage IMO. My son's Ipod is sitting around waiting on a new $40 battery. He's using one of my IFP-890's as a player now instead of the Ipod. The H2 is a promising technology. You can get a recorder and a mic for the price of a good recorder or less than a really good mic. Both the AT822 and the Rode Stereo Videomic would be excellent choices but it could be the H2 will do it all for an excellent price. I'm hoping it will anyway. I really don't need another recorder right now but I'm thinking about getting one anyway just because of the features. Thanks. I was supposed to have an important interview yesterday but my uncle came in from Calif. so I had to postpone it. Hopefully I can get it wrapped it before too much longer. I've been working on it for a year and a half already and I have at least 6 months to go.

Just a few thoughts. Using a shotgun on a boom is great if you have someone to operate the boom or you know the person won't be moving around in his chair. A shotgun is very directional and even a little bit of movement by the person talking can result in a change in the way your audio sounds. I have a Rode Videomic and I love it. But there are limitations to mics of all kinds. Another thing I didn't see mentioned was the fact that shotgun mics sometimes have serious problems recording indoors. Especially if your room has a lot of reflective surfaces (sound reflections of course) you can end up with off axis sounds coming into your shotgun and off axis sounds show up as a low rumble on a shotgun mic recording. That's because it's hard to eliminate the low freq sounds but much easier to remove the high freq stuff. It can end up sounding like you have a train in your room with you if you're not careful. I disagree with the assertation made by the good folks at B&H. That's a great place to do business but IMO salesmen are usually reading something off of a script that has been prepared for them and they really don't know that much about their products. I would suggest that the AT822 would do a fine job on a boom. I've used my single point stereo mics on a boom many times and never had a problem. Some mics are better than others. Purists will tell you that voice should always be recorded with a mono mic but I disagree. Certain mic designs work well recording voice even if they are stereo mics. Any XY design mic is probably going to do fairly well and some will do real well. Some will do badly though so it's a matter of trying it before committing to anything important. A M/S design mic (a variant of the XY design in reality) will do even better recording voice. I've had great success using my Sony ECM-MS907 mic for recording voice because it is a M/S design. You might note that the new Zoom H2 has a M/S design mic and it is certainly intended to be used for voice recording. IMO there are other mics you might be happy with that are cheaper. I have a Nady CM-2S that I like. It isn't a perfect mic but I have yet to see a perfect mic. I also like the Sony I mentioned when recording voice. The Rode Stereo Videomic mentioned in your post is also a single point stereo mic too btw. It's an excellent mic but maybe a little expensive compared to equally good mics like the AT822. I suggest you check out the forums at Camcorder Info where they have forums about audio. There are other forums that are geared toward pro level equipment too but for the equipment you describe you may want to start at the CCI board. It's a great board for those fairly new to video and the audio that goes with it. I've learned a lot there myself. I do video production for a living BTW. My company is called A-frame Video. I'm currently working on a documentary about a one room school. I already have a publisher interested in distributing this project. I've done work for them in the past and they were very happy with it. I do know a little about this subject much of which I learned from CCI. But I was into sound recording for many years before I got into video. I think you'll find lots of help at the CCI board. There are Sony forums there also.

According to the web site it doesn't. They suggest Audacity as an alternative or possibly Sound Studio or Bias Peak. Sorry.

OK. You just have to explain things to the slower members of the class. I'll try to post my pic tonight. My son has the laptop at school with him right now so I'll substitute his instead. He also has one of the IFP's so maybe I'll just clone the one in Photoshop so it looks like 2.

IMO the best thing to do to skip the problem with large number of files is to play back your audio through the computer's sound card and create a single file on your computer. You will lose a small amount of quality but likely as not few will notice the difference. Once you do that you can use a program with a time warp feature to get the tracks back in sync. You will only have to do it once. Yes it's a question of percentages but they are easy to come by. If for example you had one 30 second video file and one 60 second audio file the percentage would be 50%. It's simple math. You just have to do it with seconds because it's hard to figure percentages of minutes unless you're gifted at math. Once you get the general percentage right you can make slight adjustments to get things perfect. For example instead of 50% you might want to try using 50.1%. A few attempts at adjusting and you should be able to make it a perfect match. It isn't nearly as hard as it sounds. Again I've never had problems like this but I've never tried to record anything that long and get it in sync. I can see where what GuitarFX says can cause a problem (converting LP files to wav's is going to cause a slight problem in time length) but I can't see it causing a large problem even over the hours you recorded. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems more like you have an equipment problem to me. Have you tried doing samples that are much shorter to see if the problem occurs? If you're off 5 minutes in a 30 minute sample then you have an equipment problem. I wouldn't give up if I were you. There are things you can do to make things go much smoother. For one thing you could record both audio and video to a separate recorder in real time. A stand alone DVD recorder might work or better still a laptop with a video in jack or a USB video capture device or a capture card. You would record both audio and video to a file without having to worry about sync issues because it should never get out of sync. If this was a one time event you should just check your equipment to see if you can eliminate the problem somehow. Maybe recording to PCM would solve the problem. I really think you can fix the problem you have now easier than you think. Time warp really does work magic. You can also learn a few tricks about syncing. Keep the audio track on your video camera. You can sync another audio track with it fairly easy. Use a loud noise at the beginning of your recording and at the end to create points that are easily synced. Be sure to keep all recorders going all the time to avoid having to sync more than once. And learn to use visual cues to show you where the audio should go. If someone claps their hands together you might be able to sync audio by looking at the hand claps for example. This stuff comes with experience. I think you'll be able to work it out with some effort.

I like Goldwave as an editor much better than Audacity. It does have a trial period where nothing is crippled. It's exactly the sort of thing you're working on where Goldwave is stronger. There are many tools to adjust sound levels in selections. You can shape the volume just about any way possible with Goldwave. There are actually some better sound editors around but they cost a lot of money. Goldwave is a great editor if you just need to fix a track without hassles. It only costs $45 if you decide to buy it. It is a very useful program. For example thee is a function called "Matching Volume" where levels are equalized throughout the whole file. There are several presets to choose from, you can choose to allow clipping or not, you can choose the average db level and you can preview different settings without having to process the entire file. Goldwave is really quite a bit better than Audacity IMO but maybe I'm prejudiced because I've been using it for 15 years probably. I have tried Audacity though and I don't find the wide variety of tools that Goldwave has. You can find a copy of the trial by doing a Google search. I think you'll find the tools much more powerful and useful.

I assume we're talking portable stuff. I suppose this list should include my: 1. Panasonic PV-GS250 video camera (it will capture sound of course - it has a mic jack) 2. Canon Optura 30 video camera (same setup as above) 3. Sony MZ-R70 4. Sony MZ-N505 (line in jack only but with my sensitive mics it will record well) 5. Sony MZ-NHF800 6. iriver IFP-890 X 2 7. Nady CM-2S mic 8. Rode VideoMic 9. Giant Squid omni lav mic X 2 10. Sony ECM-MS907 mic 11. Aiwa CM-S20 mic 12. Aiwa HS-J470 cassette recorder walkman 13. all of my various still digital cameras record audio of some type but the quality isn't good 14. my cell phone also records low quality audio 15. HP 2500 series laptop computer (I forget the exact model #) EDIT: OK here's my photo. I didn't include all of my cameras since I was using one to take the photo and my wife has the other one with her. They don't record audio well anyway. There are also voice recorders around somewhere that belong to my kids but they seem to have abandoned them so I could claim them.

The Sony ECM-MS907 is a single point stereo mic that also manages to record voice very well. Many single point stereo mics won't do this. I think that a mic like this would be more versatile for you than just a mono mic that will record voice well. The M/S design of the Sony mic gives it excellent ability to record voice and it will also record music fairly well as well as ambience. If you want just one mic I think it should be a single point stereo mic like this one. The AT Pro24 is said to be a better sounding mic than the Sony but I'm not sure about it's ability to record voice well. Both of these are relatively small mics though neither should be used as a handheld mic.

I don't doubt for a second that voice recorders will improve in quality soon. The technology is already available and cheap to make them much better than they were originally. The model my kids have is on the level of a home recorded 8 track but with MP3 tech being pushed the way it is they should be able to build an excellent recorder now and sell it at a great price. In fact they do sell devices that do this but they call them MP3 players instead of voice recorders. The IFP series has a built in mic. I haven't actually tried the mic because I've heard it stinks but that recorder with a Giant Squid mic built in instead of the cheapie they used and you have an excellent recorder for under $50 or so. I'm sure this will happen soon. I just haven't seen it yet. It could be there are already good examples like the Sanyo you mention. Do you know about the quality of the mics?

Yeah the 800 series is essentially the same as the 700 series except for the way they look. And yes it's the same deal on upgrading to the new firmware that allows direct access. The iriver software isn't so bad and it definitely isn't bad enough to make me want to cut way back on the quality of the recordings. I have no idea why they did things that way but it wasn't such a good idea. I don't know if they did it deliberately to discourage copying of copyrighted stuff or what but it doesn't do anything but cause a hassle IMO. I've heard good and bad things about the H4. There are those that swear by it mainly because it has phantom power and XLR connectors. I've heard bad things about the R-09's too. My guess is that sometimes people expect a lot more than they're going to get for the amount of money they're spending. I'm still waiting to hear the final verdict on the H2. I think companies are taking orders for them already. Mainly I think the H2 is going to be a good thing for video oriented recording. The surround sound setup is a big plus for anyone wanting to do certain types of video IMO. The features are certainly there but we'll just have to wait and see about the quality of the mics and the pre-amps. I looked around a little and found a review of both the R-09 and the H4 from a guy who owns both. He posted his review on this web page. There are obviously lots of reviews by lots of people who have access to both but this guy says the quality of the H4 is better but the R-09 is easier to use. There are pros and cons of both I'm sure. And of course there are other recorders around too. One of the main reasons people don't like the H4 though is that it doesn't support plug in power mics. The H2 supports only plug in power mics. So I guess you have your choice. It would have been nice to be able to use XLR with phantom power or minijack plug in power on the same device but since I don't even have any balanced mics much less mics that require phantom power I know which one I would prefer. Maybe someday when I get my video business off the ground better I'll move up to pro mics and I'll want the H4 instead of the H2.

I would suggest getting a iriver IFP-xxx series MP3 recorder. The mic pre-amp isn't as good as a MD pre-amp but you can get a IFP-890 for under $20 on eBay. I have bought 2 of them recently for recording interviews for my video projects. They will give you about the same quality as the original MD recorders if you upload both to a computer because there is an additional analog to digital step when uploading from a MD to a computer. Of course the newer model HIMD recorders can upload digitally but so can the iriver IFP-890. It's also a very small unit so you can get yourself a cheap lavalier mic (lapel mic) and have a very good setup for under $50. Giant Squid makes very good lav's that sell for $25. This is of course the cheapest way to go which means it isn't the highest quality way to go. But it will far exceed the quality of the voice recorders you mention. My kids got those for Christmas one year from their aunt and to be honest they just don't come close to the quality of even the iriver IFP series. There are IFP's with more memory and less memory but recording mono at a high mp3 bit rate will give you quite a bit of recording time even with the 256 meg IFP-890. There's a chart on this web page that lists recording times for a 512 meg model so just cut the times in half for the 256 meg 890. If you want a handheld mic there are still inexpensive choices available. People say the ATR25 works pretty well but I haven't used one myself and I haven't heard any examples. But I have used the IFP-890 and the Giant Squid omni lav. I have 2 of each of these for recording interviews in addition to my HIMD recorder. The HIMD is certainly better but the price is still going up on used models because people think they won't be available much longer. I paid $115 for mine about a year ago and I could probably sell it for $50 more than that now. I'm just guessing that you are trying to do things on a budget because you mentioned the voice recorders. If I'm wrong you would probably want to get a HIMD or a newer iriver model or one of the Zoom models. The Zoom H2 looks very appealing to me and I'm thinking seriously about getting one myself. And the Zoom H4 offers the ability to use XLR balanced mics with phantom power if you want which would give you the ability to record with the best handheld mics like the EV-RE50 (which doesn't require phantom power but is a balanced XLR mic). But if you want to go the cheapest route where you can still get decent quality try the IFP with a Giant Squid. It will be much better than a voice recorder and it's simple to transfer files to a computer for editing or whatever.

Yeah I know A440. I was just joshing a little there. You can hear trains for over 20 miles or more and any heavy machinery at a factory or cars on a race track or hot rod motorcycles or trucks on a highway all carry great distances. There are lots of sources of noise pollution. I've only been in a very few places where you couldn't hear anything at all except airplanes and you'll never get completely away from them unless you are at the south pole or something. The only place I have gotten away from all sounds was way out in the mountains and down in a deep hollow and that was only when there weren't any ATV's in the area. I guess I was so used to always hearing something that it was really weird to be totally away from all of it and I live in the country. Here at home I routinely hear cars on race tracks from over 15 miles away and I'm talking pretty loud at that distance. I hear trains almost all of the time and there's a factory about 3-4 miles away that I can hear all the time. Plus there's those planes. Finding the right spot to do nature recordings can be tough. I've had lots of trouble finding good spots to do outdoor interviews. That's where a good dynamic mic comes in handy because they only pick up for a short distance. I wish I had one that I could get to work with my equipment. Recording nature sounds is probably just a matter of catching them in between the other noises in the area.

There can be a difference between 44.1khz and 48khz but I've not seen it happen. I record with MD and sync with video all the time. The only time I ever had a real problem it turned out to be bad discs apparently. It happened when I first bought my HIMD (used) and it happened with more than one disc. The discs were cheap though so I assume it had to have been the problem because it hasn't happened since. I really can't say for sure though. You can use programs like Goldwave to time warp your audio file and make it fit the same time as the video. It isn't as hard as it sounds to do. I worked out the ratio by looking at how many seconds each device recorded and dividing to get the ratio to use to adjust the time in time warp. It may not be perfect but you can make slight adjustments after you get it close and you should be able to get it in sync. If you have a problem with the 800 tracks causing slight delays when you use the combine feature then you may be in for a whole lot of problems getting things back in sync. I hate to say it but it's always best to test your equipment before you use it for something important. You should have checked whether there would be a sync problem before you recorded a one time event that can't be reproduced. There very well could be a problem with either your MD or your camera. Usually I don't see tracks out of sync more than a frame or two over the course of a full 1 hour DV tape. That usually comes from a bad spot in a tape and it's easy to fix. I'm sorry you had this problem but there are things you can do to fix it. I'd definitely start with time warp. Goldwave has a free trial that is fully functional. That's what I used to fix the problems I had when I first got the HIMD. I thought I was going to have to use it all the time but luckily it was just the bad discs. Once I got the hang of making the adjustments it wasn't hard at all though. Good luck.