Hey there,

On the Core Sound website (www.core-sound.com) it says the PDAudio-CF is available now.  That's not true is it?

I think they mean it is available to be ordered, actual release date unknown at this stage.

Anyhow, will this new recorder be the next greatest thing in the digital-era?  What are people's thoughts on it, and the future upgrades it may allow?

Regards,

stunt_show

Well apparently someone here already has a demo, but I doubt I'll ever use one.

Craig, would you post a pic of that set up when you have a chance?  I'm not familiar with all those gadgets...

yeah man...you're gonna be our guinnea pig/info bitch for a while it seems!  good work though, keep us well informed on how this goes for you...thanks!

I've been playing around with Pocco's Wichita recording long segments of ambient noise with dpa 4061>wmod-ua5>pdaudio-cf>ipaq.  No hiccups after 30min, 45min, 60min...  The dreaded 2GB limit is in effect, so we'll see how long I can go at 16/44.1.  I did notice the record meters slow down after about 30min to the point where you can't really use them for anything other than knowing you have a signal (no peak level, just graphic bars with no metering, although the bar does turn red at the tip where 0 would be).  The elapsed time also started going by 2-3 seconds at a time instead of the normal 1 second.  I guess the processor &/or video RAM is getting taxed pretty heavily.  Upon playback, there is nothing wrong, just visual on the screen when recording.  You MUST turn off the screen when recording so you don't bump the stop or pause buttons (the screen will register bumps from your hands etc, not just the stylus).  You can also set the buttons on the iPaq to function as record/play/stop/pause/etc.  I don't recommend this as they are not protected and could be accidentally bumped.

You must format your memory for large clusters - I reformatted my 5GB Toshiba pcmcia hard drive to FAT32, 32KB clusters.  At 512 byte clusters, I got split-second gaps every 8 seconds.  Changing to 32KB clusters seems to have solved that problem.  (I used a "storage tools" utility to do this - free trial download, nothing in PocketPC 2002 would reformat the drive)
http://www.softwinter.com/storagetools.html

PHM registry editor also was helpful when checking to make sure the PDAudio-CF drivers were properly loaded.
http://www.phm.lu/Products/PocketPC/RegEdit/

Quote from: dmonterisi on September 03, 2003, 02:29:44 PM
nice report, craig, +t...re: the 2 gig limit...can you set it so that at say, 1.9 gigs it just creates a new file without any missed samples?

-damon

I don't think so.  I'll ask tech support if this is possible & if it isn't with this version, maybe they can add this to a future release.

Quote from: Craig T on September 03, 2003, 02:35:19 PM

Quote from: dmonterisi on September 03, 2003, 02:29:44 PM
nice report, craig, +t...re: the 2 gig limit...can you set it so that at say, 1.9 gigs it just creates a new file without any missed samples?

-damon

I don't think so.  I'll ask tech support if this is possible & if it isn't with this version, maybe they can add this to a future release.

Another option to solve this problem:  ability to record L and R channels to independent files.

Quote from: MattD on September 03, 2003, 08:47:51 PM
I frequently go over 2 GB/file even when recording L and R to separate tracks. It's only 2 hours at 24/96.

I hadn't done the math, Matt, but you're absolutely right - good point!  In that case, I agree with you completely - proprietary format or seamlessly creating a new track is the only way to go.