[Imc-newsroom] various things

[Clint Popetz]

Techies and Radio News People,

	I took field bag #2 and field bag #3 out of commision.  The
MD in one will no longer function at all unless you put physical
pressure against the case, and the MD in the other will not write a
TOC, hence you can't save changes when turning off the unit.  Also the
mic (a behringer) in the second is full of snap-crackle-pop.  

	Can I take a moment to rail on minidiscs?  I have now missed
approximately one half of all my planned recording events to date due
to MD failure.  I missed another today.  I hear horror stories daily.
Dan Chambers' audio from Jello Biafra was mostly unusable, Mark
Enslin's MD of the Palestinian Truth Tour was missing a track, etc.
Add to this that most people coming into the news group can't figure
out how to work the things, and that they seem to have a field life of
about 6 months...

	I'd like to propose something semi-radical.  I'd like to ditch
MDs in favor of analog cassette recorders.  Reasons include:

1) Cheaper
2) Ability to find non-consumer "professional" units at reasonable prices
3) Familiarity and ease of use to almost anyone
4) Cheap media
5) Most people don't use the on-unit editing that MD's offer anyway
6) Less error prone, i.e. keep the heads clean and they last a long time.
7) Units with built in mics are available, eliminating the need to
manage a mic for recording events.  (Mics still have there place, of
course.)
8) Failure modes are predictable.

The _only_ drawback I see is analog hiss, and given the audio I hear
on WEFT even on syndicated programs like Democracy Now, this is not an
issue.  People are taking 64 kbps MP3s and unencoding them, editing
them, and re-encoding them.  The hiss isn't going to hurt us for FM
broadcast, or even web MP3s.  And SoundForge knows how to remove hiss.

Thoughts?  Personally, MD's have failed me for the last time.  I'm
going to get myself either an analog tape, DAT, Hard Disk, or Solid
State recorder and take really good care of it.  But I don't think the
IMC can afford to do any of those except tape due to cost.

I know Paul R. will have a lot to say on this topic, so fire away :)

Also, my new-and-improved tech meeting time (7:30) will be un-makeable
for me this week as I have to go to WEFT for the second airshifter
class.  (Despite 6 months on the Courier, I am only now becoming
official.  Shh.)

		-Clint