Tascam 428 vs. mbox or other suggestions

[zmedia]

Looking for some information on what to choose. I am setting up a basic home studio, and want the ability to basically record two channels, for recording an audio radio show for podcasting, as well as doing an occasional overdub. I am thinking that either the Tascam 428 or digidesing mbox would work, but I am very new to this, so I would appreciate any input on these or suggestions of other methods that may work.

[reshp1]

I own the MBox. It's a good solution for what you are thinking of doing. It'll have all the basic recording and editing features, plus a nice suite of plugins. The preamps are good, especially for a USB audio interface, it'll run off of the USB power which would make it more portable if you have a laptop.
The software is a little picky about your machine specs. Check the digidesign website for compatibility info
http://www.digidesign.com/compato/xp/mbox

I ran it on a laptop that wasn't 100% compliant and it worked, but better safe than sorry.
I would be a little anxious about using it to capture live performances. I haven't had any problems personally, but with all computer recording you are more likely to lock up or lose a long take than, say if you were running a standalone unit. If you can minimize the background programs on your computer, or better yet have a computer dedicated for audio recording this shouldn't be a big deal.

[zmedia]

Thanks for the info, I checked out digidesign's site, and it seems I should be ok.
I'm running an iBook G4 1ghz w/768 ram, also have an eMac 800 mhz with 640 ram, not sure which I will run it on yet, prob. both depending on what I'm doing. Looks like all I'll need will be a nice, fast external firewire HD.