Multi-hour recording?

M

Mark H.

New member
I record lectures that are distributed to others, and although standard cassette tape is adequate, I would prefer to use a medium that was both higher in fidelity and didn't need to be "flipped" every 45 minutes.

How appropriate and/or reliable is computer-based recording for all-day recording? Is it absurd to spin the hard drive in a laptop for 8 hours straight?

If you were upgrading from cassette, what would you use?

Thank you for your help. I realize how tedious beginners' questions can be, but with all this "convergence" I am unclear as to whether it's time to move up or wait.

Best wishes,

Mark H.
 
The Hard drive in even a modest laptop should be able to record mono 16 bit files at 22KHz for a long, long time. These sound pretty good for lecture material. Get a decent path to your laptop soundcard. Mic --> Pre --> laptop soundcard.

While you need about 10.51MB/min for a CD quality recording (44.1 KHz at 16 bits, stereo) the requirements of 16 bit 22KHz mono recording are 25% of that. So you need (10.51*60*0.25)
MB per hour of recording = 157 MB. If you have a 30GB drive that's got 20GB free that's 127 hours. With 3 GB free that's 12.7 hours. Is that enough?

>How appropriate and/or reliable is computer-based recording for all-day recording? Is it absurd to spin the hard drive in a laptop

If you've got an AC source for your laptop (as opposed to one soggy battery) it's actually beneficial to leave the thing plugged in and running as opposed to shutting it off when not in use.
 
Thanks, doc! Didn't even occur to me to lower my bit-rate expectations. I'm probably trying to make too much out of this. I should jump in with a sound card and my home computer and just start experimenting with computer-based recording. In the meantime, I did order a cheap used MD deck to play with -- if it's not useful for my purposes, I can resell it without taking too much of a beating.

Mark H.
 
drstawl said:

If you've got an AC source for your laptop (as opposed to one soggy battery) it's actually beneficial to leave the thing plugged in and running as opposed to shutting it off when not in use.
Click to expand...


How is it beneficial to leave the computer running instead of shutting it off? I am interested!
 
Actually I am a fan of VCRs for that type of situation. A Sterero HiFi VCR, even in 6 hr mode, would be fine for recording lectures. Of course it might be hard to fit one in your pocket.... plus a small mixer (or preamp) and mic. In that sense a laptop would be better.
 
>How is it beneficial to leave the computer running instead of shutting it off? I am interested!

CPUs don't like being shut off and repowered compared with just being left on. Hard disks, being based on a physical platter spinning on bearings, when kept powered on and spinning remain at an elevated temperature (warm, not hot) that discourages the condensation of moisture on the data connectors and the bearing itself. Such condensation can lead to complete HD failure as condensation leads to corrosion and corrosion leads to the formation and deposit of non-conductive corrosion products.
 
That's Great!

So, if i just leave my laptop on all the time, it is better for the life of it than shutting it on and off? Amazing!

Doesn't leaving it on all the time wear it out?
 
There is simply a trade-off in "damage" that occurs from an hour of use vs. the same "damage" that occurs from a single power-down/power-up cycle. If you're not gonna use your system for a week or two, shut it off and save power.
If usage is daily: leave it on.
I used to think that the ratio between these two types of damage was much smaller than I now do, back when I owned a 486-33. But having a P-II-450 system that's been on for years (save the occasional reboot: Thanks, Bill) I can say that keeping the components warm (not overheated) is the key to long life. Next up is filtering the air entering the holes in the box that houses your system.

Pretty strange to try to engineer that for a laptop.

Monitor is a different deal. Turn that off when you can.

I don't have too much data (read: none) on the flat screen displays generally used in laptops, only old-school CRTs.
 
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