Re: [linux-audio-user] (semi)professional "field" recording work, what to use?

Hi, this is my first posting to this list; I'm a professional musician (organist) and avid Linux user from the Netherlands. I want to make good quality recordings with lightweight equipment and to further process the recordings on my Linux desktop PC. Currently I own a DCC recorder, but there are no DCC tapes available anymore. I have some tapes, but they are starting to show problems. So I'm in the market for some new equipment. I researched quite a lot and I think there are the following possiblities: 1. Minidisc recording. consumer minidisc recorders are very compact which is good. But they almost never have a digital out. Some have USB, but will not function as an USB-Audio device under Linux (AFAIK, all use the proprietairy NetMD protocol, which is partially reverse engineered, see: http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/freemd.en.html). so to use most consumer market MD recorders it looks like I have to have a good audio interface to record the sound from MD to my PC (and still have it D->A and A->D converted in the process.) A professional MD recorder which looks very good (the HHB PORTADISC MDP500, see: http://www.hhb.co.uk/000/int.htm) has an USB interface that if I understand correctly just manifests itself as an usb audio device under Windows, and should thus also work with ALSA (?) so with that recorder I could once record the sound and futher process it fully digitally. The price is around EUR 1600,= which is quite a lot. My main concern would be the availability of MD's. 2. Harddisk/flashcard/cd-rw recorders. It seems these are very expensive now. 3. A laptop with a good (external?) audio interface (M-audio USB?) Just Linux on it and arecord -f cd full_concert.wav :-) My question is: What equipment do other people use? Would the HHB MDP500 be a good choice? Will MD stay for another decade? I think it is important that open standards are used (I feel more confident with usb audio than e.g. NetMD) thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts :) regards, Wilbert Berendsen