Our PDAudio high resolution digital audio recording system can be hosted on PDAs, laptop and desktop PCs. On desktop and laptop PCs you'd typically record to the internal hard disk. On PDAs though, you'd record to a variety of mass storage devices including:

• Compact Flash (CF) memory cards
• Compact Flash hard drives ("microdrives")
• PC Card (PCMCIA) hard drives
• Secure Digital (SD) memory cards
• External hard drives with PC Card interfaces

The 624 and 400 MHz XScale CPUs used in the current generation of PocketPC PDAs, and the 206 Mhz StrongArm CPUs used in the previous generation, are capable of recording in stereo (two channels) at up to 24-bit/96 Kilosample-per-second. Some memory cards however, can't support the 576 kilobytes-per-second data write rate necessary for 24/96 recording.

We've found that while some cards are fast enough to support sustained recording at 24-bit/96 Kilosample-per-second, some can only sustain 24/48, some can only sustain 16/44.1 and some can't sustain even 16/44.1.

Pay attention to the memory card and the PDA.

It's important to note that some PDAs have very slow SD memory card interfaces. For example, the older iPAQ 3800-series SD card interface is very slow while the 2210/2215 is much faster and the Toshiba e750/755 is faster still.

What results should I look for if I want to record at... ?

24-bit/96 KS/s recording writes 576 KB to disk every second. The second column of the benchmark results must be greater than 576 KB/s to sustain 24/96 recording. Ideally, if you want to record 24/96 you should choose a memory card that has benchmark results higher than 576 KB/s. A benchmark result close to that value may not record reliably.

24-bit/48 KS/s recording writes 288 KB to disk every second. The second column of the benchmark results must be greater than 288 KB/s to sustain 24/48 recording. Ideally, if you want to record 24/48 you should choose a memory card that has benchmark results higher than 288 KB/s. A benchmark result close to that value may not record reliably.

16-bit/44.1 KS/s recording writes 176 KB to disk every second. The second column of the benchmark results must be greater than 176 KB/s to sustain 16/44.1 recording. Ideally, if you want to record 16/44.1 you should choose a memory card that has benchmark results higher than 176 KB/s. A benchmark result close to that value may not record reliably.