Forgive me if this is a stupid posting. I'm making a low budget film and was interested in recording onto a sony DAT TCD-D8 recorder. Can anyone advise if this is a good choice? It's the cheapest and most accessible for me at this point.

Also, if I choose this method, how do I actually input the audio into a PC/Mac? I will use Final Cut to edit the project. I am only familiar with firewire and USB line outs, I guess.

Any advice would be appreciated,

Dean

It's not a stupid posting, a very relevant question in fact.

Personally, I wouldn't use dat. It's now a bit out-dated and recording directly onto a CF card or hard drive is the current "norm". (As much as anything can be called a "norm").

There are a number of advantages (including cost) when it comes to hard-disc (or card) recording and I would suggest looking at something like the Marantz PMD660 before you splash out on a dat recorder.

If you've already bought one, then you import the data into your non-linear editor the same way as you would dv, by connecting the player to the computer by usb/firewire (offhand I don't know what the sony has).

Edirol make the R-09 recorder that takes up to 2gb SD and records wav or 320 kbps mp3.

http://www.dv247.com/invt/31537/

I use it with an ew100 radio mic or direct from a mixing desk, works well.

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Edius Pro 4 Broadcast, Edius DVX, ADVC300 -- PremPro 2.0, Matrox RT X100