Digital audio recording

Hi,
I will be doing some audio-only interviews which I will need backed-up and then transcribed. I won't be using this audio for an actual video piece, but don't want lousy sound. Does anybody have any suggesions about what type of recording device I should use? I heard that Mini-Disk recorders have the best sound, but I don't know how to get the files onto my computer. And wouldn't I need to buy MANY disks which would add up $-wise? What about MP3 recorders? How's the sound? Do any interface with Macs? And how would I break up any LONG tracks (over 80 minutes) to move onto CDs?
Thanks for your advice!
Eve

Last summer I did a bunch of "man-on-the-street" interviews for a documentary I was shooting. I borrowed an hhb minidisc recorder and plugged a very high-quality Sennheiser broadcast hand-held mic into it.
The whole thing was about the size of a standard-size hardcover book. Only weighed a couple of pounds, too.
I was stunned at the excellent quality of the results. This rig plugged right into the Firewire port on my Mac, and I just dragged the audio files over via Finder copy on to my working hard drive.
The audio files opened right up in my audio editor app. i was able to up-rez them, EQ and tweak them, and then bring them right into FCP. It was very straight forward.
For some of the interviews that were done with video as well as audio, I recorded the audio on the minidisc and wild sound on the camcorder. For sync we just used the time-honored method of shooting a clapboard slate at the from of each segment. Worked great!
I guess this is what radio news guys are using these days for location recording.
However, I agree with the previous poster who emphasized that using a good mic, and putting it in the correct position relative to the subject, is probably 70% of the solution. Regardless of what medium you use to record the audio. Proper technique is always almost everything.
Good luck.

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