slightly OT: industry standard hard disk recording?

[George Demarest <george.demarest@oracle.com>]

Hey-o,

Because the warm afterglow of Y2K3 is still upon me and a gentle 
admonishment
from Rick about cutting a CD,  I am looking to put this into motion.  
So, I plan do
a good deal of the music direct to computer in my studio as well as use 
other
studios for additional tracks and mastering, et al.  So, the question 
is, is there a
percieved  "industry standard" hard disk recording system at this point? 
  I've been
doing a certain amount of session work, and have found that Pro Tools and
Digital Performer pretty prevalent.

Currently I'm running Pro Tools with a 2-channel audio card (Audiomedia 
III), but
I may look to upgrade my computer setup (likely to Windows).  Is there a 
front-runner
out there in terms of price-performance?

I'd like to be able to record 4 or 8 tracks high quality audio tracks at 
once, have some
good digital effects built-in. A plus if there is a PCMCIA solution. 

A buddy of mine has used the RME stuff,
(http://www.rme-audio.com/english/hdsp/multifa.htm)

which he seems to like, but is there anything else  out there that you 
LD denizens like?

I know that auido files formats are easily transferrable between 
systems, but still,  I've found
that there are some upsides going with established standards.

what think ye?  any opinions appreciated,

gfd