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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: voltronic on October 01, 2015, 08:05:13 PM

Title: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 01, 2015, 08:05:13 PM
Tascam DR-70D Product Page (http://tascam.com/product/dr-70d/overview/)

Reference Manual (http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/e_dr-70d_rm_vb.pdf)

Previous discussion threads:

Part 1 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=170230.0)
Part 2 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=172109.0)
Part 3 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=172830.0)
Part 4 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.0)

FAQ Thread (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=172795.0) (includes recommended settings, cases, batteries, list of issues, etc.)

SD Card Survey (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xDG-UQLwa1sbGcnGounjkqqycPLbqikVcN-TRGESjoY/viewform) and Results (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit?pli=1#gid=820901072)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: willndmb on October 01, 2015, 08:53:15 PM
To answer a question about the 60d and card issues, no I have not had any trouble (knock on wood) with the 60d and errors.
I have used a few different cards including one that's class 4
I always do a full format in the unit and yes it takes a long time.

As for the 70d, it's verrrry interesting that the Europe list has tons of approved cards including some that people here get errors with
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 01, 2015, 09:27:24 PM
Since nobody had a problem with the DR-70D until after June 2015, has anyone tried setting the system clock back a year?

As for the 70d, it's verrrry interesting that the Europe list has tons of approved cards including some that people here get errors with

nothing over 32GB though...

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: tim in jersey on October 01, 2015, 11:01:43 PM
Marking...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on October 01, 2015, 11:27:43 PM
I find it mind blowing that Tascam in Europe has a different, longer list of approved cards than Tascam in the US.  Anybody want to bet on how long that will last now that this revelation has been posted? 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 01, 2015, 11:48:40 PM
That is very strange.  I wonder if the USA and Europe divisions test separately for the different markets, and maybe the USA division is more thorough or stringent in what they accept?  The European list is much longer which tells me they started testing much earlier.  Could some of those cards now considered bad at one point in the past have been OK?

To bad tomuo isn't hanging here anymore.  This is probably something he would have some knowledge of.

EDIT: The European media list is from Feb 3.  But the reference manual is the old version, whereas the USA site has an updated one.  Looks like the two divisions don't do everything the same.
http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D (http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: noahbickart on October 02, 2015, 12:08:16 AM
To bad tomuo isn't hanging here anymore.  This is probably something he would have some knowledge of.
http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D (http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D)

And this is why it simply doesn't pay to be internet tough guys with product reps.

Be Nice.

If you want your gear to work, even if it's *their* fault, WORK WITH THEM!!!!!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: pohaku on October 02, 2015, 01:04:28 AM
To bad tomuo isn't hanging here anymore.  This is probably something he would have some knowledge of.
http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D (http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D)

And this is why it simply doesn't pay to be internet tough guys with product reps.

Be Nice.

If you want your gear to work, even if it's *their* fault, WORK WITH THEM!!!!!

What he said!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 02, 2015, 04:39:23 AM
To bad tomuo isn't hanging here anymore.  This is probably something he would have some knowledge of.
http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D (http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D)

And this is why it simply doesn't pay to be internet tough guys with product reps.

Be Nice.

If you want your gear to work, even if it's *their* fault, WORK WITH THEM!!!!!

Tomuo wasnt treated with kid gloves some wanted him to be.  Should i be the one to remind you or him that customer service requires a thick skin?. But could you please go back in this thread and point out where he wasn't treated nicely or where people weren't trying to work with him?  Sorry if you can't accept the fact that most here were unsatisfied that tascam wasnt doing as much as possible to address their concerns, and some were challenging their responses, but stop putting the blame on members here for Tomuos departure.  We all have useless recorders and many feel like we're getting the runaround from Tascam.  The revelation yesterday of the larger list of media (with cards that have been shown not too work) is additional evidence of this.  While I'm also sorry to see him go, he left of his own choice.  Tascam seems to view customer service as a luxury to customers more than a basic service.

By the way, speaking of challenging peoples responses, I'm looking over your gear list and don't see a dr70d listed... do you even have any skin in this game?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: aaronji on October 02, 2015, 05:10:13 AM
The idea that HD video is more of a data rate than high-res audio is a common misconception.  The individual frames of HD video are pretty small megapixel-wise.  Still high-res photography is probably more taxing, especially if you're shooting in burst mode, and according to Tom, audio recording is more stressful than both.

Maybe, although I would like to see a reference.  Four channel 24/96 is 1.1 MB/s; I think HD is more.  Of course, if Tom says otherwise...

I chose randomly a hi res video camera and looked in the manual.  Canon Vixia HFS10 has 32gb of built in flash memory
MXP Mode - 2hr 55min
FXP Mode - 4hr 10min
XP+ Mode - 5hr 45min
SP Mode - 9hr 35min
LP Mode - 12hr 15min

So at the lowest resolution, the data consumption rate is something less that 3gb per hour (32gb/12.25hr).
At the highest resolution, the data consumption rate is a little over 10gb per hour (32gb/3hr)

Since audio eats data at around 1hr per gb at 24/48 for 2 channels, at the highest audio rate of 24/96 and 4 channels, the peak data usage rate of the DR70D rate is something close to 4gb/hour.  At 24/48 the rate of course is 2gb/hr.

Conclusion:  There's some overlap, but in general HD video uses more data than HD audio.

OK, but is the camera writing that data in chunks or in one continuous stream?  That was the point I was raising - obviously HD video is writing more data over a given period of time on average, but it's not necessarily continuous.  I think that's where Tom was headed with his comment I linked a few posts up.  As I understand it, recording PCM audio is more of the constant-stream variety.

Honestly, what's the difference?  Time scale, I suppose.  All things digital are sampled, so nothing is truly continuous.  Heck, that is one of the knocks on digital recordings from the purely analog guys.  Audio samples more frequently, but at far lesser complexity, than video.  For audio, it is one integer per channel per sample.  I don't really know much about video recording, but I guess you need at least two integers (color and saturation) per pixel per sample.

It is my understanding that the chunks are more difficult to write than the "continuous" data anyway.  Note that class 4 and 6 are described as being suitable for full HD, but only at class 10 do they add "consecutive recording of HD stills".  Something about bus speeds.  By contrast, I have a friend who has been recording four channel audio to a class 2 card for years without a hitch (and that's actually a microSD in an adapter).

And thanks for looking that up, tonedeaf...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 02, 2015, 08:16:16 AM
To bad tomuo isn't hanging here anymore.  This is probably something he would have some knowledge of.
http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D (http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D)

And this is why it simply doesn't pay to be internet tough guys with product reps.

Be Nice.

If you want your gear to work, even if it's *their* fault, WORK WITH THEM!!!!!

Tomuo wasnt treated with kid gloves some wanted him to be.  Should i be the one to remind you or him that customer service requires a thick skin?. But could you please go back in this thread and point out where he wasn't treated nicely or where people weren't trying to work with him?  Sorry if you can't accept the fact that most here were unsatisfied that tascam wasnt doing as much as possible to address their concerns, and some were challenging their responses, but stop putting the blame on members here for Tomuos departure.  We all have useless recorders and many feel like we're getting the runaround from Tascam.  The revelation yesterday of the larger list of media (with cards that have been shown not too work) is additional evidence of this.  While I'm also sorry to see him go, he left of his own choice.  Tascam seems to view customer service as a luxury to customers more than a basic service.

By the way, speaking of challenging peoples responses, I'm looking over your gear list and don't see a dr70d listed... do you even have any skin in this game?

One poster was a little kooky - but that's normal and to be expected in a (largely) unmoderated forum like this...(wonder if he was ever approached about being a site supporter - which a lot of manufacturers here seem to be)

But - I agree - TASCAM Rep should have held his ground - and made more of an appeal for information...before blaming the users for being too dumb to "use the right card."

Now his tact seems even worse in light of the list from the TASCAM EU site...that list is more like what you would expect.

How can they account for such a huge discrepancy!? Certainly such a huge change in operating spec would warrant some sort of notice?

Let me guess...The TASCAM DR-70DmkII!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: flipp on October 02, 2015, 09:21:34 AM
One possible reason for the different lists is maybe the recorders are different between the US/NA and European markets. Several manufactureres have different feature sets for different markets (eg, time-limited vs will record video as long as there is space on the card cameras for one example), usually due to different legal requirements (not infringing on someone else's patent). Different feature sets for different marketing regions. That is why you often see "grey market" products available from "non-authorized" sellers. Most manufacturers won't service a "grey market" product.

Personally I think most of you are reading too much into the differing lists; seeing a conspiracy when none is present. I also think most of you need to be more patient than you currently aren't. Fixes take time. While Tascam may have been slow to acknowledge a problem, now that they have give the engineers some time to isolate the cause and (hopefully) produce a fix.

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Chomps on October 02, 2015, 09:58:39 AM
following card talk is fun ;D
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Fried Chicken Boy on October 02, 2015, 01:02:13 PM
One possible reason for the different lists is maybe the recorders are different between the US/NA and European markets. Several manufactureres have different feature sets for different markets (eg, time-limited vs will record video as long as there is space on the card cameras for one example), usually due to different legal requirements (not infringing on someone else's patent). Different feature sets for different marketing regions. That is why you often see "grey market" products available from "non-authorized" sellers. Most manufacturers won't service a "grey market" product.

IE: the Sonosax SX-R4+ (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=170590.msg2152511#msg2152511).
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: noahbickart on October 02, 2015, 02:51:26 PM
I own a Dr70d, and mine isn't useless, because I purchased a card on the approved list.

I also think that Tascam could do better, but I care more about being happy than right. So my approach is to try to be nice to the people who might be able to solve the problem.

To bad tomuo isn't hanging here anymore.  This is probably something he would have some knowledge of.
http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D (http://www.tascam.eu/en/downloads/current/DR-70D)

And this is why it simply doesn't pay to be internet tough guys with product reps.

Be Nice.

If you want your gear to work, even if it's *their* fault, WORK WITH THEM!!!!!

Tomuo wasnt treated with kid gloves some wanted him to be.  Should i be the one to remind you or him that customer service requires a thick skin?. But could you please go back in this thread and point out where he wasn't treated nicely or where people weren't trying to work with him?  Sorry if you can't accept the fact that most here were unsatisfied that tascam wasnt doing as much as possible to address their concerns, and some were challenging their responses, but stop putting the blame on members here for Tomuos departure.  We all have useless recorders and many feel like we're getting the runaround from Tascam.  The revelation yesterday of the larger list of media (with cards that have been shown not too work) is additional evidence of this.  While I'm also sorry to see him go, he left of his own choice.  Tascam seems to view customer service as a luxury to customers more than a basic service.

By the way, speaking of challenging peoples responses, I'm looking over your gear list and don't see a dr70d listed... do you even have any skin in this game?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 02, 2015, 03:16:46 PM
Noah, I'm with ya here. Frankly I couldn't care less if anyone has 'skin in the game', as long as we're all working towards the same goal. And frankly, I'd prefer to see if we can get Tumuo to come back to this discussion. He was working with us, then a few things were said, and now he's not here to work with us. Interpret it how you'd like, but we're kind of stuck in the mud without his input.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Nigel Tufnel on October 02, 2015, 04:05:48 PM
Boring update. No drama.

Back in part 4 of this thread, groovon posted a link to a USB battery (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2157546#msg2157546) that has the exact footprint of the DR-70. I ran test and got 11 1/2 hours recording 24/48 2 channel with phantom powering some ADK large diaphragms.

Using an approved card for the test, I scanned the files and there weren't any obvious glitches.

This battery is a keeper. If you aren't having SD card problems and want to drop $13 on powering the deck, over 11 hours in this form factor is pretty impressive.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on October 02, 2015, 05:18:17 PM
Boring update. No drama.

Back in part 4 of this thread, groovon posted a link to a USB battery (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2157546#msg2157546) that has the exact footprint of the DR-70. I ran test and got 11 1/2 hours recording 24/48 2 channel with phantom powering some ADK large diaphragms.

Using an approved card for the test, I scanned the files and there weren't any obvious glitches.

This battery is a keeper. If you aren't having SD card problems and want to drop $13 on powering the deck, over 11 hours in this form factor is pretty impressive.

Hi Nige. Glad to hear of your excellent results w/ the battery--it is a winner, eh.
Also, here's a link to new slightly shorter USB cable I just got: http://www.ebay.com/itm/321703733141 It doesn't need an 'S' bend to take up the slack, just a short 'U'.

For the record, I haven't noticed any glitches in my DR-70 recordings. I use 16GB Sandisk Ultra Class 10s mostly, but I've had no problem with other cards (all 16GB so far) that are not on the approved list. Firmware is v.1.11.

Also for the record, I'm sorry but not surprised Tom had enough abuse and left. Too bad a minority have to ruin it for everybody else here, and for what? My 2 cents, take it or leave it.

Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 02, 2015, 05:43:23 PM
I also bought that same battery posted by groovon and can confirm it's awesome.  Mine is attached to the bottom of the unit with a few dabs of blue tack, so while it's not a permanent attachment the whole thing looks like it's part of the recorder.  Very slick looking and excellent performance.

Thanks for posting that other cable.  I've never been able to find one angled like this on both ends.  I bought a couple of the previous ones you recommended that need the S-bend, now I'll probably get a couple of these also.

The battery has been on the FAQ for a while, but I'll add a link to this cable as well to make the package nice and slick.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on October 02, 2015, 05:49:55 PM
I also bought that same battery posted by groovon and can confirm it's awesome.  Mine is attached to the bottom of the unit with a few dabs of blue tack, so while it's not a permanent attachment the whole thing looks like it's part of the recorder.  Very slick looking and excellent performance.

Thanks for posting that other cable.  I've never been able to find one angled like this on both ends.  I bought a couple of the previous ones you recommended that need the S-bend, now I'll probably get a couple of these also.

The battery has been on the FAQ for a while, but I'll add a link to this cable as well to make the package nice and slick.

Glad to help. The cable's still just a hair long, but as close to perfect as I've found so far. If it came to it, you could probably cut a USB cable as short as you need, and splice and heatshrink the black and red wires back together, i.e., as long as you're only using it for power.
(BTW, I looked in my stash, and I don't have any more of those red knobs--sorry!)

cheers
Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 02, 2015, 07:45:32 PM
I've been corresponding with tomuo via PM regarding the different card lists on the EU and USA sites, and with his permission I'm sharing this here:

Long story short, the EU list is wrong, and may actually be for a different recorder but that's uncertain at this time.  It's being investigated and will likely be changed soon.  He also shared that all card testing is done by TEAC Japan, and they send the media lists to the divisions worldwide.  So there can only be one correct card list, and that is the one on the USA site. 

I also asked if there is any difference in manufacture for different markets, and he said there is not; they're the same worldwide.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 03, 2015, 09:45:04 AM
I've been corresponding with tomuo via PM regarding the different card lists on the EU and USA sites, and with his permission I'm sharing this here:

Long story short, the EU list is wrong, and may actually be for a different recorder but that's uncertain at this time.  It's being investigated and will likely be changed soon.  He also shared that all card testing is done by TEAC Japan, and they send the media lists to the divisions worldwide.  So there can only be one correct card list, and that is the one on the USA site. 

I also asked if there is any difference in manufacture for different markets, and he said there is not; they're the same worldwide.

If you look back...almost one year ago...

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=170230.0

Thread one, post one - the EU Site had the product profile first.

And that's the reference that everybody here on TS was reading - and basing their decisions on.

I owned one by the first week of Dec 2014 and this list emerges in early Feb 2015. (And I had been using media listed there successfully)

Not sure if there was a "list" a year ago - other than the blanket statement about what media format was supported.

The EU list last updated in March 2015 (I guess nobody caught the "mistake" then either?)

That probably was a good list - then...

But now - 10 months in errors emerge - and the list contracts/redacts.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 03, 2015, 10:49:37 AM

The EU list last updated in March 2015 (I guess nobody caught the "mistake" then either?)

That probably was a good list - then...

But now - 10 months in errors emerge - and the list contracts/redacts.

More tracks being covered by Tascam. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on October 03, 2015, 11:00:33 AM
A product recall is in order.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 03, 2015, 11:20:06 AM
Rather than engaging in conspiracy theories, has anyone actually acted on Tom's recommendation send their card containing errors to Tascam (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2161544#msg2161544) so they could analyze it?  You can self-congratulate yourselves all you want on your brilliant theories regarding Tascam's possible bait-and-switch, but at the end of the day, don't you want to see the problem fixed?  That's how Sound Devices solved their recent issue with Win 10 - users sent their cards or at least the disk images to SD and Microsoft, and they figured it out.  If in fact this is a problem with the recorder or firmware, why not try to help solve the problem?  When I spoke to him yesterday, he said that only one person had done this.

BTW, if you look at the results of the card survey (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit?pli=1#gid=820901072) so far, there doesn't appear to be any correlation between firmware version and whether or not there are recording errors.  Out of 24 respondents, 11 reported errors.  The firmware of those 11 who reported errors was 1.11 (7), 1.10 (3), and 1.01 (1).  The fact that most of the people have 1.11 doesn't ring any bells for me, as it's the latest version and most people would update to stay current.

Speaking of the 24 people who responded to the survey... well, only 24 people have responded to the survey!  If this really is a widespread issue, I think it would be helpful to everyone reading this who have had trouble to please report it on the survey (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xDG-UQLwa1sbGcnGounjkqqycPLbqikVcN-TRGESjoY/viewform).  Go ahead and email customer support also if you feel it's necessary.  If you really think Tascam is being evasive in how they are dealing with this, then we here have the ability to present them with significant data for them to see it's a significant problem.  Looking at the data we have so far, there are only a very small number of people having problems.  Right now, the sample size is very small, and from everything I can find, TS is the only place reporting problems with the 70D. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: flipp on October 03, 2015, 11:26:06 AM
If you're that dissatisfied with the DR70 and either can't or don't want to wait to see if Tascam can supply a fix, ask the seller for a refund. If they refuse, take it up with your credit card company. If they ask why tell them the device doesn't perform as advertised and they shouldn't have a problem reversing the purchase charges as long as you have tried working out a return with the seller and weren't able to.

Note: each credit card will have slightly different processes for resolving disputes so check with the customer service department of whatever particular card you used.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: flipp on October 03, 2015, 11:32:10 AM

The EU list last updated in March 2015 (I guess nobody caught the "mistake" then either?)

That probably was a good list - then...

But now - 10 months in errors emerge - and the list contracts/redacts.

More tracks being covered by Tascam.

With logic like that then do you also view firmware updates as "more tracks being covered by Tascam"?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 03, 2015, 11:42:42 AM

The EU list last updated in March 2015 (I guess nobody caught the "mistake" then either?)

That probably was a good list - then...

But now - 10 months in errors emerge - and the list contracts/redacts.

More tracks being covered by Tascam.

With logic like that then do you also view firmware updates as "more tracks being covered by Tascam"?

I don't  - I suspect the March 2015 update to the EU card list probably added more cards to the list.

The firmware updates might offer a clue - the latest addition of the new ERASE FORMAT routine might indicate they knew the QUICK FORMAT routine might be problematic.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 03, 2015, 12:33:54 PM

The EU list last updated in March 2015 (I guess nobody caught the "mistake" then either?)

That probably was a good list - then...

But now - 10 months in errors emerge - and the list contracts/redacts.

More tracks being covered by Tascam.

With logic like that then do you also view firmware updates as "more tracks being covered by Tascam"?

Tascam said yesterday that the original list wasn't related to the DR70D, yet they updated the list in March.  If it wasn't related to the DR70D, then why would they have bothered to update the list back then? 

The list was fine until, well it wasn't the list anymore.  See what's happening?  Now they're revising history saying that list was for a different deck...even though they revised the list in March. 

As I said, they going back and covering their tracks.

Look, I bought a card off the new list and it's on its way.  If it fixes everything, great...I'll STFU in this thread.  But Tascam still gets an F-Minus from me for for how they've handled this and this is absolutely the last Tascam product I ever buy.  If you guys want to keep drinking the kool-aid they're serving up, good luck to ya with that in the future.  All you're doing is enabling/providing cover for their poor customer service IMHO.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 03, 2015, 12:40:42 PM
Are the errors audible in real time? I usually dont use headphones.

Has anyone running a backup off LINE OUT found the errors in the backup recording?

Not sure we even know the errors are happening in real time - or part of some other process (like on/off for example)

I have some files that were fine - and then wrote files that had errors - and then old formerly good files had glitches.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 03, 2015, 12:50:42 PM
Are the errors audible in real time? I usually dont use headphones.

Has anyone running a backup off LINE OUT found the errors in the backup recording?

Not sure we even know the errors are happening in real time - or part of some other process (like on/off for example)

I have some files that were fine - and then wrote files that had errors - and then old formerly good files had glitches.

Good questions.  I'll see if I can spend some more time with my unit over the rest of the weekend and get an answer.  I'll also connect four mics to see if I can answer the question about whether the glitch gets written to both pairs of files at the same time.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 03, 2015, 12:58:00 PM

The EU list last updated in March 2015 (I guess nobody caught the "mistake" then either?)

That probably was a good list - then...

But now - 10 months in errors emerge - and the list contracts/redacts.

More tracks being covered by Tascam.

With logic like that then do you also view firmware updates as "more tracks being covered by Tascam"?

Tascam said yesterday that the original list wasn't related to the DR70D, yet they updated the list in March.  If it wasn't related to the DR70D, then why would they have bothered to update the list back then? 

The list was fine until, well it wasn't the list anymore.  See what's happening?  Now they're revising history saying that list was for a different deck...even though they revised the list in March. 

As I said, they going back and covering their tracks.

Look, I bought a card off the new list and it's on its way.  If it fixes everything, great...I'll STFU in this thread.  But Tascam still gets an F-Minus from me for for how they've handled this and this is absolutely the last Tascam product I ever buy.  If you guys want to keep drinking the kool-aid they're serving up, good luck to ya with that in the future.  All you're doing is help provide cover for them IMHO.

No, that's not what was said.  What was said is that the list currently on the EU site is wrong, and they are trying to figure out why it's there and what recorder it is actually for.  Was that the first card list on that site or was there an earlier version?  I checked the Wayback Machine and there are no earlier versions of the site saved before March.  Maybe Tascam paid off the folks at archive.org to delete the evidence?  If so, the original card list is likely being stored in a secure location along with the scenery and props from the faked moon landing and Obama's Kenyan birth certificate.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 03, 2015, 01:23:02 PM
Yesterday, you didn't define if it was a current or past list.  What difference does it make if it's a current list or a past list...the issue is that there are cards on either list that don't work in the unit, right? 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on October 03, 2015, 01:25:13 PM
The EU list is dated 2/3/2015.  Firmware 1.10 is dated 6/2/2015.  Firmware 1.11 is dated 6/26/2015.

I've wondered if the firmware updates made the 70d more picky about cards?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 03, 2015, 01:48:58 PM
Yesterday, you didn't define if it was a current or past list.  What difference does it make if it's a current list or a past list...the issue is that there are cards on either list that don't work in the unit, right?

You're right - I didn't specify, but for all I know the list on the EU site right now is the only one ever posted and Tom was referring to the list we're seeing there now.  In any case, he has established that the current US list is the only one known to be correct at this time, and no one has shown any of those cards to have problems.

It's good to hear you're trying a card on the list - why don't you also send your card that doesn't work in to Tascam?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 03, 2015, 01:57:58 PM
The EU list is dated 2/3/2015.  Firmware 1.10 is dated 6/2/2015.  Firmware 1.11 is dated 6/26/2015.

I've wondered if the firmware updates made the 70d more picky about cards?

That's what several people here have been saying for a while, but again if you read my earlier post here (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=174900.msg2161993#msg2161993), there isn't enough data at this time to support that.

The "Erase Format" feature in the new firmware was also mentioned but hasn't gotten much discussion.  For those that don't know the difference between a "quick" and a "full" format (same thing as "erase" in Tascam's terminology), read these descriptions:
http://www.digicamhelp.com/accessories/memory-cards/best-way-to-format-a-sd-memory-card/ (http://www.digicamhelp.com/accessories/memory-cards/best-way-to-format-a-sd-memory-card/)
http://pointoforigins.com/2014/01/20/quick-format-vs-normal-format-which-one-should-i-choose/ (http://pointoforigins.com/2014/01/20/quick-format-vs-normal-format-which-one-should-i-choose/)
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/80478-tech-myth-2-quick-format-vs-full-format (http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/80478-tech-myth-2-quick-format-vs-full-format)

Here's why you should care: "quick" formatting doesn't check for bad sectors.  I wonder if people who have problems have tried doing an "erase" format?  If the card itself is no good you might still have problems, but it's something free you can try.

EDIT: One caution to those reading the above articles - do not use the built-in Windows formatter to format SD cards, as it will format it in exFAT.  Many devices prefer FAT32, and that format was removed from Windows some time ago.  If you don't want to update to the 1.11 firmware and/or you prefer re-format using your computer, use the SD Formatter (https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/) or FAT32Format (http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm) which will allow you to do a "full" format in the correct filesystem.  You should then follow that up with at least a "quick" format in the recorder.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 03, 2015, 02:01:07 PM
Yesterday, you didn't define if it was a current or past list.  What difference does it make if it's a current list or a past list...the issue is that there are cards on either list that don't work in the unit, right?

You're right - I didn't specify, but for all I know the list on the EU site right now is the only one ever posted and Tom was referring to the list we're seeing there now.  In any case, he has established that the current US list is the only one known to be correct at this time, and no one has shown any of those cards to have problems.

It's good to hear you're trying a card on the list - why don't you also send your card that doesn't work in to Tascam?

It no longer has any of the glitchy data on it.  I've since reformatted it and have been using it in the Zoom F8. 

Life In Rewind suggested a couple of ideas for testing and I'm going to try and make some time to try those out with the card I was using to see what happens.  But since it works well in my F8, I'm not sure about sending it out since I'll be getting a new card for the DR70D too.  Wonder if sending glitchy files electronically without the card would be any help to Tascam?  Probably not.

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 03, 2015, 02:10:47 PM
Yesterday, you didn't define if it was a current or past list.  What difference does it make if it's a current list or a past list...the issue is that there are cards on either list that don't work in the unit, right?

You're right - I didn't specify, but for all I know the list on the EU site right now is the only one ever posted and Tom was referring to the list we're seeing there now.  In any case, he has established that the current US list is the only one known to be correct at this time, and no one has shown any of those cards to have problems.

It's good to hear you're trying a card on the list - why don't you also send your card that doesn't work in to Tascam?

It no longer has any of the glitchy data on it.  I've since reformatted it and have been using it in the Zoom F8. 

Life In Rewind suggested a couple of ideas for testing and I'm going to try and make some time to try those out with the card I was using to see what happens.  But since it works well in my F8, I'm not sure about sending it out since I'll be getting a new card for the DR70D too.  Wonder if sending glitchy files electronically without the card would be any help to Tascam?  Probably not.

You should ask them.  I think that's how the Microsoft engineers figured out the Win 10 / Sound Devices issue.  The MS rep on GS and JWSound asked people to send him disk images and Microsoft was able to analyze them.  That's much more involved than just one file though, and I think he gave them specific instructions on how to do it.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 03, 2015, 06:31:36 PM
am I the first to have noticed this, or did I miss it? It's posted in the first post of parts 1-4 of this thread...

From the EU tascam website http://www.tascam.eu/en/dr-70d.html

QUICK button allows easy access to various functions

My DR-70D lacks a button with the label "QUICK"

A search of the DR-70D reference manual does not even have the word "Quick" in it.  ???

ps if anyone wants to listen for glitches, my first noticeable ones are here (well, the opening set is unlistenable, but this is from the same card, same day) https://archive.org/details/Cracker2015-07-07
I don't recall how much processing I did to make them less obnoxious...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 03, 2015, 07:32:35 PM
am I the first to have noticed this, or did I miss it? It's posted in the first post of parts 1-4 of this thread...

From the EU tascam website http://www.tascam.eu/en/dr-70d.html

QUICK button allows easy access to various functions

My DR-70D lacks a button with the label "QUICK"

A search of the DR-70D reference manual does not even have the word "Quick" in it.  ???

Pretty obvious that's a misprint and they mean MENU.

Here are two more misprints on the features listed two lines above and two lines below that one:

Quote
  • A new file can be created during recording
...
  • Equalizers for playback, and level alignment function to enhance the perceived overall sound pressure

The first one should say: "will automatically create a new file every 2GB".  As for the second one: what equalizers for playback???

Besides these errors, some of the other features are not clearly stated.  The EU product page is poorly put together and looks like it wasn't given any attention after it was created.  They don't even have a full specifications listing - no gain levels, etc.  In contrast, the USA page for the 70D is much cleaner, more complete, and has significantly different language used to describe the features.

The EU site also has the old Reference Manual from December 2014; the new one has been on the USA site since August 25 of this year.

Finally, check out the very bottom of the EU 70D page:
Quote
Last modified: 2015-03-02 17:28:21 UTC

That's the same date the suspect media list on that site was posted.  (Remember that 02.03.2015 means 2nd of March, 2015 in European parlance.)

Take all of this together, and I think it's getting more and more plausible that someone was careless and posted the wrong media list in their downloads section.  If Tascam has something to answer for regarding the 70D, I think it's the false information on the EU site.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on October 03, 2015, 10:56:51 PM


BTW, if you look at the results of the card survey (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit?pli=1#gid=820901072) so far, there doesn't appear to be any correlation between firmware version and whether or not there are recording errors.  Out of 24 respondents, 11 reported errors.  The firmware of those 11 who reported errors was 1.11 (7), 1.10 (3), and 1.01 (1).  The fact that most of the people have 1.11 doesn't ring any bells for me, as it's the latest version and most people would update to stay current.

 

Summarizing the survey, version 1.00 one user no issue, version 1.01 one user with issue, version 1.02 two users no issues, then half of the version 1.1 users and half of the version 1.11 users reported issues.  7 of the 11 reported errors involved cards that were owned 0-1 years.  Of the cards that had errors, two were 32g, three were 64g, five were 16g and one was 8g. 

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: noahbickart on October 04, 2015, 01:06:39 PM
Look, I bought a card off the new list and it's on its way.  If it fixes everything, great...I'll STFU in this thread.  But Tascam still gets an F-Minus from me for for how they've handled this and this is absolutely the last Tascam product I ever buy.  If you guys want to keep drinking the kool-aid they're serving up, good luck to ya with that in the future.  All you're doing is enabling/providing cover for their poor customer service IMHO.

I think this is reasonable. I agree, it is lame that the Tascam does not work with the vast majority of cards, and this is a problem.

I just like the form factor and sound of the deck when it works correctly, and would love to get Tascam to make it work better if they can.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jbosco on October 05, 2015, 09:01:01 AM
Rather than engaging in conspiracy theories, has anyone actually acted on Tom's recommendation send their card containing errors to Tascam (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2161544#msg2161544) so they could analyze it?  You can self-congratulate yourselves all you want on your brilliant theories regarding Tascam's possible bait-and-switch, but at the end of the day, don't you want to see the problem fixed?  That's how Sound Devices solved their recent issue with Win 10 - users sent their cards or at least the disk images to SD and Microsoft, and they figured it out.  If in fact this is a problem with the recorder or firmware, why not try to help solve the problem?  When I spoke to him yesterday, he said that only one person had done this.

I contacted them last week and they got back to me over the weekend, they are going to arrange a pickup for my card.  FWIW the card still has the files with the glitches, however my problem was less then a second long, but does appear on both the main recording and the -6dB safety.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: johnmuge on October 05, 2015, 02:50:40 PM
I erased the bad files but I do have them saved to my external hard drive.  I contacted Tascam to see if they want the card with the filed reloaded.  I did pick up a 16 GB Sandisk card that is on there good list.  Now I'm just contemplating on weather I upgrade the firmware to V1.11 or leave the V1.10 that has been running good. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 05, 2015, 04:39:55 PM
Unreal.

They are denying that they have heard about this from more than two people. They admit that I have contacted support about this issue but claim that only one other user in the entire world has done so.

Quote
On September 29, 2015, the business provided the following information:
TASCAM has been an industry leading manufacturer of high quality yet affordable

multitrack recorders for over 40 years. There are times when the technology used in

the development of such recorders provide capabilities that are out in front of other

related products. In the case of the DR-70D, our initial tests on available media

(specifically SDXC media) has shown that they are not meeting the stringent

requirements of the unique recording capabilities of the DR-70D. The issue is not the DR-70D hardware but the available SDXC media.

Current tests are revealing a number of cards that do seem to meet the necessary requirements. Once all tests are completed, an updated list which includes the acceptable cards will be posted on our website.

Just for the record, of the thousands of DR-70D recorders we have sold since November of last year, outside of Mr. Scharff, there has only been one other user contact us (and that was today) concerning SDXC media.
 


https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/443623/c/h68r4v
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 05, 2015, 04:57:32 PM
^ Wow.  Just... Wow.

Just heard from Tom today.  The media list on Tascam Europe was fixed today.  It was determined that the one that was there was for the DR-100mkII.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 05, 2015, 05:20:50 PM
Just heard from Tom today.  The media list on Tascam Europe was fixed today.  It was determined that the one that was there was for the DR-100mkII.

D'oh!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: pohaku on October 05, 2015, 06:26:26 PM
Unreal.

They are denying that they have heard about this from more than two people. They admit that I have contacted support about this issue but claim that only one other user in the entire world has done so.

Quote
On September 29, 2015, the business provided the following information:
TASCAM has been an industry leading manufacturer of high quality yet affordable

multitrack recorders for over 40 years. There are times when the technology used in

the development of such recorders provide capabilities that are out in front of other

related products. In the case of the DR-70D, our initial tests on available media

(specifically SDXC media) has shown that they are not meeting the stringent

requirements of the unique recording capabilities of the DR-70D. The issue is not the DR-70D hardware but the available SDXC media.

Current tests are revealing a number of cards that do seem to meet the necessary requirements. Once all tests are completed, an updated list which includes the acceptable cards will be posted on our website.

Just for the record, of the thousands of DR-70D recorders we have sold since November of last year, outside of Mr. Scharff, there has only been one other user contact us (and that was today) concerning SDXC media.
 


https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/443623/c/h68r4v

Well, although there has been significant discussion on this site, I don't know whether any of the other members with problems actually contacted Tascam about them.  Perhaps we should submit the survey results to Tascam as a work in progress.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 05, 2015, 06:53:11 PM
You mean the survey with only 25 respondents and only 11 reports of problems?  Pretty weak evidence.  If this problem really is widespread, then there should be a lot more people reporting it on the survey and/or contacting Tascam about it.  Until that happens, it's just going to look like a few isolated incidents.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 05, 2015, 06:57:14 PM
You mean the survey with only 25 respondents and only 11 reports of problems?  Pretty weak evidence.  If this problem really is widespread, then there should be a lot more people reporting it on the survey and/or contacting Tascam about it.  Until that happens, it's just going to look like a few isolated incidents.

Where has this survey been posted? Just here?

I think you are over-estimating the reach of this site...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 05, 2015, 07:08:46 PM
You mean the survey with only 25 respondents and only 11 reports of problems? 

Roughly half of the respondents report problems...that seems significant - even with a small-ish sample.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: flipp on October 05, 2015, 07:21:05 PM
Unreal.

They are denying that they have heard about this from more than two people. They admit that I have contacted support about this issue but claim that only one other user in the entire world has done so.

Quote
On September 29, 2015, the business provided the following information:
TASCAM has been an industry leading manufacturer of high quality yet affordable

multitrack recorders for over 40 years. There are times when the technology used in

the development of such recorders provide capabilities that are out in front of other

related products. In the case of the DR-70D, our initial tests on available media

(specifically SDXC media) has shown that they are not meeting the stringent

requirements of the unique recording capabilities of the DR-70D. The issue is not the DR-70D hardware but the available SDXC media.

Current tests are revealing a number of cards that do seem to meet the necessary requirements. Once all tests are completed, an updated list which includes the acceptable cards will be posted on our website.

Just for the record, of the thousands of DR-70D recorders we have sold since November of last year, outside of Mr. Scharff, there has only been one other user contact us (and that was today) concerning SDXC media.
 


https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/443623/c/h68r4v

Well, although there has been significant discussion on this site, I don't know whether any of the other members with problems actually contacted Tascam about them.  Perhaps we should submit the survey results to Tascam as a work in progress.

How would Tascam know how many people tried to contact them since they admit there is a problem with their website contact form (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=172830.msg2149476#msg2149476)?

Quote

Email support : the form on this webpage is currently broken:
http://tascam.com/contact/support/

don't fill it in!  It currently generates an auto-response, but doesn't forward the email to our internal system.

For customers in the US, email us directly at custser@tascam.com
For customers in the US needing to send in a unit for repair : contact@teacfactoryservice.com
For customers in the US, and worldwide who are willing to pay for international shipping, needing a part to do their own repairs : parts@teac.com
Phone support for US customers: 323-726-0303 ext. 617 (M-F, 8am-5pm Pacific)

For customers outside of the US, start here: http://teac-global.com/   and follow the links for your country/language.
 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 05, 2015, 07:28:16 PM
^ Did you even follow the link in that post you referenced?  If you actually look at said form, it clearly directs you to the customer service email address.

That said, it's ridiculous that the form is still not fixed.  But the email address is right there, so reason to not use it.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: greenmtnsrider on October 05, 2015, 07:31:38 PM
I did contact Tascam about my 70d, they directed me to the sd card list...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 05, 2015, 07:47:44 PM
I did contact Tascam about my 70d, they directed me to the sd card list...
was that today?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: flipp on October 05, 2015, 07:50:48 PM
^ Did you even follow the link in that post you referenced?  If you actually look at said form, it clearly directs you to the customer service email address.

That said, it's ridiculous that the form is still not fixed.  But the email address is right there, so reason to not use it.

If you meant did I click on the email link, no I didn't; if you meant did I read the post I linked, yes I did and then edited my post and copied the email addies.

My point is if non--TSers tried to get in touch with Tascam via the broken form, Tascam would have no record of the attempted contact (unless someone read the logs and even then it might not appear since it doesn't get forwarded); thus their only one other person has notified us of the problem may not be accurate.

I also recall seeing another email address posted: cusserv@tascam.com At the time I thought it was probably a typo but now am not so sure.

In the meantime the DR70 is no longer on my short list of 4channel recorders. If/when the engineers identify the problem and issue a patch/fix via frimware update I'll add it back to my list. At the moment the R44 is the leading candidate but due to some recent dental expenses my pocketbook tells me all 4channel recorders are on hold.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 05, 2015, 07:59:25 PM
Hmm...just noticed my camera's card is one of the approved/tested cards (SanDisk Ultra Plus 16GB)

I've filled it maybe 3 times - about a 3 months old.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: greenmtnsrider on October 05, 2015, 08:40:29 PM
I did contact Tascam about my 70d, they directed me to the sd card list...
was that today?

no, this was a couple weeks back. the last email i received from them said if i needed a warranty claim i could send it in. i didnt follow up
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 05, 2015, 08:53:23 PM
Unreal.

They are denying that they have heard about this from more than two people. They admit that I have contacted support about this issue but claim that only one other user in the entire world has done so.

Hang in there Morst.  At first I thought the filing was crazy, but seeing their response, more of the same bullcrap.  If nothing else, hopefully it'll steer more and more people like Flipp away from buying Tascam products in the future.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 05, 2015, 09:09:02 PM
Hang in there Morst.  At first I thought the filing was crazy, but seeing their response, more of the same bullcrap.  If nothing else, hopefully it'll steer more and more people like Flipp away from buying Tascam products in the future.
thanks, under most circumstances, I wouldn't expect that a BBB filing would be the shortest path to a solution, but as individual consumers, we only have so many avenues. I really just want the thing to do what they say it can!

Alas, this is not most circumstances. This is personal.

My master of the opening set from 2015-07-07 is unusable. I know Tascam ain't on the hook for my decision to run without 4-channel backup, so they don't owe me anything financially for that one... but they do owe me some truth, I think the FTC still requires statements to be factual. Yup.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/truth-advertising

Quote
Truth In Advertising
When consumers see or hear an advertisement, whether it’s on the Internet, radio or television, or anywhere else, federal law says that ad must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on October 06, 2015, 10:54:54 AM
checking in
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on October 06, 2015, 11:15:54 AM
You mean the survey with only 25 respondents and only 11 reports of problems? 

Roughly half of the respondents report problems...that seems significant - even with a small-ish sample.

I continue to be struck by half of the version 1.10 and half of the version 1.11 users reporting issues on the survey with most of them using what I would interpret from the survey to be 0-1 year old, Sandisk cards-not four or five year old off brand cards. 

If I were going to ask a follow up question to the survey, I would ask where those users bought their 70ds and when where they bought?   

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/09/operation-full-disclosure-targets-more-60-national-advertisers  The legal commentary I heard on this earlier this year strongly suggested to me that advertising that makes a claim isn't going to fly when the fine print negates the claim and isn't likely to be noticed by consumers.  Search FTC "Operation Full Disclosure"   if you want to find out more.

 

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: audBall on October 06, 2015, 11:02:41 PM
Tested media list updated today:
http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 07, 2015, 04:56:37 AM
Wow, cool, one 128 SDXC card and two 64 GB cards, one of which is japanese.

Well, I guess my job here is "done"  :o

as long as we don't run into trouble with cards on the list.

PS watch out for the cards on the list with the *1!

Quote
*1 The performace of the media may be degraded significantly if used repeatedly.
 Once the card is full (data transferred if necessary), ERASE-FORMAT using the DR-70D is
 recommended prior to using the card again.

Tested media list updated today:
http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: aaronji on October 07, 2015, 06:40:56 AM
Tested media list updated today:
http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf

It's interesting that, with one exception, all of the cards are ultra high speed.  It's also interesting that sometimes a larger/smaller version of the same card will produce different results.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ts on October 07, 2015, 03:10:59 PM
None of cards on updated list are available at B&H. On the original list the 32g Panasonic is discontinued and the other listed 32g cards are NG unless you want to shell out 75 for the top 32g. Epic fail in my book.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 07, 2015, 03:35:06 PM
So... is this one good?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007NDL54C?keywords=sandisk%20extreme%20pro%20sdxc&qid=1444246339&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on October 07, 2015, 03:44:26 PM
None of cards on updated list are available at B&H.

Sandisk  Extreme Pro SDHC™ UHS-I card SDSDXPA-016G http://tinyurl.com/nwq9wsj  available at NewEgg


SanDisk  Extreme Pro SDHC™ UHS-Ⅱ SDSDXPB-032G http://tinyurl.com/ozvcogc  available at B&H

SanDisk  Extreme Pro SDHC™ UHS-I (CLASS 10) SDSDXP-016G http://tinyurl.com/76n4uxu available at B&H
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on October 07, 2015, 03:48:39 PM
i have a question re: high capacity cards.

do you guys routinely tape in situations that require you to have more than 16 or 32 gb of space available?  honestly, i don't think i would ever encounter a situation in the live music recording world where a 128gb card would be absolutely necessary.

i guess what i am saying is, why not just purchase the cheaper 16 or 32 gb card and then format it in the unit the next time you are going to use it?  that seems like the safe option to me.

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: noahbickart on October 07, 2015, 03:54:45 PM
I purchased a 32gig card from the approved list and had no problems running 4 channels at 24/48 for TTB Saturday night.

I agree that it is annoying that the DR70d is so picky about media,

But,

Once you put an approved card in it:

1) it works really well
2) runs forever off of a 5v USB battery
3) sounds fantastic.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 07, 2015, 05:17:17 PM
i have a question re: high capacity cards.

do you guys routinely tape in situations that require you to have more than 16 or 32 gb of space available?  honestly, i don't think i would ever encounter a situation in the live music recording world where a 128gb card would be absolutely necessary.

i guess what i am saying is, why not just purchase the cheaper 16 or 32 gb card and then format it in the unit the next time you are going to use it?  that seems like the safe option to me.

All summer long.  I attended seven music festivals this year.  A little crazy this year, but I had the time this summer.  I record multiple stages so I often will start my recorder recording first thing in the morning and stop when the music stops at night.  Sometimes the only thing I need to do during the day is change my external battery.  In other words I let the recording roll continuously for over 12 hours.  So my preference is for 128gb cards so I don't have to change the card out until I get home.  Keeps me from having to keep track of cards during the weekend.

SDXC media was one of the first features I focused in on when I bought this unit.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: pohaku on October 07, 2015, 05:18:41 PM
I bought the Panasonic 32 gig card 2 weeks ago on Amazon.  Prime 2 day delivery and no issues.  Bought one of the 16 gig SD cards as well.  Haven't shopped the new additions yet.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ts on October 07, 2015, 05:32:33 PM
None of cards on updated list are available at B&H.

Sandisk  Extreme Pro SDHC™ UHS-I card SDSDXPA-016G http://tinyurl.com/nwq9wsj  available at NewEgg


SanDisk  Extreme Pro SDHC™ UHS-Ⅱ SDSDXPB-032G http://tinyurl.com/ozvcogc  available at B&H

SanDisk  Extreme Pro SDHC™ UHS-I (CLASS 10) SDSDXP-016G http://tinyurl.com/76n4uxu available at B&H

I was looking at the new updated list. Not the one that's been out for awhile.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 07, 2015, 07:26:27 PM
None of cards on updated list are available at B&H. On the original list the 32g Panasonic is discontinued and the other listed 32g cards are NG unless you want to shell out 75 for the top 32g. Epic fail in my book.

Google the model numbers.  Two of the new additions come right up at B&H:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824139-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_016G_A75_Extreme_Pro_16_GB.html (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824139-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_016G_A75_Extreme_Pro_16_GB.html)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html)

And then one more of the new ones is available at NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171592 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171592)

The new 128GB is also in stock at Amazon, and I'd feel comfortable buying it only because it is stocked by and shipped directly from them:
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-Memory-SDSDXPA-128G-G46/dp/B00NP63Y4K (http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-Memory-SDSDXPA-128G-G46/dp/B00NP63Y4K)

You brought up that Panasonic card a few weeks ago, and someone corrected you on that but I guess I'll do it again.  It shows up as Discontinued ONLY at B&H, but has continued to be in stock here (again, as has been said before):

http://shop.panasonic.com/cameras-and-camcorders/camera-and-camcorder-accessories/camera-accessories/sd-microsd-cards/RP-SDUC32GAK.html (http://shop.panasonic.com/cameras-and-camcorders/camera-and-camcorder-accessories/camera-accessories/sd-microsd-cards/RP-SDUC32GAK.html)
http://www.adorama.com/pcsduc132ak.html (http://www.adorama.com/pcsduc132ak.html)

Sure, not all of the new cards added to the list are in stock with US retailers, but these are pretty new cards to market so that's to be expected.

How hard was that?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ts on October 07, 2015, 07:57:25 PM
I bought the Panasonic 32 gig card 2 weeks ago on Amazon.  Prime 2 day delivery and no issues.  Bought one of the 16 gig SD cards as well.  Haven't shopped the new additions yet.

Just ordered one as well. Thanks for the heads up!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ts on October 07, 2015, 08:22:05 PM
None of cards on updated list are available at B&H. On the original list the 32g Panasonic is discontinued and the other listed 32g cards are NG unless you want to shell out 75 for the top 32g. Epic fail in my book.

Google the model numbers.  Two of the new additions come right up at B&H:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824139-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_016G_A75_Extreme_Pro_16_GB.html (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824139-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_016G_A75_Extreme_Pro_16_GB.html)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html)

And then one more of the new ones is available at NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171592 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171592)

The new 128GB is also in stock at Amazon, and I'd feel comfortable buying it only because it is stocked by and shipped directly from them:
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-Memory-SDSDXPA-128G-G46/dp/B00NP63Y4K (http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-Memory-SDSDXPA-128G-G46/dp/B00NP63Y4K)

You brought up that Panasonic card a few weeks ago, and someone corrected you on that but I guess I'll do it again.  It shows up as Discontinued ONLY at B&H, but has continued to be in stock here (again, as has been said before):

http://shop.panasonic.com/cameras-and-camcorders/camera-and-camcorder-accessories/camera-accessories/sd-microsd-cards/RP-SDUC32GAK.html (http://shop.panasonic.com/cameras-and-camcorders/camera-and-camcorder-accessories/camera-accessories/sd-microsd-cards/RP-SDUC32GAK.html)
http://www.adorama.com/pcsduc132ak.html (http://www.adorama.com/pcsduc132ak.html)

Sure, not all of the new cards added to the list are in stock with US retailers, but these are pretty new cards to market so that's to be expected.

How hard was that?

I checked B&H directly today on every new card listed as soon I saw the new list and not one showed up. Maybe they were just added today?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 07, 2015, 08:50:18 PM
None of cards on updated list are available at B&H. On the original list the 32g Panasonic is discontinued and the other listed 32g cards are NG unless you want to shell out 75 for the top 32g. Epic fail in my book.

Google the model numbers.  Two of the new additions come right up at B&H:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824139-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_016G_A75_Extreme_Pro_16_GB.html (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824139-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_016G_A75_Extreme_Pro_16_GB.html)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html)

And then one more of the new ones is available at NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171592 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171592)

The new 128GB is also in stock at Amazon, and I'd feel comfortable buying it only because it is stocked by and shipped directly from them:
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-Memory-SDSDXPA-128G-G46/dp/B00NP63Y4K (http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-Memory-SDSDXPA-128G-G46/dp/B00NP63Y4K)

You brought up that Panasonic card a few weeks ago, and someone corrected you on that but I guess I'll do it again.  It shows up as Discontinued ONLY at B&H, but has continued to be in stock here (again, as has been said before):

http://shop.panasonic.com/cameras-and-camcorders/camera-and-camcorder-accessories/camera-accessories/sd-microsd-cards/RP-SDUC32GAK.html (http://shop.panasonic.com/cameras-and-camcorders/camera-and-camcorder-accessories/camera-accessories/sd-microsd-cards/RP-SDUC32GAK.html)
http://www.adorama.com/pcsduc132ak.html (http://www.adorama.com/pcsduc132ak.html)

Sure, not all of the new cards added to the list are in stock with US retailers, but these are pretty new cards to market so that's to be expected.

How hard was that?

I checked B&H directly today on every new card listed as soon I saw the new list and not one showed up. Maybe they were just added today?

It's possible that B&H just added those two, but I think you shouldn't limit yourself to only searching on B&H.  Sure, I prefer to buy from them for most photo / audio stuff, but they don't have everything and there's other good sellers out there.  NewEgg in particular has always been my go-to for computer parts, memory, etc.  I've also been fine with flash memory from Amazon as long as I've made sure it's actually stocked by them and not a third party.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 07, 2015, 09:24:09 PM
Something I just discovered with these SD card model numbers - it's possible the same exact card may be being sold under two different SKUs.  For instance, the 128GB card listed first on the new media list:

SDSDXPA-128G  Searching this part number gives you this card (http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-Memory-SDSDXPA-128G-G46/dp/B00NP63Y4K).

But back in Part 4 of the discussion thread where Tom linked a few cards that were looking good on testing though not yet on the list, he linked this one (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1082349-REG/sandisk_sdsdxp_128g_a46_128gb_extreme_pro_uhs_i.html), which is the same model number minus the "A" and appears to be the same exact card.

SanDisk's website lists all of these Extreme Pro UHS-I Class 3 cards as SDSDXP-xxx without the "A".  So I'm wondering if that's just a second stock / model number for the same cards sent through different distributors or something.

EDIT: Here's the post (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2161340#msg2161340) I was referencing above.

Now that we know that TEAC Japan is doing all of the card testing and creating these media lists, I think I've found more evidence to support my theory on different model number variations to indicate the same exact card sold in different markets:

The newly updated 70D media list has SDSDXL-064G as a new 64GB card.  That model number search shows only Japanese and Chinese vendors.  In fact, if f you search just the beginning of the model number: "SDSDXL" you get a whole bunch of Japanese and Chinese sales links to cards in that family.  Now go back and look at Tom's earlier post I linked above, which has SDSDXN-064G as a preliminary recommendation.  That card comes up right away at B&H, Amazon, etc. and again it appears to be the same exact card.

So basically what all of this means is that we need to search for variations in the last letter of the main model number for SanDisk cards before we decide a card is not available in the US.  TEAC Japan is posting the model numbers that are available in Japan and those same cards may be sold under a slightly varied model number in the US.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on October 08, 2015, 02:19:50 AM
i have a question re: high capacity cards.

do you guys routinely tape in situations that require you to have more than 16 or 32 gb of space available?  honestly, i don't think i would ever encounter a situation in the live music recording world where a 128gb card would be absolutely necessary.

i guess what i am saying is, why not just purchase the cheaper 16 or 32 gb card and then format it in the unit the next time you are going to use it?  that seems like the safe option to me.

All summer long.  I attended seven music festivals this year.  A little crazy this year, but I had the time this summer.  I record multiple stages so I often will start my recorder recording first thing in the morning and stop when the music stops at night.  Sometimes the only thing I need to do during the day is change my external battery.  In other words I let the recording roll continuously for over 12 hours.  So my preference is for 128gb cards so I don't have to change the card out until I get home.  Keeps me from having to keep track of cards during the weekend.

SDXC media was one of the first features I focused in on when I bought this unit.

OK, I guess that does make sense, thanks for the detailed response.  With the media being so cheap now it does allow for a variety of options, whether you want to go with 1 128gb card or 2 64gb, 4 32gb etc...

I think this little problem of card issues should be able to be resolved with a new firmware update specifically aimed at fixing this issue, yes?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: goodcooker on October 08, 2015, 08:15:18 AM



So basically what all of this means is that we need to search for variations in the last letter of the main model number for SanDisk cards before we decide a card is not available in the US.  TEAC Japan is posting the model numbers that are available in Japan and those same cards may be sold under a slightly varied model number a recorder from a company that does their due diligence before releasing a product in the US.

Fixed that for you...

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: noahbickart on October 08, 2015, 08:37:54 AM
So basically what all of this means is that we need to search for variations in the last letter of the main model number for SanDisk cards before we decide a card is not available in the US.  TEAC Japan is posting the model numbers that are available in Japan and those same cards may be sold under a slightly varied model number in the US.

And this, regardless of how you feel about tascam's engineering and/or marketing, is why running the representative off of our board is bad for everyone.

Confirmation of this insight is precisely the kind of thing a Tascam rep could do for us. But he won't now, because we scared him away.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: goodcooker on October 08, 2015, 09:06:26 AM
Tascam should be judged on the accuracy and availability of information about their products that is available to everyone who buys them. They should have accurate information on their websites, relevant to each market in which they are sold, which should be updated regularly especially for newer products that are having problems.

Not just speculation from a rep on a message board. What are the people that aren't members here supposed to do? Deal with customer service? We have seen how that's gone.

And NO ONE here treated him shabbily. We didn't "run him off". He bailed. I haven't even seen any cussing in this thread. It's been as civil as can be considering it's the internet.

I sincerely hope they get this thing fully tested because I actually still want one.....
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 08, 2015, 09:45:45 AM
Goodcooker, you're missing the parts of the thread with language that included 'better business bureau', 'attorney' and 'class action suit'.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: goodcooker on October 08, 2015, 10:18:40 AM
Goodcooker, you're missing the parts of the thread with language that included 'better business bureau', 'attorney' and 'class action suit'.

Nope. Didn't miss that at all. Morst (the person who made those claims) lives in the USA where those things you mentioned are the available remedy for the consumer who feels liked they have been wronged. Asserting your rights as a consumer is not a threat or denigrating to the company or it's representatives.

I think it's a little over the top (especially the comment about taking the matter to the Attorney General) but it's well withing his rights to seek those remedies.

The claim to the BBB actually got a response from the company, could prompt people to report their problems to Tascam support and to get the company to address those problems.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Colin Liston on October 08, 2015, 10:35:02 AM
Has anyone here put up reviews of this deck on places like Amazon or B&H?  I would think a bunch of negative reviews on Amazon or B&H would prompt Tascam to act faster than a long debate  on a tapers forum.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 08, 2015, 10:55:34 AM
Morst has every right to 'assert' his rights, just as Tomou had every right to say 'cya'. The point is.. it's like Newtons third law.. for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Justify it however you'd like, but we (meaning ALL of us on this thread) no longer have the input of a Tascam rep.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: raoulduke on October 08, 2015, 11:13:05 AM
Quote from: tomuo on September 28, 2015, 12:00:04 PM
Preliminary info from card testing:

Sandisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-1 128GB + 64GB    class 10 U3
Sandisk Extreme SDXC UHS-1 64GB class 10 U3

For many cards we tested, we can put the card in a state where its write speed drops too low for full channel count at max FS.   Only these sandisk cards had worst case write speed that meets out needs.
Quote from: jbosco on September 28, 2015, 01:19:36 PM
Are you saying these cards are good?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1087560-REG/sandisk_sdsdxn_064g_g46_extreme_sdhc_uhs_1_u3.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824149-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_064G_A75_Extreme_Pro_64GB_SDHC_SDXC.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1082349-REG/sandisk_sdsdxp_128g_a46_128gb_extreme_pro_uhs_i.html
Quote from: tomuo on September 28, 2015, 02:18:06 PM
Yes, those are the ones.

SanDisk 64gb Extreme UHS-I U3 SDXC Memory Card (Class 10) Part # SDSDXN-064G-G46
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820173023

I just purchased the SanDisk 64gb card (Part # SDSDXN-064G-G46) direct from Newegg for $34.99 and will report back after running some 4 channel test recordings at 24/96.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 08, 2015, 11:20:20 AM
Quote from: tomuo on September 28, 2015, 12:00:04 PM
Preliminary info from card testing:

Sandisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-1 128GB + 64GB    class 10 U3
Sandisk Extreme SDXC UHS-1 64GB class 10 U3

For many cards we tested, we can put the card in a state where its write speed drops too low for full channel count at max FS.   Only these sandisk cards had worst case write speed that meets out needs.
Quote from: jbosco on September 28, 2015, 01:19:36 PM
Are you saying these cards are good?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1087560-REG/sandisk_sdsdxn_064g_g46_extreme_sdhc_uhs_1_u3.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824149-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_064G_A75_Extreme_Pro_64GB_SDHC_SDXC.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1082349-REG/sandisk_sdsdxp_128g_a46_128gb_extreme_pro_uhs_i.html
Quote from: tomuo on September 28, 2015, 02:18:06 PM
Yes, those are the ones.

SanDisk 64gb Extreme UHS-I U3 SDXC Memory Card (Class 10) Part # SDSDXN-064G-G46
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820173023

I just purchased the SanDisk 64gb card (Part # SDSDXN-064G-G46) direct from Newegg for $34.99 and will report back after running some 4 channel test recordings at 24/96.


But...but...that card is not on the list... (only in a post)

...unless that is your point... ;)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on October 08, 2015, 11:48:00 AM
Has anyone here put up reviews of this deck on places like Amazon or B&H?  I would think a bunch of negative reviews on Amazon or B&H would prompt Tascam to act faster than a long debate  on a tapers forum.

Morst gave the only 1 star DR-70 rating on Amazon. 86% gave either 4 or 5 stars. None of the (three) 2 star reviewers mentioned an SD card problem.
No reviews at B&H.

Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on October 08, 2015, 12:19:01 PM
Not having the Tascam rep on here is a loss for TS and for Tascam, and Tascam needs to take a look at how Behringer is in the process of changing their image in the pro sound market.  When they introduced the XR wireless series of mixers, they set up their own discussion forum to interact with customers.  There are challenges in controlling these mixers via WIFI with Ipads, PCS, and tablets.  But instead of sticking their heads in the sand and letting customers speculate and get the wrong answers on their own with the consequence of potentially growing resentment in the customer base, Behringer has stepped up to give specific answers and have honest discussions with their customer base.  People who wouldn't have touched a Behringer product are now customers because Behringer had the good business sense to make a good product and then educate its customers on how to effectively use their new technology. The XR12 is a $299 wireless mixer in the same price range as the 70d. 

Hopefully, the approved card list solves the problem for 70d users and this turns out to just be a minor deal. 

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: greenmtnsrider on October 08, 2015, 12:35:31 PM
I'm really hoping certain SD cards are the problem and this does prove to be a minor mishap in the grand scheme of things. I really liked the form factor, sound and performance of the deck with an external battery in my short time I used this deck and would jump back in quickly. Till then I'm running a Busman mod 680. Fingers crossed.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 08, 2015, 03:06:35 PM
at this point, I have closed my BBB complaint, seeing as I got the results I said I was seeking.

https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/443623/c/h68r4v

I am disappointed but not surprised that I have come under fire here for asserting my rights.

Now the only question, is will anyone have problems with anything from the new approved-card list?

So we wait. and wait. and wait. As soon as nobody ever has any more problems with approved cards, then we know the problem is solved! Tah-daaaah!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on October 08, 2015, 03:43:23 PM
at this point, I have closed my BBB complaint, seeing as I got the results I said I was seeking.

https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/443623/c/h68r4v

I am disappointed but not surprised that I have come under fire here for asserting my rights.

Now the only question, is will anyone have problems with anything from the new approved-card list?

So we wait. and wait. and wait. As soon as nobody ever has any more problems with approved cards, then we know the problem is solved! Tah-daaaah!

You didn't come under fire for 'asserting your rights', but because of the hot-headed way in which you reacted and p'd off the only guy who might possibly have been able to help (i.e., all of us). When your non-approved card failed, why didn't you first try an approved one, before you started making accusations?

My 2 cents, take it or leave it
Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 08, 2015, 04:29:09 PM
I'm also disappointed with this group Morst.  A page or two ago a comment was made that only 11 people have reported card problems.  ONLY 11 out of 25.

What's clear from reading this thread is that many people are OK with the response Tascam has made to this issue, but what those people cannot seem to understand is that others have not been OK with Tascam's response.  Frankly, to those that are satisfied, you have no right to decide for others whether or not they should be OK with Tascam or not.  (In my case, I have a three year history with them dating back to unresolved DR100MKii issues, so my dissatisfaction has precedent that's driving my responses.)

However, it seems that the most important thing to many now is to continue assigning blame that the Tascam customer service rep seems to have left.  Nevermind, that it's Tascam's job to respond to customer inquiries, no matter if they're edgy or not.  Nevermind that Tascam provides bad to nonexistent service from their formal site.  Since we can't get answers there, we needed to walk on egg shells with them here.  Why?  Because if we don't treat them with kid gloves, we might say something that doesn't sit well...even though they're customer service!  IMHO that's backwards thinking.

So, yeah the customer service rep isn't here because he wasn't treated with loving kindness, but why do people continue to provide cover for their awful service?  Isn't anyone besides me pissed off that Tascam cares so little about its customers that when they bail out on taperssection, we're left with NOTHING?  To be mad at people for challenging their responses and 'chasing them off' is just twisted thinking that's conditioned by the fact that they suck at customer service in the first place.  If they had REAL customer service, people wouldn't need to care as that much if they had someone here, though sure it would be nice to have a direct line to them.

What would customers say if Tascam shut down their customer service links on their webpage with a message that said 'we're outta here, people weren't being nice to us, so we've decided not to offer ANY customer service'?  Would you be pissed at customers for complaining on their website and blame them for Tascam taking away customer services?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on October 08, 2015, 04:47:12 PM
+T tonedeaf
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: tomuo on October 08, 2015, 04:56:20 PM
For the record, it was this comment from tonedeaf that accused me of lying and being some part of a cover-up, that made it clear I wasn't welcome here and that anything I wrote would be dissected and re-interpreted to your own preconceptions.    This really is my last post here.

Quote
I'm confused...and frankly somewhat bothered by your response.  On the one hand you're saying you don't know the answer about buffering.  I assume you must know something about these units or you wouldn't be responding.  So for this answer, you aren't tech saavy enough to give me a straight answer, or even suggest that you'll try to find out the answer, so you just say 'I don't know'.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on October 08, 2015, 05:05:57 PM
Big +T then, tonedeaf   :facepalm: :facepalm:  :coolguy:


Hope tomuo can find some decent work somewhere, where his feelings won't get hurt.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 08, 2015, 05:08:51 PM
see? I wasn't the one who drove him off!!!

 :laugh:


at this point, I have closed my BBB complaint, seeing as I got the results I said I was seeking.

https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/443623/c/h68r4v

I am disappointed but not surprised that I have come under fire here for asserting my rights.

Now the only question, is will anyone have problems with anything from the new approved-card list?

So we wait. and wait. and wait. As soon as nobody ever has any more problems with approved cards, then we know the problem is solved! Tah-daaaah!

You didn't come under fire for 'asserting your rights', but because of the hot-headed way in which you reacted and p'd off the only guy who might possibly have been able to help (i.e., all of us). When your non-approved card failed, why didn't you first try an approved one, before you started making accusations?

My 2 cents, take it or leave it
Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 08, 2015, 05:19:27 PM
For the record, it was this comment from tonedeaf that accused me of lying and being some part of a cover-up, that made it clear I wasn't welcome here and that anything I wrote would be dissected and re-interpreted to your own preconceptions.    This really is my last post here.

Quote
I'm confused...and frankly somewhat bothered by your response.  On the one hand you're saying you don't know the answer about buffering.  I assume you must know something about these units or you wouldn't be responding.  So for this answer, you aren't tech saavy enough to give me a straight answer, or even suggest that you'll try to find out the answer, so you just say 'I don't know'.

Wow - I surely didn't see it as a personal accusation - more of an indictment and expression of dissatisfaction with TASCAM's response.

Tascam should have some concern for perception...even if they know its not reality or a misrepresentation.

Im surprised "the rep" wasn't better versed at internet diplomacy. Ignore the more acerbic posters - but perhaps express some concern. (which he finally did)

And you have to admit - TASCAM has some screw ups (misleading, out of date card infos) and stuff to explain - (like the late addition of "Erase Format")
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 08, 2015, 05:26:35 PM
see? I wasn't the one who drove him off!!!

 :laugh:


at this point, I have closed my BBB complaint, seeing as I got the results I said I was seeking.

https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/443623/c/h68r4v

I am disappointed but not surprised that I have come under fire here for asserting my rights.

Now the only question, is will anyone have problems with anything from the new approved-card list?

So we wait. and wait. and wait. As soon as nobody ever has any more problems with approved cards, then we know the problem is solved! Tah-daaaah!

You didn't come under fire for 'asserting your rights', but because of the hot-headed way in which you reacted and p'd off the only guy who might possibly have been able to help (i.e., all of us). When your non-approved card failed, why didn't you first try an approved one, before you started making accusations?

My 2 cents, take it or leave it
Dave

I was sure it was you!  :P

I think you redeemed yourself by actually following through...

I thought toney was pretty fair - and take into account, he had already sold - and had to take back one unit - thus realizing a 0 re-sale value...that hurts!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 08, 2015, 05:39:24 PM
For the record, it was this comment from tonedeaf that accused me of lying and being some part of a cover-up, that made it clear I wasn't welcome here and that anything I wrote would be dissected and re-interpreted to your own preconceptions.    This really is my last post here.

Quote
I'm confused...and frankly somewhat bothered by your response.  On the one hand you're saying you don't know the answer about buffering.  I assume you must know something about these units or you wouldn't be responding.  So for this answer, you aren't tech saavy enough to give me a straight answer, or even suggest that you'll try to find out the answer, so you just say 'I don't know'.

Not only did I not accuse of anything, especially of lying or covering up, but I was succinct in giving feedback about why I felt the response fell short.  I'm not trying to dissect or reinterpret, I'm trying to understand...that's why I said I'm confused.  I'm really sorry (really!) if saying I was bothered was overly direct, therefore a put-off

I'm in the customer service industry too.  'I don't know' is an acceptable answer to give a customer, but don't leave them hanging.  Anything less is, well considered poor customer service.  The fact is, there have been many unanswered questions in this thread that, if given some logically technical responses to, would have gone a long way to satisfying me, and I suspect also many of the others here that have had issues.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 08, 2015, 06:26:41 PM
For the record, it was this comment from tonedeaf that accused me of lying and being some part of a cover-up, that made it clear I wasn't welcome here and that anything I wrote would be dissected and re-interpreted to your own preconceptions.    This really is my last post here.

Quote
I'm confused...and frankly somewhat bothered by your response.  On the one hand you're saying you don't know the answer about buffering.  I assume you must know something about these units or you wouldn't be responding.  So for this answer, you aren't tech saavy enough to give me a straight answer, or even suggest that you'll try to find out the answer, so you just say 'I don't know'.

Not only did I not accuse of anything, especially of lying or covering up, but I was succinct in giving feedback about why I felt the response fell short.  I'm not trying to dissect or reinterpret, I'm trying to understand...that's why I said I'm confused.  I'm really sorry (really!) if saying I was bothered was overly direct, therefore a put-off

I'm in the customer service industry too.  'I don't know' is an acceptable answer to give a customer, but don't leave them hanging.  Anything less is, well considered poor customer service.  The fact is, there have been many unanswered questions in this thread that, if given some logically technical responses to, would have gone a long way to satisfying me, and I suspect also many of the others here that have had issues.

I don't think the quote from you that Tom recently posted was harsh at all, and if you take that by itself then I agree he was being way too sensitive.

That said, please go back and read what you wrote in these two posts:
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2161418#msg2161418 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2161418#msg2161418)
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2161438#msg2161438 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2161438#msg2161438)

Tom still should have stuck around and defended himself and explained more thoroughly, but I definitely read what you said in those linked posts as accusatory - if not specifically of Tom, then of Tascam in general.  Now, were your accusations justified?  That's a debate we can have.  Personally, I think there was and is still no evidence to support your claims, and we could argue about this forever.  I think you and I have clearly established our respective positions on this here, and there's a better chance that the two of us are going to agree on who has the best hockey team in PA. ;D

Also, you made reference to my "only 11 out of 25" figure from the SD card survey.  My point there was that 25 responses is statistically insignificant to start with.  Out of that, only 11 problem reports, all from people using cards not on the manufacturer recommended list is hardly enough evidence to establish this as a widespread issue.  This is out of the many thousands of units sold, and no problems of this type have been reported anywhere else that I'm aware of.  Should those 11 people have customer service work with them to help resolve their issues?  Absolutely, but if that response is "use an approved card", then that shouldn't be viewed as an unsatisfactory response.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 08, 2015, 07:21:37 PM
Voltronic - the FAQ is still pointing to an out of date recommended media list...

tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf

I dont like the disclaimers too much - so - what is "QUICK FORMAT" for?

They almost make it sound like SD is write once media...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 08, 2015, 07:55:00 PM
Voltronic - the FAQ is still pointing to an out of date recommended media list...

Thanks for catching that - it's now fixed.

I dont like the disclaimers too much - so - what is "QUICK FORMAT" for?

I posted links that explain Quick Format vs. Full / Erase Format here:

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=174900.msg2162023#msg2162023 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=174900.msg2162023#msg2162023)

And you said earlier that adding "Erase Format" was a late addition, as though it was something missing from the get go.  Read the linked articles - once you understand what this is, you'll see that it's actually pretty unusual for recorders like this to include such a feature. * I really was quite excited to see this added in the latest firmware, since you typically can only do a full format on SD cards on your PC using the SD Formatter or a similar utility.  My M10 certainly doesn't do this - it's only a "quick" format (though not labeled as such), and I'm not aware of any non-professional recorder that will do an actual full format.*

BTW, if you're ever wondering which kind of formatting your recorder is doing (since it's not usually labeled), all you need to do is take note of how long it's taking.  Unless it's taking several minutes or more, it's probably a "quick" format (or maybe .  A full / erase format takes a long time.  This is true even for new high-speed cards.  Read the articles in my linked post and you'll understand why.

They almost make it sound like SD is write once media...

If you're referring to the statement Tascam posted on the new SD card list:
Quote
*1
 The performace of the media may be degraded significantly if used repeatedly.
Once the card is full (data transferred if necessary), ERASE-FORMAT using the DR-70D is recommended prior to using the card again.

I think that statement is true for ANY flash media, as a Quick format will not identify bad sectors and filesystem errors that develop so you will definitely have degraded performance at some point.  A full format will address these things.  Maybe during testing they found that those two cards perform very well, but only if a full format is performed every once in a while.  EDIT to add: If that was the case and those two cards do develop degraded performance sooner than the others, then I wonder why they would be on the recommended list.

*EDIT: I was totally wrong about the statements struck through above.  Most other Tascam recorders have included Full Format ability, so in that case I now think they should have included it with the 70D from the beginning!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 08, 2015, 08:28:23 PM
Just took a look at the survey results (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit?pli=1#gid=820901072) again.  We're still just at 26 responses, with one new error report.  One of the previous 11 error reports can be thrown out though, as I looked at the response and it says "switching from usb to internal batteries" - in other words, nothing to do with the SD card.  That happened to me once when I was on USB power, but not recording and walked away.  The recorder shut down due to inactivity, and right before the concert began I quickly powered it back on and hit record.  What I didn't do was hit the "wake" button on my external battery so that the 70D would detect it and prompt me to select "bus power".  The internal AA's died after an hour and a half. 

If that problem the user reported happened while recording though, I'd suspect a bad / loose USB cable or maybe problem with the battery itself.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 08, 2015, 08:45:00 PM
Voltronic, please update my survey to indicate that I did experience problems with my recorded. My first response was premature. Thank you.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: The Other Chris on October 08, 2015, 08:49:40 PM
Not to get too off topic ;)   Was wondering if someone might be willing to pm me some setting suggestions running Nak 300's into the 70D.  I have read the suggestions/settings info but still not sure I'm doing it right, plugged into XLR's 1 & 2 I'm getting both channels in the left & right headphone.  Just want to run one set of mics for now so nothing complicated.  Also, are the slate settings pre-amp settings?  Sorry, I'm going from an R09 to this and I'm not too tech savy.  Obviously.  Thanks in advance. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 08, 2015, 08:57:33 PM
Voltronic, please update my survey to indicate that I did experience problems with my recorded. My first response was premature. Thank you.

The survey is anonymous, so I have no way of knowing which one was you.  I suppose you could figure it out for yourself by looking at the time stamp, card model, etc.  Send me a PM and I'll just delete that response, then you can submit a new one with correct info.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 08, 2015, 09:05:07 PM
Not to get too off topic ;)   Was wondering if someone might be willing to pm me some setting suggestions running Nak 300's into the 70D.  I have read the suggestions/settings info but still not sure I'm doing it right, plugged into XLR's 1 & 2 I'm getting both channels in the left & right headphone.  Just want to run one set of mics for now so nothing complicated.  Also, are the slate settings pre-amp settings?  Sorry, I'm going from an R09 to this and I'm not too tech savy.  Obviously.  Thanks in advance.

Yeah, what gives?  You're not welcome here unless you're complaining about SD card performance or customer service issues! ;)

Sounds like you may have your channels panned to center and/or set to record in separate mono tracks instead of a stereo pair.  Check the manual, or read the FAQ (link in my signature).  This will also tell you where to find commonly used things such as slate tone settings.

EDIT: I just read your post more thoroughly and saw that you read the FAQ already.  Sorry, I didn't mean to give you the "RTFM" response when it looks like you have.  But check to make sure you're recording in stereo mode, not mono.  If that's not it, make sure your channels are hard panned.  I don't know anything about your mics, but couldn't imagine any way they would affect this.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: F.O.Bean on October 09, 2015, 02:49:12 AM
I can post in the 70d verified sd cards list. I have [2] PNY sd cards for my 70d. Mine seems to like sd cards better than a microsdhc card in an SD adapter. But I could just be imagining that! And I am sooo OCD, that I do a quick format and THEN a full format of my sd cards in my 70d before I use them for a show/festie lol ;D 8) If I have a good card that the 70d likes in, then the quick AND full formats finish pretty quick. Now when I did the full format with a couple of cards the 70d did NOT like, the full format would take like 10-15 minutes. The 70d didn't tell me that they were bad cards, but when I recorded onto the bad sd cards until they were 100% full in front of my TV, they had random clicks and all types of weird shit wrong with them throughout the WHOLE card. Even sounded like digi-noise at points ?!?!?!

BUT, since using verified cards[Mainly my 64gb or 32gb PNY 95x SD cards], my 70d has been rock solid!!!!! I had an unverified card in my 70d the ONLY time it gave me a problem[with the digi-noise and clicks and shit], so I lost a half day's worth of music at a festie this past summer. No big deal at all, because Steve[Tonedeaf] was recording there too, so I have everything my microsdhc card F'D me on thanks to Steve :) And it was only a half day because weather was horrible and we left pretty early that day. So LUCKILY, I didn't miss anything really special since none of the bands I missed were high up on my list lol :)

The ONLY thing I really have to focus and concentrate/remember about my 70d that I sometimes forget, is that when the 70d is in HOLD, even the gain knobs are locked. I know most[90% I'm guessing hahaha] of you already know that, and I think its a GREAT feature for really securing a recording, ONCE you get good levels going. But I sometimes forget that and then I remember immediately after touching my gain knobs that hold is ON :P ;D I have found that its best to leave HOLD ON after you accidentally switch the levels, and then wait until the END of that song to turn hold OFF and fix your levels, if at all possible, so that they don't spike or go crazy and sound weird as hell, if you were to just turn hold off immediately and then try to fix your levels. Its MUCH less noticeable between songs if you do forget that hold is on when you're changing/fixing levels, than it is during a song. Trust me lol! Made that mistake one too many times :) Does that make sense though? All I'm saying is, if you mess with your levels while hold is ON, wait until the song is over before you turn hold OFF to fix the levels. Boom. Much shorter statement huh? I should just erase everything else, but it took me too long to write haha 8)

Anyway, hope that helps someone avoid what I have done too many times :) I'm heading over to the 70d Media List and verify my PNY cards! I also have a LOT of music links that I will be posting soon in the Kickdown Section from the [3] festies and [2] Phish shows that I did this past summer. So check them out, because I ran my mk4>NBob KCY>Naiant PFA>70D just inches apart from my mk41>Schoeps KCY>Schoeps VMS 02IB>70D at basically every show/festie I did this summer, so you all can hear the 70D preamps with Schoeps straight in. I'm telling you what, the PFA>70D is ALWAYS on par or better than my mk41>vms recordings from this summer!!! Ive been VERY impressed with my 70D's sound. I hope that it sounds as good indoors as it does outdoors at festies and Phish :) WAY too much music to list band by band or set by set, so I'm just posting one whole day's worth of music per thread, that way all of my links can be available in one thread versus 50 separate threads. I'm not sure if its the mk4's or the 70D preamps. IMO Its a little of both 8) The mk4's always have a more natural sound, and outdoors at festies with no walls or ceilings, the ambiance is usually great. And as long as the sound is good, the mk4's usually smoke the 41s. However, indoors, its another story. The 41s usually take the cake indoors! But what I hear from running mk4>70D, is that the 70D preamps are very detailed and neutral and have great transients[correct word?], letting the microphone of your choice really shine! In my case, Schoeps! If I could 100% trust my 70D like an SD recorder or something high end like that, I would buy another PFA[sooner than I plan to buy a new one], and have NO problems running both pairs of my capsules[mk4+mk41] into the 70D. Both pairs of caps straight into the 70D for a nice low profile, compact setup for indoors and in tight spots, where I would still run both pairs of my caps. That's how much I like mine so far!!!

I know that I ALWAYS fluff whatever I'm running at the time, but I don't just fluff any old product. I do it because they are GREAT products and I would recommend them to a friend! Otherwise I keep my mouth shut for the most part lol! I should quote "most"!!! And if I really believe in a product, maybe I can help the manufacturers sell a few to our little taping niche, while hopefully pleasing the buyer/taper :) ;) Sorry for the mile long post! I've been meaning to pop in this thread for awhile now! Oh and I know its the wrong thread, but the Zoom F8 is really nice! I got to see Tonedeaf's last month. Never thought Id fluff a Zoom product, but I am :P ;D 8)

I always said the same about Monster, but I got Monster iSport Victory earbuds this past summer, and they are incredible IMO! I've had easily 20+ pair of earbuds over the years, but all at or lower than $100. I paid a little less than $150 for mine, and they were worth EVERY penny! They allow me to hear things that I've NEVER heard in my recordings before, in songs that I've heard a million times before. I'm glad that I have another HQ pair of phones! I used to have nice Sennheiser headphones, but sold those with my 722. Now that I have a FiiO E10K + E11K, I can properly drive my Monster earbuds, or any headphones/earbuds for that matter, allowing them to sound heavenly! Even if I'm listening to MP3's streaming from my Google Play account on my phone in the car, they sound incredible! And sitting at my PC with the FiiO E10K DAC/HP Amp and the iSport Victory, it just takes it to the NEXT level! I can even master my recordings ANY time of the day OR night, because they sound that good and neutral, that I don't need the speakers ON to master something! No Bass Boost or any shit like that. But its AWESOME to be able to edit/mix/master/etc my recordings at like 4am if I cant sleep or something. Now I can go back and forth between the earbuds and my speakers, which is possible with the FiiO E10K[DAC/HP Amp], and find the PERFECT mix for sets that need a little tweak to them! Makes me feel MUCH better now, since I'm not just relying on either 1. Speakers, or 2. Earbuds. Having the ability to master my recordings with BOTH is a really great thing IMO!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on October 09, 2015, 03:12:43 AM
I can post in the 70d verified sd cards list. I have [2] PNY sd cards for my 70d. Mine seems to like sd cards better than a microsdhc card in an SD adapter. But I could just be imagining that! And I am sooo OCD, that I do a quick format and THEN a full format of my sd cards in my 70d before I use them for a show/festie lol ;D 8) If I have a good card that the 70d likes in, then the quick AND full formats finish pretty quick. Now when I did the full format with a couple of cards the 70d did NOT like, the full format would take like 10-15 minutes. The 70d didn't tell me that they were bad cards, but when I recorded onto the bad sd cards until they were 100% full in front of my TV, they had random clicks and all types of weird shit wrong with them throughout the WHOLE card. Even sounded like digi-noise at points ?!?!?!

BUT, since using verified cards[Mainly my 64gb or 32gb PNY 95x SD cards], my 70d has been rock solid!!!!! I had an unverified card in my 70d the ONLY time it gave me a problem[with the digi-noise and clicks and shit], so I lost a half day's worth of music at a festie this past summer. No big deal at all, because Steve[Tonedeaf] was recording there too, so I have everything my microsdhc card F'D me on thanks to Steve :) And it was only a half day because weather was horrible and we left pretty early that day. So LUCKILY, I didn't miss anything really special since none of the bands I missed were high up on my list lol :)

The ONLY thing I really have to focus and concentrate/remember about my 70d that I sometimes forget, is that when the 70d is in HOLD, even the gain knobs are locked. I know most[90% I'm guessing hahaha] of you already know that, and I think its a GREAT feature for really securing a recording, ONCE you get good levels going. But I sometimes forget that and then I remember immediately after touching my gain knobs that hold is ON :P ;D I have found that its best to leave HOLD ON after you accidentally switch the levels, and then wait until the END of that song to turn hold OFF and fix your levels, if at all possible, so that they don't spike or go crazy and sound weird as hell, if you were to just turn hold off immediately and then try to fix your levels. Its MUCH less noticeable between songs if you do forget that hold is on when you're changing/fixing levels, than it is during a song. Trust me lol! Made that mistake one too many times :) Does that make sense though? All I'm saying is, if you mess with your levels while hold is ON, wait until the song is over before you turn hold OFF to fix the levels. Boom. Much shorter statement huh? I should just erase everything else, but it took me too long to write haha 8)

Anyway, hope that helps someone avoid what I have done too many times :) I'm heading over to the 70d Media List and verify my PNY cards! I also have a LOT of music links that I will be posting soon in the Kickdown Section from the [3] festies and [2] Phish shows that I did this past summer. So check them out, because I ran my mk4>NBob KCY>Naiant PFA>70D just inches apart from my mk41>Schoeps KCY>Schoeps VMS 02IB>70D at basically every show/festie I did this summer, so you all can hear the 70D preamps with Schoeps straight in. I'm telling you what, the PFA>70D is ALWAYS on par or better than my mk41>vms recordings from this summer!!! Ive been VERY impressed with my 70D's sound. I hope that it sounds as good indoors as it does outdoors at festies and Phish :) WAY too much music to list band by band or set by set, so I'm just posting one whole day's worth of music per thread, that way all of my links can be available in one thread versus 50 separate threads. I'm not sure if its the mk4's or the 70D preamps. IMO Its a little of both 8) The mk4's always have a more natural sound, and outdoors at festies with no walls or ceilings, the ambiance is usually great. And as long as the sound is good, the mk4's usually smoke the 41s. However, indoors, its another story. The 41s usually take the cake indoors! But what I hear from running mk4>70D, is that the 70D preamps are very detailed and neutral and have great transients[correct word?], letting the microphone of your choice really shine! In my case, Schoeps! If I could 100% trust my 70D like an SD recorder or something high end like that, I would buy another PFA[sooner than I plan to buy a new one], and have NO problems running both pairs of my capsules[mk4+mk41] into the 70D. Both pairs of caps straight into the 70D for a nice low profile, compact setup for indoors and in tight spots, where I would still run both pairs of my caps. That's how much I like mine so far!!!

I know that I ALWAYS fluff whatever I'm running at the time, but I don't just fluff any old product. I do it because they are GREAT products and I would recommend them to a friend! Otherwise I keep my mouth shut for the most part lol! I should quote "most"!!! And if I really believe in a product, maybe I can help the manufacturers sell a few to our little taping niche, while hopefully pleasing the buyer/taper :) ;) Sorry for the mile long post! I've been meaning to pop in this thread for awhile now! Oh and I know its the wrong thread, but the Zoom F8 is really nice! I got to see Tonedeaf's last month. Never thought Id fluff a Zoom product, but I am :P ;D 8)

I always said the same about Monster, but I got Monster iSport Victory earbuds this past summer, and they are incredible IMO! I've had easily 20+ pair of earbuds over the years, but all at or lower than $100. I paid a little less than $150 for mine, and they were worth EVERY penny! They allow me to hear things that I've NEVER heard in my recordings before, in songs that I've heard a million times before. I'm glad that I have another HQ pair of phones! I used to have nice Sennheiser headphones, but sold those with my 722. Now that I have a FiiO E10K + E11K, I can properly drive my Monster earbuds, or any headphones/earbuds for that matter, allowing them to sound heavenly! Even if I'm listening to MP3's streaming from my Google Play account on my phone in the car, they sound incredible! And sitting at my PC with the FiiO E10K DAC/HP Amp and the iSport Victory, it just takes it to the NEXT level! I can even master my recordings ANY time of the day OR night, because they sound that good and neutral, that I don't need the speakers ON to master something! No Bass Boost or any shit like that. But its AWESOME to be able to edit/mix/master/etc my recordings at like 4am if I cant sleep or something. Now I can go back and forth between the earbuds and my speakers, which is possible with the FiiO E10K[DAC/HP Amp], and find the PERFECT mix for sets that need a little tweak to them! Makes me feel MUCH better now, since I'm not just relying on either 1. Speakers, or 2. Earbuds. Having the ability to master my recordings with BOTH is a really great thing IMO!

Wow! Great well-written and entertaining post ;D And educational to boot (just getting into some IEMs)--thanks!

Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 09, 2015, 09:19:09 AM
I can post in the 70d verified sd cards list. I have [2] PNY sd cards for my 70d. Mine seems to like sd cards better than a microsdhc card in an SD adapter. But I could just be imagining that! And I am sooo OCD, that I do a quick format and THEN a full format of my sd cards in my 70d before I use them for a show/festie lol ;D 8) If I have a good card that the 70d likes in, then the quick AND full formats finish pretty quick. Now when I did the full format with a couple of cards the 70d did NOT like, the full format would take like 10-15 minutes. The 70d didn't tell me that they were bad cards, but when I recorded onto the bad sd cards until they were 100% full in front of my TV, they had random clicks and all types of weird shit wrong with them throughout the WHOLE card. Even sounded like digi-noise at points ?!?!?!

BUT, since using verified cards[Mainly my 64gb or 32gb PNY 95x SD cards], my 70d has been rock solid!!!!!

But there are no PNY Cards on the TASCAM approved list!

I think we need to start a more authoritative - "Verified by Bean" list... ;D

Interesting observation on the length of the format process.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on October 09, 2015, 10:29:25 AM
[quote author=tonedeaf link=topic=174900.msg2162554#msg2162554 date=1444340

Also, you made reference to my "only 11 out of 25" figure from the SD card survey.  My point there was that 25 responses is statistically insignificant to start with.  Out of that, only 11 problem reports, all from people using cards not on the manufacturer recommended list is hardly enough evidence to establish this as a widespread issue.  This is out of the many thousands of units sold, and no problems of this type have been reported anywhere else that I'm aware of.  Should those 11 people have customer service work with them to help resolve their issues?  Absolutely, but if that response is "use an approved card", then that shouldn't be viewed as an unsatisfactory response.

When 11 out of 25 users report the same kind of issue, that gets my attention.  We should not presume whether other users have or haven't had issues since they weren't even asked to respond. 

Some statements were posted here out of frustration.  If I sold a 70d and had to rebuy it over this issue, I'd be upset, too.  And then evidently there was some past history with prior products.

Beans post is really the first post of any joy since this part of the thread opened. 

Hopefully, the card thing is just a blip we can all put behind.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 09, 2015, 10:45:12 AM
[quote author=tonedeaf link=topic=174900.msg2162554#msg2162554 date=1444340

Also, you made reference to my "only 11 out of 25" figure from the SD card survey.  My point there was that 25 responses is statistically insignificant to start with.  Out of that, only 11 problem reports, all from people using cards not on the manufacturer recommended list is hardly enough evidence to establish this as a widespread issue.  This is out of the many thousands of units sold, and no problems of this type have been reported anywhere else that I'm aware of.  Should those 11 people have customer service work with them to help resolve their issues?  Absolutely, but if that response is "use an approved card", then that shouldn't be viewed as an unsatisfactory response.

When 11 out of 25 users report the same kind of issue, that gets my attention. 

Not sure what Voltronic was expecting - despite the seemingly large subscriber base on this site - there are really only a few active users/posters on TS.com

I would think that 25 - might represent how many regular, active users have the DR70-D...there are probably more.

But 25 might be "most" - certainly not insignificant...even if there are twice as many.

Caveat - the survey was set up to cater to folks who were having problems - those who weren't having issues would be less likely to report...IMO
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 09, 2015, 10:59:01 AM
Voltronic - the FAQ is still pointing to an out of date recommended media list...

Thanks for catching that - it's now fixed.

I dont like the disclaimers too much - so - what is "QUICK FORMAT" for?

I posted links that explain Quick Format vs. Full / Erase Format here:

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=174900.msg2162023#msg2162023 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=174900.msg2162023#msg2162023)

And you said earlier that adding "Erase Format" was a late addition, as though it was something missing from the get go.  Read the linked articles - once you understand what this is, you'll see that it's actually pretty unusual for recorders like this to include such a feature.  I really was quite excited to see this added in the latest firmware, since you typically can only do a full format on SD cards on your PC using the SD Formatter or a similar utility.  My M10 certainly doesn't do this - it's only a "quick" format (though not labeled as such), and I'm not aware of any non-professional recorder that will do an actual full format.

BTW, if you're ever wondering which kind of formatting your recorder is doing (since it's not usually labeled), all you need to do is take note of how long it's taking.  Unless it's taking several minutes or more, it's probably a "quick" format (or maybe .  A full / erase format takes a long time.  This is true even for new high-speed cards.  Read the articles in my linked post and you'll understand why.

They almost make it sound like SD is write once media...

If you're referring to the statement Tascam posted on the new SD card list:
Quote
*1
 The performace of the media may be degraded significantly if used repeatedly.
Once the card is full (data transferred if necessary), ERASE-FORMAT using the DR-70D is recommended prior to using the card again.

I think that statement is true for ANY flash media, as a Quick format will not identify bad sectors and filesystem errors that develop so you will definitely have degraded performance at some point.  A full format will address these things.  Maybe during testing they found that those two cards perform very well, but only if a full format is performed every once in a while.  EDIT to add: If that was the case and those two cards do develop degraded performance sooner than the others, then I wonder why they would be on the recommended list.

Those links are all about Windows formatting utilities - and another link for a software product. (that tells you not to use OS formatting utilities)

I think its wrong to make the assumption that these are equivalent functions - despite their semantic similarities. (I'm not totally doubting this - just not assuming)

The quick format seems pointless - so why was it included in the first place?

How could TASCAM perform reliable card testing when only "Quick" was included with the device?

With the tapers penchant for in-device formatting before every outing - some of us were setting ourselves up for failure...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: hoppedup on October 09, 2015, 11:02:59 AM
Haven't had any issues with mine, but haven't run it much since these reports started coming out. I'll use the 60D until I need to run two rigs. It has been rock solid.

I'll check the card in the 70D tonight and post it up here. I never did a firmware update. Will check that version as well.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 09, 2015, 11:08:11 AM
I've had far worse issues with Tascam products . I can happily report none with this device.
So far, I've transferred about 30 cassette masters with it, without a single glitch.  I've not had a chance to run it live yet, but, don't have any reservations in doing so.
I'm running the most basic of firmware, 1.00 0037 (or something to this effect).  And I'm running a Sandisk Ultra card that is only a single letter removed from the approved list; a 16gb card.
I format between every concert transfer (be it a single cassette, or multiple cassettes). I run the complete show, transfer it, and then format the card with what is described as the quick format.

I'm not into it for any expense; I won it in a contest on another forum. So if it only ever serves as a cassette-to-digital transfer device, I'm totally happy with the results.  i've got plenty of cassettes to transfer; it will have a full life just doing that.
i hope to have a chance to use it live next weekend, a week from now. The way its been functioning for me in the transfers, I don't foresee any issues in running it live.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 09, 2015, 01:58:46 PM
Voltronic - the FAQ is still pointing to an out of date recommended media list...

Thanks for catching that - it's now fixed.

I dont like the disclaimers too much - so - what is "QUICK FORMAT" for?

I posted links that explain Quick Format vs. Full / Erase Format here:

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=174900.msg2162023#msg2162023 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=174900.msg2162023#msg2162023)

And you said earlier that adding "Erase Format" was a late addition, as though it was something missing from the get go.  Read the linked articles - once you understand what this is, you'll see that it's actually pretty unusual for recorders like this to include such a feature.  I really was quite excited to see this added in the latest firmware, since you typically can only do a full format on SD cards on your PC using the SD Formatter or a similar utility.  My M10 certainly doesn't do this - it's only a "quick" format (though not labeled as such), and I'm not aware of any non-professional recorder that will do an actual full format.

BTW, if you're ever wondering which kind of formatting your recorder is doing (since it's not usually labeled), all you need to do is take note of how long it's taking.  Unless it's taking several minutes or more, it's probably a "quick" format (or maybe .  A full / erase format takes a long time.  This is true even for new high-speed cards.  Read the articles in my linked post and you'll understand why.

They almost make it sound like SD is write once media...

If you're referring to the statement Tascam posted on the new SD card list:
Quote
*1
 The performace of the media may be degraded significantly if used repeatedly.
Once the card is full (data transferred if necessary), ERASE-FORMAT using the DR-70D is recommended prior to using the card again.

I think that statement is true for ANY flash media, as a Quick format will not identify bad sectors and filesystem errors that develop so you will definitely have degraded performance at some point.  A full format will address these things.  Maybe during testing they found that those two cards perform very well, but only if a full format is performed every once in a while.  EDIT to add: If that was the case and those two cards do develop degraded performance sooner than the others, then I wonder why they would be on the recommended list.

Those links are all about Windows formatting utilities - and another link for a software product. (that tells you not to use OS formatting utilities)

I think its wrong to make the assumption that these are equivalent functions - despite their semantic similarities. (I'm not totally doubting this - just not assuming)

The quick format seems pointless - so why was it included in the first place?

How could TASCAM perform reliable card testing when only "Quick" was included with the device?

With the tapers penchant for in-device formatting before every outing - some of us were setting ourselves up for failure...

I think you're missing my point.  No recorder I'm aware of in this price bracket includes a full format function except for the 70D with the new firmware.  Why other recorders don't include this could be for reasons of speed, battery life, etc. but the 70D is very unusual that it can do this.*  It's a much more involved procedure, and the way it's being done on a PC whether it be a quick or full format is functionally the same so those articles I linked are valid. 

Quick format isn't useless at all, but a full format is much better for reasons stated.  One reason why you would want to format in your device even if it's not a full format is to make sure the filesystem is exactly what that device is expecting.  I always recommend formatting in the recorder for this reason.  The filesystem these devices use is often FAT32, and as I said before Windows removed the ability to format in that filesystem a few versions ago.  So to do a real full format on an SD card, you would need to use one of those utilities.  Then, it would be good to do a quick format in your recorder to make sure the filesystem is set up exactly how it should be for that device.

The 70D saves you that step and includes functionality other recorders do not.  Other recorders are doing a Quick format only.*  You can verify this by running data recovery utilities on a card you just formatted.  If it was a quick format, you'll be able to recover quite a bit from before the format.  After a full format, not so much without professional tools.

*EDIT: I didn't realize that even the cheaper Tascam units have had Full / Erase format as a normal feature!  My other portable recorders have been Sony, Marantz, and Zoom which do not.  Giving myself a dope slap here for jumping to conclusions. :facepalm:
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 09, 2015, 02:15:45 PM


I think you're missing my point.  No recorder I'm aware of in this price bracket includes a full format function except for the 70D with the new firmware.  Why other recorders don't include this could be for reasons of speed, battery life, etc. but the 70D is very unusual that it can do this.  It's a much more involved procedure, and the way it's being done on a PC whether it be a quick or full format is functionally the same so those articles I linked are valid. 

Quick format isn't useless at all, but a full format is much better for reasons stated.  One reason why you would want to format in your device even if it's not a full format is to make sure the filesystem is exactly what that device is expecting.  I always recommend formatting in the recorder for this reason.  The filesystem these devices use is often FAT32, and as I said before Windows removed the ability to format in that filesystem a few versions ago.  So to do a real full format on an SD card, you would need to use one of those utilities.  Then, it would be good to do a quick format in your recorder to make sure the filesystem is set up exactly how it should be for that device.

The 70D saves you that step and includes functionality other recorders do not.  Other recorders are doing a Quick format only.  You can verify this by running data recovery utilities on a card you just formatted.  If it was a quick format, you'll be able to recover quite a bit from before the format.  After a full format, not so much without professional tools.

Are you quite sure about "Other recorders are doing a Quick format only."?

DR60D owners report much longer format times...hell even the JB3 took a bit to re-format.

And I think your missing (or dismissing) my point that the functions that service the filesystem are different.

Obviously the DR70D isnt running Windows...I can't really just accept your dismissal as they are "functionally the same."
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: dallman on October 09, 2015, 05:16:40 PM


I think you're missing my point.  No recorder I'm aware of in this price bracket includes a full format function except for the 70D with the new firmware.  Why other recorders don't include this could be for reasons of speed, battery life, etc. but the 70D is very unusual that it can do this.  It's a much more involved procedure, and the way it's being done on a PC whether it be a quick or full format is functionally the same so those articles I linked are valid. 

Quick format isn't useless at all, but a full format is much better for reasons stated.  One reason why you would want to format in your device even if it's not a full format is to make sure the filesystem is exactly what that device is expecting.  I always recommend formatting in the recorder for this reason.  The filesystem these devices use is often FAT32, and as I said before Windows removed the ability to format in that filesystem a few versions ago.  So to do a real full format on an SD card, you would need to use one of those utilities.  Then, it would be good to do a quick format in your recorder to make sure the filesystem is set up exactly how it should be for that device.

The 70D saves you that step and includes functionality other recorders do not.  Other recorders are doing a Quick format only.  You can verify this by running data recovery utilities on a card you just formatted.  If it was a quick format, you'll be able to recover quite a bit from before the format.  After a full format, not so much without professional tools.

Are you quite sure about "Other recorders are doing a Quick format only."?

DR60D owners report much longer format times...hell even the JB3 took a bit to re-format.

And I think your missing (or dismissing) my point that the functions that service the filesystem are different.

Obviously the DR70D isnt running Windows...I can't really just accept your dismissal as they are "functionally the same."

Full Format is not unusual at all among Tascam decks. Quite a few Tascam decks have this feature, I know off the top of my head that the the DR2d, the DR-08, DR60D, has quick and full format function. I usually do a quick every show or so. If I remember from home I do a full, but it takes a long time, the bigger the card, the longer it takes.

I think it is safe to say that the DR70D is unusually sensitive as to what cards you can use, and this is not typical in other multichannel decks or even other multi-channel Tascam decks. Hopefully a firmware upgrade will fix this, as Tascam is not willing to publicly say there is a problem.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 09, 2015, 05:54:45 PM
^ Well if full format is a Tascam thing, then I stand corrected and apologize for my blanket statement.  The 70D is the first Tascam product I've used, so I probably should have looked at the manuals of some other popular units before saying that.

EDIT: I read through a few Tascam manuals and you are indeed correct about both Quick and Full formats being in those recorders.  I know Sony and Zoom don't have this ability, but never knew Tascam did this even with their cheap units.

Now I'm with you - Tascam definitely should have included Erase Format from the get go!  I will go back to my recent posts about this and put a note about it.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 09, 2015, 09:42:39 PM
So - the question remains - what the hell is the point of "QUICK FORMAT"???

Useless!!!!

Unless someone is interested in fucking up their recordings - and their card?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 09, 2015, 09:44:14 PM
^ Well if full format is a Tascam thing, then I stand corrected and apologize for my blanket statement.  The 70D is the first Tascam product I've used, so I probably should have looked at the manuals of some other popular units before saying that.

EDIT: I read through a few Tascam manuals and you are indeed correct about both Quick and Full formats being in those recorders.  I know Sony and Zoom don't have this ability, but never knew Tascam did this even with their cheap units.

Now I'm with you - Tascam definitely should have included Erase Format from the get go!  I will go back to my recent posts about this and put a note about it.

Not just a note - big screaming red letters saying "DO NOT USE QUICK FORMAT"
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ts on October 10, 2015, 08:29:50 AM
I'm on version 1.01 and all I have is format/execute. No quick or full choice. Also no problems with my PNY 128g.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jbell on October 10, 2015, 08:39:39 AM
^ I have a 64gig PNY in mine with 1.11 firmware and it has worked fine with home testing.  I haven't used it for a show and not super confident with all the issues
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: dallman on October 10, 2015, 09:37:48 AM
So - the question remains - what the hell is the point of "QUICK FORMAT"???

Useless!!!!

Unless someone is interested in fucking up their recordings - and their card?
Perhaps useless in the DR-70D, but that just points to the fact this unit has an issue that no other Tascam deck I am aware of has. I use the quick format almost exclusively. I have reformatted my DR2-d well over 100 times with the quick format and have never had an issue or a hiccup. I would assume the DR70d started with only the quick format because the issues with digi noise or whatever you want to call it was unanticipated wen the deck was rolled out.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 10, 2015, 10:09:34 AM
So - the question remains - what the hell is the point of "QUICK FORMAT"???

Useless!!!!

Unless someone is interested in fucking up their recordings - and their card?
Perhaps useless in the DR-70D, but that just points to the fact this unit has an issue that no other Tascam deck I am aware of has. I use the quick format almost exclusively. I have reformatted my DR2-d well over 100 times with the quick format and have never had an issue or a hiccup. I would assume the DR70d started with only the quick format because the issues with digi noise or whatever you want to call it was unanticipated wen the deck was rolled out.

Probably true - but I suspect not all these format routines are equal.

I suspect the original "FORMAT" is really a quick format. And perhaps buggy - or not up to the job somehow.

I wonder if these TASCAM recorders firmwares are all created from the same dev kit or code? Or are they all different Firmwares?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 10, 2015, 10:22:29 AM
Going Forward

I've discovered that the 16gb SanDisk card I bought in June for my camera is on the approved list.

I plan on:

1. Deleting all the photo files off the new card via windows.
2. Ugrading my DR-70D Firmware to the latest version.
3. Running FULL FORMAT on my new card.
4. Run FULL FORMAT on the old card that gave me trouble - and home test both cards for glitchy-ness. (Bean had the right idea here)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: dallman on October 10, 2015, 12:27:07 PM
So - the question remains - what the hell is the point of "QUICK FORMAT"???

Useless!!!!

Unless someone is interested in fucking up their recordings - and their card?
Perhaps useless in the DR-70D, but that just points to the fact this unit has an issue that no other Tascam deck I am aware of has. I use the quick format almost exclusively. I have reformatted my DR2-d well over 100 times with the quick format and have never had an issue or a hiccup. I would assume the DR70d started with only the quick format because the issues with digi noise or whatever you want to call it was unanticipated wen the deck was rolled out.

Probably true - but I suspect not all these format routines are equal.

I suspect the original "FORMAT" is really a quick format. And perhaps buggy - or not up to the job somehow.

I wonder if these TASCAM recorders firmwares are all created from the same dev kit or code? Or are they all different Firmwares?

I think the difference between full and quick is pretty basic. Quick, just removes header and sector information which then acts like a new card allowing the recorder to send the information to sectors, replacing the information currently residing there in an order that is the least effort for the recorder. Now that is a very unscientific explanation of what is taking place. The Full format is just that where each sector is examined for it's worthiness as well as the labeling information being deleted. This  again is not really a scientific explanation, but hopefully is understandable. I have a lot of Tascam decks, and the way they operate may not be identical, but is more or less the same. I don't think they are reinventing the wheel each time. I do think something went wrong though on the DR70d, and I am at a loss as to why so much trouble only on this deck, and not others like the DR60d which are fairly similar in function.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: yug du nord on October 10, 2015, 01:16:58 PM
^dallman getting all scientific and stuff ;)........  excellent! 

........all this still makes me wonder why my cheapo class 4 card that I took from my camera seems to work just fine in my 70D.  Seems weird to me....  but I ain't complaining about it, just find it strange given the all the reported issues.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 10, 2015, 02:42:17 PM
Going Forward

I've discovered that the 16gb SanDisk card I bought in June for my camera is on the approved list.

I plan on:

1. Deleting all the photo files off the new card via windows.
2. Ugrading my DR-70D Firmware to the latest version.
3. Running FULL FORMAT on my new card.
4. Run FULL FORMAT on the old card that gave me trouble - and home test both cards for glitchy-ness. (Bean had the right idea here)

Sounds like a good plan.  You can skip #1 though - #4 will more than take care of it.

BTW, for those still confused about QUICK vs ERASE / FULL format, I'll piggyback on dallman's very good explanation using Life in Rewind's testing plan as an example:

On the old card with photos, doing a QUICK format will remove the filesystem information (think of a "table of contents"), but the data of the photos themselves will still be in place and can be recovered by simple file recovery software.  That data will then just get overwritten as you use the card again.  If the card is a known good card that has recently been checked for errors, that may be all you need.

Doing an ERASE / FULL format on that same card will also remove the filesystem information, but will then erase the data and check for bad sectors.  If bad sectors are found, they're marked so they don't get written to again.  The data previously on the card will not be recoverable by consumer-grade methods.


Possible firmware request: While I was looking through some manuals after sticking my foot in my mouth about other recorders not including a full format, I came across a Card Test function in the Zoom H6 manual.  I wonder how hard it would be to add something like that to the 70D?  It's not going to be as thorough as the tests the people at TEAC Japan are probably doing, but it could save you some time seeing if that old SD card you have lying around is going to have any chance of working, or if you just need to buy one of the approved cards from the list.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 10, 2015, 02:49:06 PM
I wonder if these utilities could be useful:

http://mikelab.kiev.ua/index_en.php?page=PROGRAMS/chkflsh_en (http://mikelab.kiev.ua/index_en.php?page=PROGRAMS/chkflsh_en)

http://rmprepusb.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-faster-test-for-fake-sd-cards-and-usb.html (http://rmprepusb.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-faster-test-for-fake-sd-cards-and-usb.html)


70D SD Card Survey (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xDG-UQLwa1sbGcnGounjkqqycPLbqikVcN-TRGESjoY/viewform) update: We are up to 30 responses (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit#gid=820901072); still at 11 error reports.  A couple of PNY cards were just entered for the first time, and appear to be OK at least for the user who entered them. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 10, 2015, 10:28:45 PM
...
 update: We are up to 30 responses (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit#gid=820901072); still at 11 error reports. ...
how many before it is significant?

Also, you made reference to my "only 11 out of 25" figure from the SD card survey. My point there was that 25 responses is statistically insignificant to start with.  Out of that, only 11 problem reports, all from people using cards not on the manufacturer recommended list is hardly enough evidence to establish this as a widespread issue.  This is out of the many thousands of units sold, and no problems of this type have been reported anywhere else that I'm aware of.  Should those 11 people have customer service work with them to help resolve their issues?  Absolutely, but if that response is "use an approved card", then that shouldn't be viewed as an unsatisfactory response.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 11, 2015, 09:16:11 AM
...
 update: We are up to 30 responses (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit#gid=820901072); still at 11 error reports. ...
how many before it is significant?

Also, you made reference to my "only 11 out of 25" figure from the SD card survey. My point there was that 25 responses is statistically insignificant to start with.  Out of that, only 11 problem reports, all from people using cards not on the manufacturer recommended list is hardly enough evidence to establish this as a widespread issue.  This is out of the many thousands of units sold, and no problems of this type have been reported anywhere else that I'm aware of.  Should those 11 people have customer service work with them to help resolve their issues?  Absolutely, but if that response is "use an approved card", then that shouldn't be viewed as an unsatisfactory response.

No survey here could ever represent all the units that have been sold in the industry, so the statement about statistical significance against the thousands of units sold is irrelevant to the survey, not to mention that nobody here can perform any real statistical analysis against all of the units sold anyway so trying to claim any specific statistical analysis conclusions from this survey as significant or insignificant is bogus. 

For example, in my limited experience, a RANDOM sample of 25 is statistically significant to I think a 99 percent confidence factor to a total population of several thousand.  I know this because this is the sample rate the NRC requires for sampling in inspection programs in nuclear plants where the sample size is say several thousand valves in the plant.  Depending on the acceptance criteria being used, in my industry, a single fail rate in the random sample invokes a corrective action plan (usually increasing the inspection sample size and/or doing targeted inspections to get a better understanding of root cause).  Whether this survey constitutes a RANDOM sample is debatable, but that's my point about reaching ANY conclusions about statistical significance or insignificance of the survey results.

When I suggested the survey, I thought there were several things the survey could tell ts.com members a) cards that don't work, so cards to avoid, b) cards that aren't on the official list that people have had success with, so that maybe some alternatives to the tiny 'official' list would be available, and c) some general feedback to give an idea whether the issue is an isolated incident experienced by only a few or a more generic problem.  There's enough there to start to help people with a) and b) and IMHO there's enough information there to reach a reasonable conclusion on c).

Someone that wants to use the survey to help with future decision making can take the information for what it's worth in assessing a), b) or c) (or perhaps some other reasonable conclusion I haven't thought of).  Someone that's intent on arguing against IMHO overwhelming evidence that suggests there's something amiss on the DR70D design, and that Tascam seems to have been putting more effort into CYA than into solving the root cause of the issue, will come up with irrelevant talking points to continue to try to steer people away from the fact that the DR70D has an, as yet, unrevealed design issue that makes it ultra picky about the cards it uses.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 11, 2015, 09:45:52 AM
Tested media list updated today:
http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf

Check out this post on JWsound

http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/22949-tascam-dr-70/&do=findComment&comment=270154

"This is our first recorder that supports SDXC cards, max 128GB qualified so far."

Yet - it took almost an entire YEAR for Tascam to make good on this...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 11, 2015, 10:15:19 AM
Tested media list updated today:
http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf

Check out this post on JWsound

http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/22949-tascam-dr-70/&do=findComment&comment=270154

"This is our first recorder that supports SDXC cards, max 128GB qualified so far."

Yet - it took almost an entire YEAR for Tascam to make good on this...

You're being too kind.

That statement was made a year ago, but according to our most recent feedback they didn't qualify a 128gb card until something like a few weeks ago.  So was that the truth then or not?  Why would that statement be made at all if no cards had been qualified at the time?  Oh yeah, I forgot...because the list that was published for the DR70D was actually the DR100MKii list.  But guess what, the DR100MKii can't use 128gb cards.  So why would they say they'd qualified 128gb card a year ago if they hadn't qualified any yet, because the first DR70D list they published a couple of months ago didn't have any 128gb cards on it.  The response might be, well that list that came out a couple months ago wasn't the first DR70D list.  But if that's true, my question then is, where is the list from a year ago with the 128gb card on it?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: vanark on October 11, 2015, 10:17:00 AM
Unreal.

They are denying that they have heard about this from more than two people. They admit that I have contacted support about this issue but claim that only one other user in the entire world has done so.

Are you the only one in this thread that has contacted support? I've been reading this thread for some time and don't recall anyone else coming forward with information on contacting support, other than a couple people saying they contacted them about sending in their cards. Why aren't you ALL contacting Tascam support?

I am a DR-60D owner and have had DR-70D envy, so I've been following this thread (all parts) to see if it was worth my while to make a switch. So far, I'm waiting to see how this is resolved. If the final resolution is simply to use a card on the list, that would be disappointing.

That being said, I thought Tom's responses were fair and sincere. If you don't think you chased him off, you've spent too much time on TS where we all grow thick skins after a while. If one of my customer service reps had been here trying to solve a problem and endured the responses he did, I would have told him he tried to address the issue, but it was time to withdraw and have the customers follow the official support protocol. I'm certain there are some of you that disagree and I fully expect you to tell me so.

This thread has all the reasons why I still come to TS and all the reasons why I ask myself why I still come to TS. Which side are you on? We should all try to be on the former. Be kind to each other as well as new members, even the occasional company rep that wanders in to answer questions. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 11, 2015, 10:32:03 AM
Are you the only one in this thread that has contacted support? I've been reading this thread for some time and don't recall anyone else coming forward with information on contacting support, other than a couple people saying they contacted them about sending in their cards. Why aren't you ALL contacting Tascam support?

No he's not the only one.  The standard customer support response in at least a very limited sample of several responses has been to refer people to the card list.  The discussion here has been more focused on why that response doesn't address the more basic issue, which people are trying to figure out.  Also, alot of people here have already resigned themselves, either through past history or history related to this specific thread, that Tascam is fine with letting the card list stand as their only formal response so we're left on our own to try to learn more, if possible.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 11, 2015, 10:35:41 AM
Unreal.

They are denying that they have heard about this from more than two people. They admit that I have contacted support about this issue but claim that only one other user in the entire world has done so.

Are you the only one in this thread that has contacted support? I've been reading this thread for some time and don't recall anyone else coming forward with information on contacting support, other than a couple people saying they contacted them about sending in their cards. Why aren't you ALL contacting Tascam support?

I am a DR-60D owner and have had DR-70D envy, so I've been following this thread (all parts) to see if it was worth my while to make a switch. So far, I'm waiting to see how this is resolved. If the final resolution is simply to use a card on the list, that would be disappointing.

That being said, I thought Tom's responses were fair and sincere. If you don't think you chased him off, you've spent too much time on TS where we all grow thick skins after a while. If one of my customer service reps had been here trying to solve a problem and endured the responses he did, I would have told him he tried to address the issue, but it was time to withdraw and have the customers follow the official support protocol. I'm certain there are some of you that disagree and I fully expect you to tell me so.

This thread has all the reasons why I still come to TS and all the reasons why I ask myself why I still come to TS. Which side are you on? We should all try to be on the former. Be kind to each other as well as new members, even the occasional company rep that wanders in to answer questions.

First, TASCAM has conceded that they have had trouble with their email. Eventually having to add disclaimer telling people not to use the form on the website...(not sure when that was added?)

This is the earliest reference I've found to unresponsive support. (at least regarding this product)

http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/22949-tascam-dr-70/&do=findComment&comment=299699


"I sent messages to Tascam's customer support; almost three weeks have passed and I still haven't received any reply to my messages. I called but was left waiting on the line for over 20 minutes. "


So - safe to assume going back to mid-july, customer support may have been unreachable.

I had a successful communication with TASCAM support regarding another product back in February - and I used the form.

Seems communication may have broke down sometime after that - right about the time some people may have tried to report problems.

Next, we didn't report - because we had TASCAM Rep - on the board here...who didn't seem receptive to the idea that there MIGHT be an issue.

Read that JW sound thread - On several posts - Tom was more than happy to refer others to TS.com for "real world testing" - until he started get real world reports he didn't like.

And then - suddenly - the EU card list...is wrong...glad Voltronic posted that - who knows how long TASCAM might have left it up??!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 11, 2015, 10:43:49 AM
...
 update: We are up to 30 responses (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit#gid=820901072); still at 11 error reports. ...
how many before it is significant?

Also, you made reference to my "only 11 out of 25" figure from the SD card survey. My point there was that 25 responses is statistically insignificant to start with.  Out of that, only 11 problem reports, all from people using cards not on the manufacturer recommended list is hardly enough evidence to establish this as a widespread issue.  This is out of the many thousands of units sold, and no problems of this type have been reported anywhere else that I'm aware of.  Should those 11 people have customer service work with them to help resolve their issues?  Absolutely, but if that response is "use an approved card", then that shouldn't be viewed as an unsatisfactory response.

No survey here could ever represent all the units that have been sold in the industry, so the statement about statistical significance against the thousands of units sold is irrelevant to the survey, not to mention that nobody here can perform any real statistical analysis against all of the units sold anyway so trying to claim any specific statistical analysis conclusions from this survey as significant or insignificant is bogus. 

For example, in my limited experience, a RANDOM sample of 25 is statistically significant to I think a 99 percent confidence factor to a total population of several thousand.  I know this because this is the sample rate the NRC requires for sampling in inspection programs in nuclear plants where the sample size is say several thousand valves in the plant.  Depending on the acceptance criteria being used, in my industry, a single fail rate in the random sample invokes a corrective action plan (usually increasing the inspection sample size and/or doing targeted inspections to get a better understanding of root cause).  Whether this survey constitutes a RANDOM sample is debatable, but that's my point about reaching ANY conclusions about statistical significance or insignificance of the survey results.

When I suggested the survey, I thought there were several things the survey could tell ts.com members a) cards that don't work, so cards to avoid, b) cards that aren't on the official list that people have had success with, so that maybe some alternatives to the tiny 'official' list would be available, and c) some general feedback to give an idea whether the issue is an isolated incident experienced by only a few or a more generic problem.  There's enough there to start to help people with a) and b) and IMHO there's enough information there to reach a reasonable conclusion on c).

Someone that wants to use the survey to help with future decision making can take the information for what it's worth in assessing a), b) or c) (or perhaps some other reasonable conclusion I haven't thought of).  Someone that's intent on arguing against IMHO overwhelming evidence that suggests there's something amiss on the DR70D design, and that Tascam seems to have been putting more effort into CYA than into solving the root cause of the issue, will come up with irrelevant talking points to continue to try to steer people away from the fact that the DR70D has an, as yet, unrevealed design issue that makes it ultra picky about the cards it uses.

Look, I just made the survey.  If anyone wants to send it Tascam as "overwhelming evidence", who's stopping you?  I just don't see it as enough to be convincing of a widespread issue.  Also, would you care to mention what these "irrelevant talking points" are?

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 11, 2015, 11:52:08 AM
...
 update: We are up to 30 responses (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nBCYtfZ0e9iQkGdq5N9aJwNsiOL90kpZq6tKfNAOf0w/edit#gid=820901072); still at 11 error reports. ...
how many before it is significant?

Also, you made reference to my "only 11 out of 25" figure from the SD card survey. My point there was that 25 responses is statistically insignificant to start with.  Out of that, only 11 problem reports, all from people using cards not on the manufacturer recommended list is hardly enough evidence to establish this as a widespread issue.  This is out of the many thousands of units sold, and no problems of this type have been reported anywhere else that I'm aware of.  Should those 11 people have customer service work with them to help resolve their issues?  Absolutely, but if that response is "use an approved card", then that shouldn't be viewed as an unsatisfactory response.

No survey here could ever represent all the units that have been sold in the industry, so the statement about statistical significance against the thousands of units sold is irrelevant to the survey, not to mention that nobody here can perform any real statistical analysis against all of the units sold anyway so trying to claim any specific statistical analysis conclusions from this survey as significant or insignificant is bogus. 

For example, in my limited experience, a RANDOM sample of 25 is statistically significant to I think a 99 percent confidence factor to a total population of several thousand.  I know this because this is the sample rate the NRC requires for sampling in inspection programs in nuclear plants where the sample size is say several thousand valves in the plant.  Depending on the acceptance criteria being used, in my industry, a single fail rate in the random sample invokes a corrective action plan (usually increasing the inspection sample size and/or doing targeted inspections to get a better understanding of root cause).  Whether this survey constitutes a RANDOM sample is debatable, but that's my point about reaching ANY conclusions about statistical significance or insignificance of the survey results.

When I suggested the survey, I thought there were several things the survey could tell ts.com members a) cards that don't work, so cards to avoid, b) cards that aren't on the official list that people have had success with, so that maybe some alternatives to the tiny 'official' list would be available, and c) some general feedback to give an idea whether the issue is an isolated incident experienced by only a few or a more generic problem.  There's enough there to start to help people with a) and b) and IMHO there's enough information there to reach a reasonable conclusion on c).

Someone that wants to use the survey to help with future decision making can take the information for what it's worth in assessing a), b) or c) (or perhaps some other reasonable conclusion I haven't thought of).  Someone that's intent on arguing against IMHO overwhelming evidence that suggests there's something amiss on the DR70D design, and that Tascam seems to have been putting more effort into CYA than into solving the root cause of the issue, will come up with irrelevant talking points to continue to try to steer people away from the fact that the DR70D has an, as yet, unrevealed design issue that makes it ultra picky about the cards it uses.

Look, I just made the survey.  If anyone wants to send it Tascam as "overwhelming evidence", who's stopping you?  I just don't see it as enough to be convincing of a widespread issue.  Also, would you care to mention what these "irrelevant talking points" are?

As I said, I think the survey serves as input to people here and that's about it.  So, I don't see where submitting it to Tascam serves any purpose other than maybe so they can revise their baseline of people that have reported the issue. 

Thought it wasn't clear from my statement, the overwhelming evidence I was referring to wasn't with respect to the survey, it was with respect to many of the details that have been discussed in this thread. 

The irrelevant talking points was my cheap shot at you for your IMHO overzealous defense of Tascam in this thread at nearly every turn, whether trying to argue statistical insignificance of eleven data points, justify why burst speeds on a card logically supports Tascams explanation of why cards don't work on 2 channels in their recorder, even though the same card writes fine to ten channels (8 inputs plus the two summed L/R channels) in my Zoom F8, etc. 

I realize that I've been overly harsh on them, so I'm guilty of being overzealous in my criticism.  Most people here take the middle road and say...well at least we've got a workable compromise solution...I respect that position even though I haven't been too abiding of it in my responses here.  But my bottom line now is that I have a card that seems to work, so I probably should just bow out of this thread altogether.  It's just that I keep coming back and seeing things that torque me back up about this whole thing...like the post earlier today that LIR posted with the statement that was made a year ago that 128gb cards had been verified to work. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: aaronji on October 11, 2015, 11:59:15 AM
"irrelevant talking points"

The entire discussion about formatting is a good example.  Start from the assumption, justified or not, that other portable recorders do not have an erase format, only a quick format.

I didn't realize that even the cheaper Tascam units have had Full / Erase format as a normal feature!  My other portable recorders have been Sony, Marantz, and Zoom which do not.

So, if the assumption is true, then Tascam's implementation of the quick format was deficient.  I have only seen a sporadic report of this type of problem with other recorders.  If the root cause was failure to do an erase format, then those other recorders, which only have the quick option, should have the same problems.  I think a large number of M10 users never remove the card and have been using the same one, in some cases, for years.  Surely if the problem were to show up, you might expect it to show up in that case.

If the assumption isn't true, and other portable recorders do have an erase format, then Tascam's failure to initially include it, especially when their other recorders have it, was deficient.

Also, what tondeaf, voltronic and morst were discussing in the past few post is "statistically representative" (sampling) and not "statistically significant" (hypothesis testing).  If the target population is "DR-70 users", then the survey is definitely not representative.  Even if the target population is "tapers using the DR-70", it probably isn't representative due to known biases in online, self-reported surveys.  Significance would require some sort of hypothesis to be tested and either accepted or rejected in favor of the null hypothesis (such as "tapers using the DR-70 experience these errors more frequently than DR-60 users").  The sample is large enough for hypothesis testing if the difference between the null and alternative is large enough.

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: vanark on October 11, 2015, 12:30:26 PM
The fact that at least 11 tapers on TS have reported the same issue with the same recorder is significant, sample size or otherwise. If Tascam wants to have time to look into it and in the meantime advise users to stick to the approved list, that seems like a sufficient *interim* solution. There must be some other issue with the recorder to have such a narrow tolerance of SD media.

Another point, just because they did not publish a 128 GB card doesn't mean they didn't test a 128 GB card and have successful results. It might just mean they didn't update the list as it seems that is how they operate. Now, they got caught with their pants down when they started telling users to use a card on the list and the largest size was 32 GB and they realized they needed to provide an alternative in the interim.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: aaronji on October 11, 2015, 12:37:53 PM
^ I am not suggesting that the 11 out of 30 isn't "significant" in the colloquial sense of the word (I think it certainly is), but, in statistics (as used here), "significant" has a specific meaning.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: yug du nord on October 11, 2015, 12:40:07 PM
Does anyone else have the "INITIALIZE" option in the menu settings??
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 11, 2015, 12:41:41 PM
Does anyone else have the "INITIALIZE" option in the menu settings??

Yes...manual says it restores factory settings.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: vanark on October 11, 2015, 12:42:02 PM
^ I am not suggesting that the 11 out of 30 isn't "significant" in the colloquial sense of the word (I think it certainly is), but, in statistics (as used here), "significant" has a specific meaning.

I agree. Just because it isn't statistically significant doesn't mean Tascam shouldn't take notice.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 11, 2015, 12:44:51 PM
The irrelevant talking points was my cheap shot at you for your IMHO overzealous defense of Tascam in this thread at nearly every turn, whether trying to argue statistical insignificance of eleven data points, justify why burst speeds on a card logically supports Tascams explanation of why cards don't work on 2 channels in their recorder, even though the same card writes fine to ten channels (8 inputs plus the two summed L/R channels) in my Zoom F8, etc. 

I realize that I've been overly harsh on them, so I'm guilty of being overzealous in my criticism.  Most people here take the middle road and say...well at least we've got a workable compromise solution...I respect that position even though I haven't been too abiding of it in my responses here.  But my bottom line now is that I have a card that seems to work, so I probably should just bow out of this thread altogether.  It's just that I keep coming back and seeing things that torque me back up about this whole thing...like the post earlier today that LIR posted with the statement that was made a year ago that 128gb cards had been verified to work.

From my perspective, I thought you were simply venting about your problem and finding correlations that confirmed your suspicions at ever turn, where none existed.  That said, if you are willing to concede that you may have been an overzealous critic, then I'll concede that I may been overzealous on the other side.

I'll even go further than that and say that even though I think this still doesn't seem to be a problem many people have had, that Tascam's response to the problem for those people could be much better from a service and also public relations standpoint.  I suppose my harping about there being very few error reports doesn't help out the people who are having problems, so if that was offensive then I apologize for that.  Also, the fact that Tascam had incorrect information on their European site (as well as the site being terrible in general) shows that they don't really have all of their ducks in a row so they definitely have work to do.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 11, 2015, 12:47:50 PM
Does anyone else have the "INITIALIZE" option in the menu settings??

Not sure if it's a new added feature or not, but it resets all of the menu options to factory settings.  Never tried it before.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: yug du nord on October 11, 2015, 12:50:49 PM
Does anyone else have the "INITIALIZE" option in the menu settings??

Yes...

Maybe I missed the discussion about that....  I've always thought of initializing and formatting as the same thing more or less.......  am I wrong about that??
Or is this part of the whole "quick format" discussion??
Sorry if this has been covered.

The "INITIALIZE" option is right above the "FORMAT" option on my 70D.
I have the original firmware loaded that came out of the box..  I've never updated.  Version 1.01 0044
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: yug du nord on October 11, 2015, 12:53:24 PM
.....I think that the Sony HI-MD minidisc recorders use "INITIALIZE" to format the MD discs...  I'll have to double check that though....
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 11, 2015, 12:56:04 PM
Does anyone else have the "INITIALIZE" option in the menu settings??

Yes...

Maybe I missed the discussion about that....  I've always thought of initializing and formatting as the same thing more or less

Maybe on an APPLE II  :P (I think initialize was something you did to a floppy disk?)

In this case it restores the factory settings...not sure how that affects firmware.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 11, 2015, 12:59:01 PM
The fact that at least 11 tapers on TS have reported the same issue with the same recorder is significant, sample size or otherwise. If Tascam wants to have time to look into it and in the meantime advise users to stick to the approved list, that seems like a sufficient *interim* solution. There must be some other issue with the recorder to have such a narrow tolerance of SD media.

Another point, just because they did not publish a 128 GB card doesn't mean they didn't test a 128 GB card and have successful results. It might just mean they didn't update the list as it seems that is how they operate. Now, they got caught with their pants down when they started telling users to use a card on the list and the largest size was 32 GB and they realized they needed to provide an alternative in the interim.

That's fair - as I said in my reply to Tonedeaf, I realize that my earlier comments about the survey and it's significance or lack thereof didn't help the people who actually are having a problem and were frustrated that they couldn't use their deck.

I'm curious if anyone knows how long has it taken Tascam in the past to issue recommended media lists for their other recorders?  Going through their website, I see media lists for most of their recorders except for the 60DmkII and the HS-P82.

All of our arguing aside, here's what I'm most interested in seeing going forward:

1. If anyone has these types of problems cropping up using media from the recommended list.
2. If the next firmware update contains anything related to this.  (Though channel ganging and improved metering are still my top priorities I wish they would fix.)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 11, 2015, 01:03:57 PM

2. If the next firmware update contains anything related to this.  (Though channel ganging and improved metering are still my top priorities I wish they would fix.)

But we've already seen that...the addition of the FULL FORMAT function in the last firmware release.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 11, 2015, 01:14:07 PM

2. If the next firmware update contains anything related to this.  (Though channel ganging and improved metering are still my top priorities I wish they would fix.)

But we've already seen that...the addition of the FULL FORMAT function in the last firmware release.

Maybe, but they could have added that just because they realized it was a missing feature that should have been there in the first place.

I was thinking more along the lines of a future update that might read:

"Improves compatibility with a wider variety of SD cards."

If that happens, then that would constitute them admitting there was a problem with the software that caused it be very picky about cards.  I don't think that will necessarily happen, but we'll see.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 11, 2015, 01:16:23 PM
Was Tascam aware of this thread at all, or was Tomuo acting alone?

Did his handlers "pull him out" or did he leave because he was sad?

That being said, I thought Tom's responses were fair and sincere. If you don't think you chased him off, you've spent too much time on TS where we all grow thick skins after a while. If one of my customer service reps had been here trying to solve a problem and endured the responses he did, I would have told him he tried to address the issue, but it was time to withdraw and have the customers follow the official support protocol. I'm certain there are some of you that disagree and I fully expect you to tell me so.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: aaronji on October 11, 2015, 01:16:52 PM
^ I am not suggesting that the 11 out of 30 isn't "significant" in the colloquial sense of the word (I think it certainly is), but, in statistics (as used here), "significant" has a specific meaning.

I agree. Just because it isn't statistically significant doesn't mean Tascam shouldn't take notice.

Absolutely.  Really, I think you would be hard-pressed to envision a scenario in which 11 out of 30 isn't statistically significant.  For example, if you assume an incredibly high expected problem rate of 10% (and, at that level, it would be criminal for Tascam to be selling them), the probability of observing more than 8* failures in 30 observations is 0.00002.  As I mentioned earlier, the survey is probably a bit biased, as people with problems are more likely to participate, but that is a tiny probability...

[* The 8 is the number of actually observed incidents, 11, minus the expected number at 10% failure (30 * 0.1 = 3), so the "excess" incidents.]
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 11, 2015, 01:57:58 PM
From my perspective, I thought you were simply venting about your problem and finding correlations that confirmed your suspicions at ever turn, where none existed.  That said, if you are willing to concede that you may have been an overzealous critic, then I'll concede that I may been overzealous on the other side.

Cool.  Truce.  ;)

Sure I was venting and a biased commenter, but it came with some background/precedent.  As already mentioned, Tascam had ignored the issue I presented them with the DR100MKii.  On top of that, I had decided to move on from the DR70D and sold it before any of this came up, but I ended up taking it back and refunding the buyer because the buyer couldn't get it to work properly because of this issue.  Now I don't think I want to try to sell it since it's shown the issue, but since I bought the Zoom F8 (after selling the DR70D), I won't be needing the DR70D much in the future.  If I do sell it, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get much for it...at least not at this point in time until it's proven to be reliable.  You called me out earlier for calling this a POS and a paperweight, but because of the progression of events for me, right now that's what it is to me since I bought a Zoom F8 after selling the 70D.  So, for me it's not just a matter of being a sourpuss about the card issue. 

I'll even go further than that and say that even though I think this still doesn't seem to be a problem many people have had, that Tascam's response to the problem for those people could be much better from a service and also public relations standpoint.  I suppose my harping about there being very few error reports doesn't help out the people who are having problems, so if that was offensive then I apologize for that.  Also, the fact that Tascam had incorrect information on their European site (as well as the site being terrible in general) shows that they don't really have all of their ducks in a row so they definitely have work to do.

 :cheers:

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: goodcooker on October 11, 2015, 02:14:43 PM
The Tascam DR05, DR2d and DR60d all included a full format as well as a quick format option.
I have always used the quick option on my DR60 (and the other 2 when I had them).

I'm doing a full format now in the 60d out of curiosity to see how long it takes on a 16g Lexar card that has seen light use.

I know this doesn't help users of the 70d but I'm curious and I thought others may be as well.

EDIT: The full format was at 48 minutes when I accidentally pulled the mini usb plug supplying power. I had an oh shit moment since that can potentially ruin the card. Sure enough the DR60d would not boot up with that card in it. Put the card in my Nikon camera and formatted it (its a quick format and takes 5 seconds) and shot a few pics. Acted fine. Put it back in the DR60 and did a quick format. It started right up and recorded fine. Repeat quick format, record again and check files. Everything still fine.

How long is the new to the DR70d full format taking people to perform? If it's as long as the DR60 you might want to make sure to do it well in advance of your anticipated start time.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 11, 2015, 02:54:37 PM
@Voltronic :
The cards lists for the DR-60DmkII and HS-P82 are there :
http://www.tascam.eu/en/dr-60dmkii_cards.html (http://www.tascam.eu/en/dr-60dmkii_cards.html)
http://tascam.com/product/hs-p82/specifications/ (http://tascam.com/product/hs-p82/specifications/)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 12, 2015, 08:42:56 AM
Ran clean last night for Naughty Professor - using my "good" (No errors so far) LEXAR Platinum II card.

This card was full - I deleted the files in Windows - and then formatted in the DR-70D. (old firmware "FORMAT)

No glitches - two clean sets! @ 24/48.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 12, 2015, 09:21:30 AM
Ran clean last night for Naughty Professor - using my "good" (No errors so far) LEXAR Platinum II card.

This card was full - I deleted the files in Windows - and then formatted in the DR-70D. (old firmware "FORMAT)

No glitches - two clean sets! @ 24/48.

Nice.

That card isn't on the list.  I'm curious because you said you have a card from your camera that's on the list... Why didn't you use that one?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 12, 2015, 09:51:04 AM
Ran clean last night for Naughty Professor - using my "good" (No errors so far) LEXAR Platinum II card.

This card was full - I deleted the files in Windows - and then formatted in the DR-70D. (old firmware "FORMAT)

No glitches - two clean sets! @ 24/48.

Nice.

That card isn't on the list.  I'm curious because you said you have a card from your camera that's on the list... Why didn't you use that one?

Just the way my day ran...had to run a grandkid back to Lancaster...had about an hour when I got back. Early show too - 8pm.

I wasn't going to have time to do the whole firmware update process...and a potentially long card format.

Figured the card that hadn't glitched might be the best choice.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 12, 2015, 10:02:10 AM
I was running around over the weekend and ended up at various points in both Best Buy and Wal-Mart.  I called up the latest card list on my cell phone and checked it against the cards they had in stock.  Turns out that Best Buy had a number of cards on the list...at least five of them including the 128gb and one of the 64gb size...and Wal Mart had a couple of the smaller ones.  I actually bought one of those at Wal Mart...it was a 16gb Sandisc Ultra Plus (SDHC UHS-1), but it was only $15 so figured would be good to have for backup. 

I thought people might like to know these as potential alternatives for those that either don't like mail-ordering or don't have time.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 12, 2015, 10:38:42 AM
I was running around over the weekend and ended up at various points in both Best Buy and Wal-Mart.  I called up the latest card list on my cell phone and checked it against the cards they had in stock.  Turns out that Best Buy had a number of cards on the list...at least five of them including the 128gb and one of the 64gb size...and Wal Mart had a couple of the smaller ones.  I actually bought one of those at Wal Mart...it was a 16gb Sandisc Ultra Plus (SDHC UHS-1), but it was only $15 so figured would be good to have for backup. 

I thought people might like to know these as potential alternatives for those that either don't like mail-ordering or don't have time.

My "approved" card was purchased at BestBuy. Sounds like its  the same 16GB you bought. It was cheap as I recall.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 12, 2015, 12:58:22 PM
Ran clean last night for Naughty Professor - using my "good" (No errors so far) LEXAR Platinum II card.

This card was full - I deleted the files in Windows - and then formatted in the DR-70D. (old firmware "FORMAT)

No glitches - two clean sets! @ 24/48.

Good to hear, I've never used a Lexar card.  We're you running 2 or 4 channels?

If that worked well over 2 sets with just the quick format, I'd say that should qualify as a good card.  Maybe pop it into the survey if you get a moment?  I might take the reported good cards from there and make a list on the FAQ page.  I had a small list there before which I deleted in favor of the survey, but it might be more convenient to also have a list of known good ones there with retail links, if that sounds like a good idea.

After thinking about this, I'd probably be more comfortable using a card with a good report like yours than I would be with one of the ones marked "*1" on the new media list, saying that you need to always full-format them.  Yes, this is coming from the guy preaching full formatting, which is superior but less convenient.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 12, 2015, 01:17:31 PM
Ran clean last night for Naughty Professor - using my "good" (No errors so far) LEXAR Platinum II card.

This card was full - I deleted the files in Windows - and then formatted in the DR-70D. (old firmware "FORMAT)

No glitches - two clean sets! @ 24/48.

Good to hear, I've never used a Lexar card.  We're you running 2 or 4 channels?

If that worked well over 2 sets with just the quick format, I'd say that should qualify as a good card.  Maybe pop it into the survey if you get a moment?  I might take the reported good cards from there and make a list on the FAQ page.  I had a small list there before which I deleted in favor of the survey, but it might be more convenient to also have a list of known good ones there with retail links, if that sounds like a good idea.

After thinking about this, I'd probably be more comfortable using a card with a good report like yours than I would be with one of the ones marked "*1" on the new media list, saying that you need to always full-format them.  Yes, this is coming from the guy preaching full formatting, which is superior but less convenient.

I've already reported it as a bad card...! I have 2 - One glitched - one hasn't.

I willing to bet a FULL FORMAT will fix the glitchy one.

I dont think just because a card has failed means its a "bad card"

Last night I was running just 2 channels at 24/48. So - not a huge challenge.

But - probably my best recording yet with this deck!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 12, 2015, 03:10:27 PM
Here is  a comparison of the recommended/tested SD cards lists published by the manufacturers of different recorders including the Tascam DR-70D.
http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/cards.xls (http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/cards.xls)
That's quite a mess : some of these cards are obsolete, some are for the Japanese market only, very few (some SanDisk Extreme Pro or Extreme Plus) are recommended by more than one manufacturer.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 12, 2015, 03:50:41 PM
If that worked well over 2 sets with just the quick format, I'd say that should qualify as a good card. 

How can you say this? The only cards Tascam will stand behind are the ones on their short list.  If we could decide what cards are good, we would not be having this element of the discussion!?

A card works for two formats and you think it's as good as a Tascam-tested card?

Not feelin' it. It took them 11 months to come up with a single 128GB
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 12, 2015, 07:37:36 PM
If that worked well over 2 sets with just the quick format, I'd say that should qualify as a good card. 

How can you say this? The only cards Tascam will stand behind are the ones on their short list.  If we could decide what cards are good, we would not be having this element of the discussion!?

A card works for two formats and you think it's as good as a Tascam-tested card?

Not feelin' it. It took them 11 months to come up with a single 128GB

Unless I'm misreading your intent - it sounds like you're saying we should actually trust Tascam's testing methodology and the approved card list! :o

Wow, I thought Tonedeaf and me burying the hatchet this weekend was a big step, but this just blew my mind.

Kidding aside, yeah it's probably premature to declare a card "good" after just two uses.  Don't get me wrong - I still think the offical Tascam list is the way to go if you're buying a new card, but maybe some of the older cards we already own can work also like the 5 year old Transcend I have in my 70D.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 12, 2015, 07:43:39 PM
Here is  a comparison of the recommended/tested SD cards lists published by the manufacturers of different recorders including the Tascam DR-70D.
http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/cards.xls (http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/cards.xls)
That's quite a mess : some of these cards are obsolete, some are for the Japanese market only, very few (some SanDisk Extreme Pro or Extreme Plus) are recommended by more than one manufacturer.

Great job on putting this together!  Do you own all of these recorders, or did you just choose a sample of popular recorders that use SD storage?

Another question - what are the codes you have listed for some of the cards under the 680MKII and 60DMKII?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 12, 2015, 11:20:14 PM
Unless I'm misreading your intent - it sounds like you're saying we should actually trust Tascam's testing methodology and the approved card list! :o

Wow, I thought Tonedeaf and me burying the hatchet this weekend was a big step, but this just blew my mind.
I am in fact saying that since Tascam has a workaround, and I don't want to be their test dummy, that I will be using ONLY cards from their ever-changing list.

What else have we got if we want to use a DR-70D? I had failures on three "wrong" cards. I bought a 16GB off the old list, and that works (so far!) I'll probably pick up a bigger card next time I have some extended recording to do, I bought three different 32's before my last outing, but none of those are on the "real list." I bought three 16GB cards that B & H was suggesting. First one I tried failed.

I want to have a chance at user support for what I consider Tascam's defective DR-70D. I will be using only approved cards until I can verify that they get the same error. Then it's back to complaining to custserv@  >:(

Did you notice that in my BBB complaint, I did not exactly require them to fix the errors? I mainly asked TEAC/Tascam to certify SDXC cards so that the machine would do as-advertised. And a result was mighty speedy once I did so!

Quote
I want to use the Tascam DR-70D in the manner it is intended to be used, with SDXC cards of sufficient size, as advertised. I want Tascam to resolve the issue either by certifying a few 64 and 128 GB SDXC cards, repairing the hardware, updating the firmware, or if they can not resolve their hardware issue, as a very last resort, Tascam should be forced to stop advertising the unit as being compatible with cards over 32GB.

If this is the case, that TEAC/Tascam are unable to demonstrate that their DR-70D product meets their operational specifications, then I want them to issue a refund for my purchase.

Of *course*, I would prefer that we could use any ol' CL10 card, but I guess I'm spoiled by my Sony PCM-M10's, and their ability to use seemingly any card for 2-track audio.

Like you keep saying, this is Tascam, one must lower one's expectations! It's not Sound Devices, it's not Zaxcom, hell, it's not even Sony.  :(

But, dollars to donuts, Tascam doesn't feel like spending another penny to market this thing, so it's "Cheaper to keep'r" and just certify some dang'ol 128GB SDXC cards rather than redoing the sales blurbs!!!?! Hence, the results!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 14, 2015, 07:13:37 AM
Here is  a comparison of the recommended/tested SD cards lists published by the manufacturers of different recorders including the Tascam DR-70D.
http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/cards.xls (http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/cards.xls)
That's quite a mess : some of these cards are obsolete, some are for the Japanese market only, very few (some SanDisk Extreme Pro or Extreme Plus) are recommended by more than one manufacturer.

Great job on putting this together!  Do you own all of these recorders, or did you just choose a sample of popular recorders that use SD storage?

Another question - what are the codes you have listed for some of the cards under the 680MKII and 60DMKII?
Regarding the choice of recorders, they just are current 4 tracks and more from Tascam (this is the point we discuss), Sound Devices (generally accepted as pro gear and recent models), Zoom (the darling of the moment). I own only the humble DR-70D.
I wondered if there was a pattern to be found in these lists that could help determine good cards : the answer, for me, is no. I suspect that the SD card specs that appears on the cards themselves are more marketing than technology (meaning that some important information is not visible).
I was also surprised by the limited number of easily available cards listed and the very few cards that appear on more than one list.
Sometimes the reference of the card is the same as found in another list plus a few letters or figures, I put those between parentheses besides the OK as they seem to define more precisely a card manufacturing type (for instance when you see J35 and J35N the last one looks like it means J35new which may be different).
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on October 14, 2015, 09:39:14 AM
I would have thought that any card that will play nicely with the 70d should also play nicely in any other recorder and the gaps in cross compatibility stem from the difficulty of testing every card with every recorder.

But maybe not?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on October 14, 2015, 12:17:08 PM
have had no issues with this 16gb Samsung (http://www.frys.com/product/8061674?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG) SD card i've been using.  taped a show and have run 5 or 6 tests just recording my record player and nothing wrong so far.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: MakersMarc on October 14, 2015, 12:33:39 PM
I wonder if it's just best to use 16 gb. When I got my 661 I just assumed that large capacity cards could be an issue for any recorder, and have had no card related issues.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on October 14, 2015, 10:35:10 PM
I think it would be best to use 128 GB.  Longer recording time.... ;D  :thinking: :veryevil:
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 17, 2015, 01:15:47 AM
I have been having a close look at some SD cards I had on my desk and tried to test them.  Please note that this was done just to try to understand the differences between cards that carry similar specifications, not to take position on the quality of the DR-70D write-to-card routines.

To understand the test results, one must have a reference : recording at 24/96 4 channels, with 20% overhead to manage the file system should require something like 1.5MB/s of bandwidth.
Tests were run using the gnome_disks_utility (disks) on a Fedora 22 linux machine. This tests the random read and write speed of the cards. It was set to 250 samples of 10 MB each.
The 10 cards tested are in fact 2 each of 5 different models :
All cards bought from Amazon (and sold by Amazon, no marketplace sellers).
Here are the results (red line is the write rate in MB/s, blue line is the read rate in MB/s, the green scatter plot is the access time in msec) :

SanDisk 16GB, very lightly used (just some tests) :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/SanDisk_16GB_SDSDXPA-016G-X46_01.jpg)

SanDisk 16GB, new out of the box :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/SanDisk_16GB_SDSDXPA-016G-X46_02.jpg)

SanDisk 64GB, new out of the box :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/SanDisk_64GB_SDSDXPA-064G-X46_01.jpg)

This card is reported as 32GB by the program, it has been checked with f3 and is indeed a 64GB card with all sectors working correctly.
another SanDisk 64GB, new out of the box :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/SanDisk_64GB_SDSDXPA-064G-X46_02.jpg)

Same tests were performed with f3, the card is really a 64GB card.
All these cards show a very regular pattern that does not change during the test and a minimum write speed that is much higher than the 1.5MB/s that is needed.

Now lets look at some Transcend cards that have served me well in photo applications :
Transcend 32GB, used but not abused, no speed indication on the card (bought in 2013) :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_older_01.jpg)

another Transcend 32GB, used but not abused, no speed indication on the card (bought in 2013) :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_older_02.jpg)

Let's get a little more current with Class 10 cards :

Transcend 32GB, used but not abused, Class 10, 200x (bought in 2014) :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_TS32GSDHC10E_01.jpg)

another Transcend 32GB, used but not abused, Class 10, 200x (bought in 2014) :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_TS32GSDHC10E_02.jpg)

And even more current, Transcend Class 10 600x UHS-I cards :

Transcend 32GB, used but not abused, Class 10, 600x, UHS-I (bought in 2015) :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_TS32GSDHC10U1E_01.jpg)

another Transcend 32GB, used but not abused, Class 10, 600x, UHS-I (bought in 2015) :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_TS32GSDHC10U1E_02.jpg)

With these cards, performance is progressively reduced during the test (obviously, there is buffering at play at the beginning). Write rates may be insufficient at times to ensure a 1.5MB/s bandwith. Apart from the first type (the older one) that seems to guarantee a 6MB/s bandwith, they do not seem to be a good choice for a multitrack recorder. It is strange that the more recent cards that are sold as better (with more badges such as Class 10, UHS-I, ...) have in fact much worse write speed performance. Access time can be very high on rare occasions at 6 to 8 msec.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 17, 2015, 03:11:09 AM
FWIW,... and nowhere near the detail from above,...
I did my first live recording tonight with the DR70D, and had no issues.
I ran 2444, low gain setting, with DPA 4060's-> DPA MMA6000 mic preamp and Sandisk Ultra 16gb card, and had no issues in a two set, two hour recording.  I was going to run 2496, but chickened out, and reset a few minutes before the show.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 17, 2015, 07:44:57 AM
^ ^ jcb, that's a very interesting test.  A couple things:

Did you happen to do an Erase / Full format on those Transcend cards before testing?  If not, that may improve their results.  If you did fully format them, then that indicates that either their performance really degrades badly over a year or two, or they are simply far inferior to the SanDisk units.

Your test was random read / write of 250 10MB samples.  To me, that seems to be how they would be used in a camera.  From what I understand though, audio recording is a much more continuous write.  I wonder if you can find a test that does sustained writes.  I think such tests exist for hard drives, but I'm not sure if they work for flash media.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: kleiner Rainer on October 17, 2015, 08:35:53 AM
Hi all,

very interesting. This correlates with information I got from our manufacturers when selecting SPI FLASH for an embedded application. Another point to keep in mind is the difference in performance and write endurance between SLC (1 bit per cell) and MLC (2-3 bit per cell). MLC is cheaper and has less write endurance, but is preferred (size and price) for consumer applications:

http://www.supertalent.com/datasheets/SLC_vs_MLC%20whitepaper.pdf

The performance degradation in SD cards is also discussed here:

http://www.linuxplumbersconf.org/2010/ocw/proposals/387

Formatting FLASH cards can make a difference:

http://3gfp.com/wp/2014/07/formatting-sd-cards-for-speed-and-lifetime/

So to summarize: SD cards are not made equal. And I would not want to design a recorder that is expected to work with any card available  8)

Greetings,

Rainer
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 17, 2015, 09:02:28 AM
...then that indicates that either their performance really degrades badly over a year or two,

I don't see this.  The vertical scales aren't consistent from graph to graph, so one can't rely on visual comparisons of the graphs.  The analytical data on the bottom indicates that all of the Transcend cards except one have an average write speed in the 9mb/s range.  No trend conclusions can be made from that in terms of new vs. old cards. 

or they are simply far inferior to the SanDisk units.

Yeah, I think that's a valid conclusion from this as well, though I'm not sure the test necessarily indicates that Transcend cards shouldn't be used in many/most applications. Clearly the write speeds on the Sandisk cards are superior in all cases over the Trascend.

What I find most interesting about these is how the Transcend cards all drop off after 10% and then trend downward with increasing samples, while the Sandisk cards all process data uniformly throughout the test.  Clearly the two companies use different technology for writing data to their cards. 

Transcend cards seem to show some kind of a bottleneck effect as they fill up while Sandisk cards don't seem to be affected by the amount of data that's been written.  That seems consistent with the results some have reported here...that they didn't experience issues with their card in the DR70D until after some amount of time had passed into the recording session.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: johnmuge on October 17, 2015, 09:59:09 AM
I just updated my firmware to V1.11, put in a new Sandisk 16GB SDSDUP-016G approved card and set up my mics.  Loaded up the house CD player with some Jerry Garcia Band and hit record.  It's a weekend test house party here !!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 17, 2015, 10:37:59 AM
I just updated my firmware to V1.11, put in a new Sandisk 16GB SDSDUP-016G approved card and set up my mics.  Loaded up the house CD player with some Jerry Garcia Band and hit record.  It's a weekend test house party here !!

Hey John.  Here's a potential timesaving tip for you.  If you have another recorder besides the DR70D, set it up so that it's recording directly from the mics, then set your DR70D to record the output of the first recorder.  Once you've recorded a couple of hours of music, load both files into your DAW and compare the two on the same timeline.  If you have any issues, I think you might see that the length of the files are different.  If not, then they'll be close to the same length. 

On my DR70D, when it had problems, there was digi-noise but it also missed a small amount of music, so there would be a mis-match between the two files in that case.  I found this to be a less cumbersome method of checking for issues on the DR70D files than listening closely to two hours worth of music all over again.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 17, 2015, 11:09:53 AM
^ ^ jcb, that's a very interesting test.  A couple things:

Did you happen to do an Erase / Full format on those Transcend cards before testing?  If not, that may improve their results.  If you did fully format them, then that indicates that either their performance really degrades badly over a year or two, or they are simply far inferior to the SanDisk units.

No the cards were not formatted before the test. I'll try to do this (full format/erase in the computer then run test) but full format/erase takes time...

Your test was random read / write of 250 10MB samples.  To me, that seems to be how they would be used in a camera.  From what I understand though, audio recording is a much more continuous write.  I wonder if you can find a test that does sustained writes.  I think such tests exist for hard drives, but I'm not sure if they work for flash media.

The test I ran was easy to operate and had easy to copy graphic results. It is indeed writing randomly on the card. I'll have a look to see if I can find some other test that writes sequentially.

(edited to repair the quotes)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 17, 2015, 11:16:31 AM
^ ^ jcb, that's a very interesting test.  A couple things:

Did you happen to do an Erase / Full format on those Transcend cards before testing?  If not, that may improve their results.  If you did fully format them, then that indicates that either their performance really degrades badly over a year or two, or they are simply far inferior to the SanDisk units.

No the cards were not formatted before the test. I'll try to do this (full format/erase in the computer then run test) but full format/erase takes time...

Quote
Your test was random read / write of 250 10MB samples.  To me, that seems to be how they would be used in a camera.  From what I understand though, audio recording is a much more continuous write.  I wonder if you can find a test that does sustained writes.  I think such tests exist for hard drives, but I'm not sure if they work for flash media.

The test I ran was easy to operate and had easy to copy graphic results. It is indeed writing randomly on the card. I'll have a look to see if I can find some other test that writes sequentially.

I'd like to see this done using the FULL FORMAT function on DR-70D. (or even series done with QUICK vs FULL format...)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 17, 2015, 11:39:46 AM
...then that indicates that either their performance really degrades badly over a year or two,
I don't see this.  The vertical scales aren't consistent from graph to graph, so one can't rely on visual comparisons of the graphs.  The analytical data on the bottom indicates that all of the Transcend cards except one have an average write speed in the 9mb/s range.  No trend conclusions can be made from that in terms of new vs. old cards. 

I read it a bit differently :
In a point and shoot camera, this is no big deal, the image is buffered and the only consequence is that you wait a little longer before the camera is ready for the next picture. In a video camera or sound recorder this could result in a real problem when you hit a slow write patch.

or they are simply far inferior to the SanDisk units.

Yeah, I think that's a valid conclusion from this as well, though I'm not sure the test necessarily indicates that Transcend cards shouldn't be used in many/most applications. Clearly the write speeds on the Sandisk cards are superior in all cases over the Trascend.

I agree with this : the Transcends are just inferior. What is strange is that their read performance increases from one generation to the next while their instantaneous write performance degrades...

What I find most interesting about these is how the Transcend cards all drop off after 10% and then trend downward with increasing samples, while the Sandisk cards all process data uniformly throughout the test.  Clearly the two companies use different technology for writing data to their cards. 

Transcend cards seem to show some kind of a bottleneck effect as they fill up while Sandisk cards don't seem to be affected by the amount of data that's been written.  That seems consistent with the results some have reported here...that they didn't experience issues with their card in the DR70D until after some amount of time had passed into the recording session.

I suspect that there is some buffering inside the card. When this buffer is full the performance falls.

(Edited to repair the quotes structure)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 17, 2015, 12:43:32 PM
I tried to do a full erase format to see if it really changed the results. The test program remains the same. The card is the most recent Transcend in the former sample so a class 10 UHS-I card.

The first test with the card (as it was after use) gave the following results :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_TS32GSDHC10U1E_01.jpg)

After a full erase and format in my computer (it does seem logical to format in the machine used for the test) :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_TS32GSDHC10U1E_01_after_full_format_in_computer.jpg)

I ran a second same test just after but without the green plot so that the red plot can be seen better :

(http://ww2.dadabe.org/public/feo/sary/Transcend_32GB_TS32GSDHC10U1E_01_again_after_full_format_in_computer.jpg)

The improvement is not evident. The read seems smoother but the write throughput remains very irregular and there are still patches where the card does not write faster than 1MB/s. Remember that each point on the graph is an average write speed for a 10MB data write sequence. 10MB is more than 6 seconds of recording at 24/96 with all four channels meaning that one can have really slow writing on the card for more than 6 seconds of recording...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: vanark on October 17, 2015, 01:40:08 PM
Wow, pretty dramatic difference between cards. It seems the recorder would need a more generous (and forgiving) buffer to deal with such an erratic write performance.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 17, 2015, 03:56:46 PM
... No trend conclusions can be made from that in terms of new vs. old cards. 

I read it a bit differently :
  • You have to look to the instant response on the chart and not only to the average figure below as the bandwidth is much better at the beginning of the test than later. If you look towards the end of the graphs, with the most recent Transcends, the instant throughput is regularly in the 1MB/s range (on the downwards spikes).
  • The access time scatter plot (the green goo like thing on the graph) is also interesting when you search out of the homogeneous cloud for the extreme values : less than 2msec for the SanDisks, up to 8msec for the Transcends.
In a point and shoot camera, this is no big deal, the image is buffered and the only consequence is that you wait a little longer before the camera is ready for the next picture. In a video camera or sound recorder this could result in a real problem when you hit a slow write patch.

My point, to which you responded, was that the data doesn't support a conclusion that the older cards show a degrading trend against newer cards.  Your response along with the data from the Transcend cards actually seems to indicate that the newer cards have a lower write speed than the older cards.  It's reasonable to assume that the difference is due to design features, since it wouldn't be logical to expect an older card to be faster simply because of its age.

There's been alot of discussion in this thread  (and Tascam has hung their hat) on a concept that older cards develop bad sectors and degrade over time.  I don't doubt that's true, but I also don't see any trending in this test that supports that concept either.  That said, the age of a card can clearly be expressed in a couple of ways...a) the amount of times it's been written to, and b) the actual age in time of the card since it was new.  For this test, you've provided a bit of data for both a) and b), but I'm not seeing enough data to see any trends that indicates a strong correlation can be made between age and performance.  There's just not enough data to reach that conclusion.

For the Tascam cards, I'd bet that the downward trend in write speed as more data is written to the card (someone suggested that those cards don't have any buffering capability as the design difference between the Tascam and the Sandisk cards) is probably be a far more important factor in terms of card performance than how old the card is or how many bad sectors it has.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 18, 2015, 05:33:54 AM
Your test was random read / write of 250 10MB samples.  To me, that seems to be how they would be used in a camera.  From what I understand though, audio recording is a much more continuous write.  I wonder if you can find a test that does sustained writes.  I think such tests exist for hard drives, but I'm not sure if they work for flash media.

Testing continuous write proves to be more of a challenge as the tools that I found will give only average data on huge file writing.

The Transcend card tested above (Transcend 32GB, used but not abused, Class 10, 600x, UHS-I bought in 2015) gave average write rates of 34 to 36MB/s when tested for continuous files writing with the f3 program (f3write). So we get the following profile for this card :

As I understand it, this card will work fine in a recorder until it meets a situation where writing slows down to a point that it will not provide sufficient throughput for the recorder. When such a situation occurs, the recorder buffer may provide a solution up to a point, however if one supposes that the recorder buffer size is more or less what is needed to provide the pre-record feature (5 seconds on most machines), then very low write rates over 10 MB of data may be a real problem.

Trying to put it simply an average 35MB/s bandwidth is not exactly the same thing if the is no instant when the throughput was less than 30MB/s and when there were times when it was close to 0MB/s.

Summary : average rates on which the card ratings (C10, UHS-I for instance) are based are fine but we may be more interested in worst case scenarios as shown by random file writes rates and we should prefer cards that guarantee a better minimum rate under any circumstances.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 18, 2015, 06:51:43 AM
^ Great work, man.   :clapping: :cheers:
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: phil_er_up on October 18, 2015, 07:55:11 AM
Nice JCB. Thank you for your time and effort. It is appreciated.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: kleiner Rainer on October 18, 2015, 08:22:49 AM
Hi all,

Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital

Quote:

"In addition, speed may vary markedly between writing a large amount of data to a single file (sequential access, as when a digital camera records large photographs or videos) and writing a large number of small files (a random-access use common in smartphones). One study found that, in this random-access use, some Class 2 cards achieved a write speed of 1.38 MB/s, while all cards tested of Class 6 or greater (and some of lower Classes; lower Class does not necessarily mean better small-file performance), including those from major manufacturers, were over 100 times slower.[28]"

Writing multichannel or "safety" audio files simultaneous looks like random access to me - more than one file open at any instant.
The reference cited makes very interesting reading:

http://static.usenix.org/events/fast/tech/full_papers/Kim.pdf

Any chance to test random access writes with more than one file open with your tool, jcb?

Greetings,

Rainer

Concerned because using a Tascam DR44WL with a Lexar 64GB SDXC Class 10 card.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 18, 2015, 09:51:32 AM
Any chance to test random access writes with more than one file open with your tool, jcb?
Greetings,
Rainer

I have not found any tool that would write multiple continuous files at the same time and time operations while doing so.

It might not be difficult to write a program to do this (open n files for writing > get time_0, write p kB to file_1, get time_1.1, write p kB to file_2, get time 1.2, ..., write p kB to file_n, get time 1.n, and back to writing to file _1, get time 1.n, ... > close files). Write file strategy would however have to be close to what the recorders do in real life (how many kB do they write at a time ? Is the routine as simple as this ?)

It might be better to open another thread if this discussion has some kind of future.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 18, 2015, 10:10:55 AM
^ Agreed that it's long past time for this discussion to have a thread of its own.  Maybe something called SD Card Performance under the Recording Media board.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jcb on October 18, 2015, 12:24:48 PM
It should be better if all comments and questions regarding cards performance go to http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175071.0 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175071.0) so that this thread can go back to its real aim : discussing the Tascam DR-70D.
Thanks
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on October 18, 2015, 02:20:27 PM
I think the discussion is cards here is helpful.  1.  I'd like to know why the list of approved cards is so short?  2.  I'd like to know why some cards in the same model family pass while others apparently fail.  3.  I'd like to know what it is about the 70d that causes it to be "selective" about cards compared to my 60d, for example, which doesn't seem  the least bit picky about cards. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 18, 2015, 02:35:58 PM
I think the discussion is cards here is helpful.  1.  I'd like to know why the list of approved cards is so short?  2.  I'd like to know why some cards in the same model family pass while others apparently fail.  3.  I'd like to know what it is about the 70d that causes it to be "selective" about cards compared to my 60d, for example, which doesn't seem  the least bit picky about cards.

Maybe, but if we're discussing the performance of SD cards on their own regardless of what recorder / device they're being used with, then that probably is best done in a separate thread as jcb has done.  If we're talking about how a particular card performs in the 70D specifically, then that would make more sense to discuss here.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: johnmuge on October 18, 2015, 04:07:18 PM
I just updated my firmware to V1.11, put in a new Sandisk 16GB SDSDUP-016G approved card and set up my mics.  Loaded up the house CD player with some Jerry Garcia Band and hit record.  It's a weekend test house party here !!

Hey John.  Here's a potential timesaving tip for you.  If you have another recorder besides the DR70D, set it up so that it's recording directly from the mics, then set your DR70D to record the output of the first recorder.  Once you've recorded a couple of hours of music, load both files into your DAW and compare the two on the same timeline.  If you have any issues, I think you might see that the length of the files are different.  If not, then they'll be close to the same length. 

On my DR70D, when it had problems, there was digi-noise but it also missed a small amount of music, so there would be a mis-match between the two files in that case.  I found this to be a less cumbersome method of checking for issues on the DR70D files than listening closely to two hours worth of music all over again.

Thank You for that idea Tonedeaf,  I'll will try that on round 2 of testing.  Round 1 went perfect.  No issues with the card or firmware update.  It seems Tascams have some sort of issue when they are released.  The DR2d has the issue with going below 65/95 on mic/line input and the DR680 has the issue with auto select voltage on the Tekkeons and overheating but once we get thru the initial issues, they seem to be pretty reliable.  When they work, they do sound pretty good for value line recorders. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 19, 2015, 03:29:32 PM
Stupid question coming,....
warning issued.

How do you activate the onboard mics?
I can't find it in the menu.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 19, 2015, 03:36:02 PM
Stupid question coming,....
warning issued.

How do you activate the onboard mics?
I can't find it in the menu.

You can only use them on Channels 3/4...

So - under "INPUT" you have LINE, MIC, MIC+PHANTOM...pick MIC
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 19, 2015, 03:44:35 PM
Thank you.  I'll give it a try. 
I don't intend to use them. But, the question came up when I was talking to another recordist over the weekend, and I was stumped.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 19, 2015, 03:46:38 PM
Thank you.  I'll give it a try. 
I don't intend to use them. But, the question came up when I was talking to another recordist over the weekend, and I was stumped.

They aren't great - but useable...better than nothing in a pinch...seem to handle spl good enough.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 19, 2015, 03:52:24 PM
I figured they were at least workable.  I was actually speaking to the other recordist, and a musician, and that is where the question arose.  My only other onboard-mic recorder is the R09, and its automatic. I figured it was a mix of menu tricks, but couldn't find how in the manual, and didn't want to start changing settings before the show.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: hoppedup on October 19, 2015, 03:52:49 PM
Stupid question coming,....
warning issued.

How do you activate the onboard mics?
I can't find it in the menu.

It's on page 20 of the reference manual if you need further help: http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/e_dr-70d_rm_vb.pdf
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 19, 2015, 04:29:32 PM
Maybe my manual is different, but, page 20 is a troubleshooting page, and makes no mention of mics of any kind.

thanks for the link. The manual in the PDF is totally different than the one that came with my unit. My unit manual has far less pages to it (22 pages in english), and different layout.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: hoppedup on October 19, 2015, 04:47:17 PM
For whatever reason Tascam has an owner's manual (11-19-2014) and a reference manual (8-25-2015). The info you seek is in the reference manual , which has a lot more detailed info.

Apparently the info is on page 13 of the owner's manual and does not specifically mention the term "built-in mics" while the reference manual does.

ETA: I see you figured it out. I guess they needed time to figure out all the functions.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 19, 2015, 04:57:28 PM
Confusing, to say the least.
I've still not been able to get the internal mics working, but, have not put much effort to it, as I've got some more pressing things going on this afternoon.  I'll dig in this evening and see if I can get it figured out.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: yug du nord on October 19, 2015, 05:25:13 PM
Stupid question coming,....
warning issued.

How do you activate the onboard mics?
I can't find it in the menu.

MENU > BASIC > INPUT 3/4 : MIC
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 19, 2015, 06:45:09 PM
Stupid question coming,....
warning issued.

How do you activate the onboard mics?
I can't find it in the menu.

MENU > BASIC > INPUT 3/4 : MIC

Thanks, Snowman. That did it.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 20, 2015, 12:17:10 AM
For whatever reason Tascam has an owner's manual (11-19-2014) and a reference manual (8-25-2015). The info you seek is in the reference manual , which has a lot more detailed info.

Apparently the info is on page 13 of the owner's manual and does not specifically mention the term "built-in mics" while the reference manual does.

ETA: I see you figured it out. I guess they needed time to figure out all the functions.

I guess that mine is an early model?
My firmware is 1.00 0037 (or something like this #), which seems more primitive than a lot of what I see listed in the survey.
Where do these dates come from?
Sorry if its been listed here. I never expected to get one of these decks; but alas, I do now. I've only followed the thread since I received mine.
thanks.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 20, 2015, 06:16:48 AM
For whatever reason Tascam has an owner's manual (11-19-2014) and a reference manual (8-25-2015). The info you seek is in the reference manual , which has a lot more detailed info.

Apparently the info is on page 13 of the owner's manual and does not specifically mention the term "built-in mics" while the reference manual does.

ETA: I see you figured it out. I guess they needed time to figure out all the functions.

I guess that mine is an early model?
My firmware is 1.00 0037 (or something like this #), which seems more primitive than a lot of what I see listed in the survey.
Where do these dates come from?
Sorry if its been listed here. I never expected to get one of these decks; but alas, I do now. I've only followed the thread since I received mine.
thanks.

That's just the stock firmware - there have been a few updates, and the most recent is 1.11.

You may find answers to a lot of your questions in the FAQ Thread (link below).
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on October 21, 2015, 10:54:17 AM
have had no issues with this 16gb Samsung (http://www.frys.com/product/8061674?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG) SD card i've been using.  taped a show and have run 5 or 6 tests just recording my record player and nothing wrong so far.

Ran this card again last night, this time using all 4 channels and still no issues to report.  FWIW I did not reformat the card before the show and the card still had files from a previous outing on it.

I am running version 1.01 firmware, I believe.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: vwmule on October 21, 2015, 11:35:12 AM
Ran four channels (mics+phantom) last night and no problems. Used PNY 32 gig, class 10.

http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=582963
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 21, 2015, 02:20:16 PM
I don't want to stop using the DR-70D but don't want to risk losing a show either. Can I go out of the Tascam into my 661 as a safety? Or will I just be copying any potential glitch that might transpire?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 21, 2015, 04:10:52 PM
Ran four channels (mics+phantom) last night and no problems. Used PNY 32 gig, class 10.


Are folks going to posting every time they make a recording with a card that is "not-on-the-list?" How many good runs before you trust an unlisted card?

I don't want to stop using the DR-70D but don't want to risk losing a show either. Can I go out of the Tascam into my 661 as a safety? Or will I just be copying any potential glitch that might transpire?
I think nobody knows yet.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: vwmule on October 21, 2015, 04:51:13 PM
Every single time.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 21, 2015, 06:33:45 PM
I don't want to stop using the DR-70D but don't want to risk losing a show either. Can I go out of the Tascam into my 661 as a safety? Or will I just be copying any potential glitch that might transpire?

I don't know the answer either, but if you're doing two channel, why not put the DR70D on the output of the 661?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 22, 2015, 09:44:45 AM
My only thought was the difference in the pathway to the card (if any) when going from XLR in vs. the EXT IN 1/2 jack. I'm just not sure, but I'm leaning towards recording with the 661 until we get some definitive solutions (i.e. firmware update) from Tascam.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 22, 2015, 08:15:45 PM
OK,... so I just received this power bank (http://www.ebay.com/itm/20000mAh-UltraThin-Dual-USB-Portable-Power-Bank-External-Battery-Backup-Charger-/331541674213), the eBay generic 20,000mah battery, for use with the deck.  It came without any instructions. So, I'm asking here...
When the battery is fully charged, what condition are the lights?
Anything blinking when finished charging?
Does it shut off automatically?

Presently: One light blinking.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 22, 2015, 08:26:36 PM
OK,... so I just received this power bank (http://www.ebay.com/itm/20000mAh-UltraThin-Dual-USB-Portable-Power-Bank-External-Battery-Backup-Charger-/331541674213), the eBay generic 20,000mah battery, for use with the deck.  It came without any instructions. So, I'm asking here...
When the battery is fully charged, what condition are the lights?
Anything blinking when finished charging?
Does it shut off automatically?

Presently: One light blinking.

All lights solid is fully charged.  It shuts off automatically if nothing is drawing power.  I leave mine plugged into the 70D, and when I power down the recorder the battery shuts off soon after.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 22, 2015, 08:30:13 PM
many thanks!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on October 23, 2015, 05:17:58 AM
have had no issues with this 16gb Samsung (http://www.frys.com/product/8061674?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG) SD card i've been using.  taped a show and have run 5 or 6 tests just recording my record player and nothing wrong so far.

Ran this card again last night, this time using all 4 channels and still no issues to report.  FWIW I did not reformat the card before the show and the card still had files from a previous outing on it.

I am running version 1.01 firmware, I believe.

https://archive.org/details/mmj2015-10-20.at853
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 23, 2015, 09:35:50 AM
My only good card went through the wash last night and is now MIA and likely DOA anyway. I need a new card for this evening (Warren Haynes) and thinking Walmart or BB. The numbers confuse me a bit so I'm hoping someone might confirm that this one is on the list?

http://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-SDSDXPA-032G-A75-32GB-Extreme-Pro-SDHC-Card/22237574

On the upside, I have clean shirts for tonight.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 23, 2015, 09:49:31 AM
My only good card went through the wash last night and is now MIA and likely DOA anyway. I need a new card for this evening (Warren Haynes) and thinking Walmart or BB. The numbers confuse me a bit so I'm hoping someone might confirm that this one is on the list?

http://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-SDSDXPA-032G-A75-32GB-Extreme-Pro-SDHC-Card/22237574

On the upside, I have clean shirts for tonight.

That's a different way to 'clean' a SD card.

The card you linked above one of the two cards on their list that has the caveat associated with it.  So, yeah it's on the list, but I personally wouldn't buy it. 

I was just at my local Wal-Mart last week and bought this card, so I can at least confirm that my local store had this model in stock.  Yeah it's only a 16gb card, but it's cheap and will do you in a pinch until you can mail order a larger card that's on the list.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-SDSDUP-016-A46-Ultra-Plus-UHS-1-SDHC-Memory-Card-40-Refurbished/45725180

Not refurbished, but new card...but this is the one they had.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on October 23, 2015, 10:39:35 AM
That's actually the one that went through the wash. I had completed the card survey based on my previous (positive) results with that one but ended up with some glitchy sets from Lockn'. Admittedly, I didn't format that card and that may have contributed to those glitches. The price is right though....
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on October 23, 2015, 10:57:06 AM
I got that same card, except mine suggests AB46 at the end of the product number, whereas the one you linked does not have the "B".  I've not had any issues.  I got it new at BB for about $1 more.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on October 23, 2015, 11:19:41 AM
if you have a Fry's electronics in your area they will price match with Amazon or New Egg and they usually have a large selection of SD cards to choose from.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 23, 2015, 05:04:03 PM
This card is on the list, as a NO GOOD CARD! DO NOT USE!

The same model in a 16GB card is on the list as OK.

PS Sandisk cards are waterproof.

My only good card went through the wash last night and is now MIA and likely DOA anyway. I need a new card for this evening (Warren Haynes) and thinking Walmart or BB. The numbers confuse me a bit so I'm hoping someone might confirm that this one is on the list?

http://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-SDSDXPA-032G-A75-32GB-Extreme-Pro-SDHC-Card/22237574
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 24, 2015, 09:23:58 AM
This card is on the list, as a NO GOOD CARD! DO NOT USE!

The same model in a 16GB card is on the list as OK.

PS Sandisk cards are waterproof.

My only good card went through the wash last night and is now MIA and likely DOA anyway. I need a new card for this evening (Warren Haynes) and thinking Walmart or BB. The numbers confuse me a bit so I'm hoping someone might confirm that this one is on the list?

http://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-SDSDXPA-032G-A75-32GB-Extreme-Pro-SDHC-Card/22237574

SDSDXP-32G (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html) is "NG"; Butch said he has SDSDXPA-32G (http://www.oempcworld.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SDHC32GB-ExtremePro95&gdftrk=gdfV24137_a_7c1396_a_7c4928_a_7cSDHC32GB_d_ExtremePro95&gclid=CNLJ8M-b28gCFU6PHwodJDcNpA) which apparently is not the same card and is "OK*1" on the Tascam 70D list.  The XP is available many places; XPA seems hard to find and seems to be a different production run of a card with the same specs - there's also a different label design.

The cheapest card I can find from the list right now is the this SanDisk Ultra Plus SDSDUP-16G at Best Buy for $14.99 (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-ultra-plus-16gb-sdhc-class-10-uhs-1-memory-card-black-gray-red/3142535.p?id=1219088212869&skuId=3142535).  I still haven't bought an approved card since my non-approved Transcend has been working just fine, but I'm going to pick one of these up today just to be safe.  I think this may be the same card Tonedeaf purchased.

BTW, I suggested a while back that SanDisk may be selling the same cards under different model number variants in different sales markets.  I emailed customer service about this:

Quote
Are the same SanDisk SD cards sold with different model number variants in different markets? For instance, searching for SDSDXL-064G only brings up Asian vendors, while SDSDXN-064G-G46 appears to be the same exact model but is available via USA vendors. Are these in fact the same product?

And the response:

Quote
Dear Anthony,
 
 Both the referred codes are for the SanDisk Extreme cards. SDSDXN-064G-G4 is the code for the upgraded and the new model of the Extreme 64GB card with 80MB/s performance speed. SDSDXL-064G is the code of the Extreme card with 45MB/s, for USA codes will be SDSDX-064G, however its the codes for the old card.
 
Best regards,
Jay S.
SanDisk Global Customer Care

Part of this reply is incorrect though: searching SDSDXN shows a 60 MB/s card; SDSDXS is the 80 MB/s (Extreme Plus).  The statement on SDSXL vs SDSDX appears to be correct as both appear to be the same 45 MB/s Extreme cards, but the "L" is Asian-market only.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 24, 2015, 02:05:20 PM
Welp, Butch's link lists one code, with the letter A following the letter P, but when I follow the link, the specifications for the card is that it's called a SDSDXP-032G-A46.

SDSDXP-032 is on the list as NO GOOD.



SDSDXP-32G (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html) is "NG"; Butch said he has SDSDXPA-32G (http://www.oempcworld.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SDHC32GB-ExtremePro95&gdftrk=gdfV24137_a_7c1396_a_7c4928_a_7cSDHC32GB_d_ExtremePro95&gclid=CNLJ8M-b28gCFU6PHwodJDcNpA) which apparently is not the same card and is "OK*1" on the Tascam 70D list.  The XP is available many places; XPA seems hard to find and seems to be a different production run of a card with the same specs - there's also a different label design.

The cheapest card I can find from the list right now is the this SanDisk Ultra Plus SDSDUP-16G at Best Buy for $14.99 (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-ultra-plus-16gb-sdhc-class-10-uhs-1-memory-card-black-gray-red/3142535.p?id=1219088212869&skuId=3142535).  I still haven't bought an approved card since my non-approved Transcend has been working just fine, but I'm going to pick one of these up today just to be safe.  I think this may be the same card Tonedeaf purchased.

BTW, I suggested a while back that SanDisk may be selling the same cards under different model number variants in different sales markets.  I emailed customer service about this:

Quote
Are the same SanDisk SD cards sold with different model number variants in different markets? For instance, searching for SDSDXL-064G only brings up Asian vendors, while SDSDXN-064G-G46 appears to be the same exact model but is available via USA vendors. Are these in fact the same product?

And the response:

Quote
Dear Anthony,
 
 Both the referred codes are for the SanDisk Extreme cards. SDSDXN-064G-G4 is the code for the upgraded and the new model of the Extreme 64GB card with 80MB/s performance speed. SDSDXL-064G is the code of the Extreme card with 45MB/s, for USA codes will be SDSDX-064G, however its the codes for the old card.
 
Best regards,
Jay S.
SanDisk Global Customer Care

Part of this reply is incorrect though: searching SDSDXN shows a 60 MB/s card; SDSDXS is the 80 MB/s (Extreme Plus).  The statement on SDSXL vs SDSDX appears to be correct as both appear to be the same 45 MB/s Extreme cards, but the "L" is Asian-market only.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 24, 2015, 03:20:21 PM
Welp, Butch's link lists one code, with the letter A following the letter P, but when I follow the link, the specifications for the card is that it's called a SDSDXP-032G-A46.

SDSDXP-032 is on the list as NO GOOD.

SDSDXP-32G (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html) is "NG"; Butch said he has SDSDXPA-32G (http://www.oempcworld.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SDHC32GB-ExtremePro95&gdftrk=gdfV24137_a_7c1396_a_7c4928_a_7cSDHC32GB_d_ExtremePro95&gclid=CNLJ8M-b28gCFU6PHwodJDcNpA) which apparently is not the same card and is "OK*1" on the Tascam 70D list.  The XP is available many places; XPA seems hard to find and seems to be a different production run of a card with the same specs - there's also a different label design.

The URL for that Walmart link says SDSDXPA, but you're right the specs do not have the "A".  If you look at my links about those two, you'll see that this card appears to have the label design of the "A" variant, so I think the specs listing at Walmart is wrong and the card Butch has is indeed OK.

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on October 24, 2015, 03:53:55 PM
you mean "OK*1"

*1 The performace of the media may be degraded significantly if used repeatedly.
 Once the card is full (data transferred if necessary), ERASE-FORMAT using the DR-70D is
 recommended prior to using the card again.


Welp, Butch's link lists one code, with the letter A following the letter P, but when I follow the link, the specifications for the card is that it's called a SDSDXP-032G-A46.

SDSDXP-032 is on the list as NO GOOD.

SDSDXP-32G (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html) is "NG"; Butch said he has SDSDXPA-32G (http://www.oempcworld.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SDHC32GB-ExtremePro95&gdftrk=gdfV24137_a_7c1396_a_7c4928_a_7cSDHC32GB_d_ExtremePro95&gclid=CNLJ8M-b28gCFU6PHwodJDcNpA) which apparently is not the same card and is "OK*1" on the Tascam 70D list.  The XP is available many places; XPA seems hard to find and seems to be a different production run of a card with the same specs - there's also a different label design.

The URL for that Walmart link says SDSDXPA, but you're right the specs do not have the "A".  If you look at my links about those two, you'll see that this card appears to have the label design of the "A" variant, so I think the specs listing at Walmart is wrong and the card Butch has is indeed OK.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 24, 2015, 04:05:44 PM
you mean "OK*1"

*1 The performace of the media may be degraded significantly if used repeatedly.
 Once the card is full (data transferred if necessary), ERASE-FORMAT using the DR-70D is
 recommended prior to using the card again.


Welp, Butch's link lists one code, with the letter A following the letter P, but when I follow the link, the specifications for the card is that it's called a SDSDXP-032G-A46.

SDSDXP-032 is on the list as NO GOOD.

SDSDXP-32G (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824140-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_032G_A75_Extreme_Pro_32_GB.html) is "NG"; Butch said he has SDSDXPA-32G (http://www.oempcworld.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SDHC32GB-ExtremePro95&gdftrk=gdfV24137_a_7c1396_a_7c4928_a_7cSDHC32GB_d_ExtremePro95&gclid=CNLJ8M-b28gCFU6PHwodJDcNpA) which apparently is not the same card and is "OK*1" on the Tascam 70D list.  The XP is available many places; XPA seems hard to find and seems to be a different production run of a card with the same specs - there's also a different label design.

The URL for that Walmart link says SDSDXPA, but you're right the specs do not have the "A".  If you look at my links about those two, you'll see that this card appears to have the label design of the "A" variant, so I think the specs listing at Walmart is wrong and the card Butch has is indeed OK.

Yes, as both TD and I have already pointed out.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 25, 2015, 09:50:03 AM
Here's a recording from last night - first time using the 70D for a marching band show, instead of my usual FP24  > M10.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=169429.msg2164348#msg2164348 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=169429.msg2164348#msg2164348)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Claus on October 26, 2015, 10:11:15 PM

Hi All,

New here, first post.

I just got the DR-70 and I had been reading everything discussed here about the card pitfalls and such before buying it. A couple of quick observations, just to add to the "pile" for completion's sake.

I decided to play it safe and order the SanDisk Extreme Pro 64gig card as recommended by Tascam, and it works flawlessly so far. After upgrading to software ver. 1.11, I stress-tested both the machine and the card by full-formatting the card and then letting it record for hours on 24/96 with four Phantom Power mics attached, and there was no problem that I have found.

Now, I had a Sony SDXC 64-gig card (SF64UY/TQMN)  laying around, and I formatted that as well and gave it the same test as above. This, too, was fine.
The interesting part is that the rated speed of the SanDisk card is 95mbs whereas the Sony claims 40mbs and yet the 40 seemed to be enough to roll through on high settings and four channels without hiccups...what it means, I don't really know.
To me it is curious that the cards can be that far apart in performance numbers and still be viable.  I have put the Sony card into the card database here as "good."
Either the Sony is very efficient or maybe the "extra" speed of the SanDisk is recommended for safety, and that is fine. Much as with battery capacity, I don't trust card numbers fully.

The one error I got was one I went looking for: I formatted and recorded on one of my SDHC Sandisk 32-Gig cards (SDSDU-032G-A46) and after exactly 15 seconds I got "Write Timeout"...the card couldn't keep up. It happened each time after 15 secs.

Other than that, so far in testing it with voice and acoustic guitar, the Tascam is an excellent little performer, and the pres are nice and quiet

So some rambling, but maybe useful; I look forward to contributing here...

Claus.

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: The Other Chris on October 27, 2015, 01:15:11 AM
(Caveat)  I am apparently an idiot, my apologies.... 
I'm having some problems getting simply 2 channels to record correctly and I need some help.  My set up is simply Nak 300's>DR-70 channels 1 & 2 via XLR's.  I get CH.1 working fine but something's up with CH. 2.  I've tested both mics+batteries+two different sets of cables and can only get sound out of CH.1 EVEN though I show levels on CH.2  On playback 2 is silent.   If anyone's willing to walk me through getting this corrected r.e. Menu>Basic>CH1 settings...CH2 settings or settings overall I'd greatly appreciate it.   PM me if you can help.
Thanks.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on October 27, 2015, 06:38:33 AM
(Caveat)  I am apparently an idiot, my apologies.... 
I'm having some problems getting simply 2 channels to record correctly and I need some help.  My set up is simply Nak 300's>DR-70 channels 1 & 2 via XLR's.  I get CH.1 working fine but something's up with CH. 2.  I've tested both mics+batteries+two different sets of cables and can only get sound out of CH.1 EVEN though I show levels on CH.2  On playback 2 is silent.   If anyone's willing to walk me through getting this corrected r.e. Menu>Basic>CH1 settings...CH2 settings or settings overall I'd greatly appreciate it.   PM me if you can help.
Thanks.

Sounds like you have "Record" set to "OFF" in channel 2...check your settings.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 27, 2015, 06:44:42 AM
(Caveat)  I am apparently an idiot, my apologies.... 
I'm having some problems getting simply 2 channels to record correctly and I need some help.  My set up is simply Nak 300's>DR-70 channels 1 & 2 via XLR's.  I get CH.1 working fine but something's up with CH. 2.  I've tested both mics+batteries+two different sets of cables and can only get sound out of CH.1 EVEN though I show levels on CH.2  On playback 2 is silent.   If anyone's willing to walk me through getting this corrected r.e. Menu>Basic>CH1 settings...CH2 settings or settings overall I'd greatly appreciate it.   PM me if you can help.
Thanks.

You're not an idiot.  Tascam doesn't explain this very well in the manual.  I think your issue is your pan settings, which aren't really panned inputs but panned outputs.  I think what's happening to you is that you're recording both channels 1 and 2 onto your SD card, but when you play them back, if both channels are panned to one side, you'll only get sound out of one side when you play it back.

In the basic menu, toggle to Pan for channel 1 and set it to Left 12.  Then toggle to Pan under channel 2 and set it to Right 12 (it's probably currently set at Left 12).  To avoid this same problem if you ever do four channel recording, do the same thing with Channels 3 and 4.   

By the way, Left 12 is 'left twelve' not Left channels 1 and 2.  The pan setting is a scale from zero to twelve.  Zero means there's no panning and 12 means that channel is panned 100% into the left channel and 0% into the right channel.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jbosco on October 27, 2015, 12:37:12 PM
Rather than engaging in conspiracy theories, has anyone actually acted on Tom's recommendation send their card containing errors to Tascam (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=173960.msg2161544#msg2161544) so they could analyze it?  You can self-congratulate yourselves all you want on your brilliant theories regarding Tascam's possible bait-and-switch, but at the end of the day, don't you want to see the problem fixed?  That's how Sound Devices solved their recent issue with Win 10 - users sent their cards or at least the disk images to SD and Microsoft, and they figured it out.  If in fact this is a problem with the recorder or firmware, why not try to help solve the problem?  When I spoke to him yesterday, he said that only one person had done this.

I contacted them last week and they got back to me over the weekend, they are going to arrange a pickup for my card.  FWIW the card still has the files with the glitches, however my problem was less then a second long, but does appear on both the main recording and the -6dB safety.

They were originally good at replying and they were arranging to pick up the card I even sent them my address however it's been 3 weeks and still nothing.  It's kind of weird, I would have just mailed them the card if they sent me the address as it stands I still have the card.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 27, 2015, 12:41:10 PM
^ I agree that where certain settings are located in the menu is not always intuitive.  It just struck me reading this that if you have it set to record in stereo mode, then it should automatically reset that stereo pair to hard panned left and right, and that would avoid accidentally messing up a stereo pair recording. To me, you would only use panning in the recorder for isolated mono tracks like a boom mic or orchestral spot.  I know that professional mobile sound people expect the ability to mix right on the recorder, but generally they're using something much more high end with a dedicated control surface.  With something relatively simple like the 70D, I think it makes more sense to just record your mono iso tracks centered and then adjust panning in post.

Being that the 70D is directed at video / DSLR users, I suppose they included this so you could quickly make a downmix of 4 > 2 channels to send to your camera.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: hoppedup on October 27, 2015, 12:49:18 PM
I've made a few recordings now and have never formatted the card. No issues thus far. I bought B&H bundle when it was $199 and never updated firmware.

FWIW, my card is 32GB Sandisk Extreme Plus SDSDXS2-032G-X46 : http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/992491-REG/sandisk_sdsdxs2_032g_x46_extreme_sdhc_uhs_1_80mb_s.html
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 27, 2015, 01:33:25 PM
^ I agree that where certain settings are located in the menu is not always intuitive.  It just struck me reading this that if you have it set to record in stereo mode, then it should automatically reset that stereo pair to hard panned left and right, and that would avoid accidentally messing up a stereo pair recording. To me, you would only use panning in the recorder for isolated mono tracks like a boom mic or orchestral spot.  I know that professional mobile sound people expect the ability to mix right on the recorder, but generally they're using something much more high end with a dedicated control surface.  With something relatively simple like the 70D, I think it makes more sense to just record your mono iso tracks centered and then adjust panning in post.

Being that the 70D is directed at video / DSLR users, I suppose they included this so you could quickly make a downmix of 4 > 2 channels to send to your camera.

Good point with respect to the second paragraph, but with respect to the first paragraph, I'm not sure we're on the same page.  Maybe we are.

I might be wrong, but I don't think the pan setting has any effect on how tracks are written to the SD card, only how you hear the files when you play them back through the 70D (and probably how they're routed to the headphone when monitoring and, as you point out to the mixdown output).  For example, he said he was getting levels on both channels.  Unless I'm wrong both channels should be written properly to tracks 1 and 2 on his SD card.  That said, when you play the recording back on the DR70D, if the mixer sends both recorded channels to the left channel on playback, then you won't hear anything from one channel since they're both panned left...so they're doubling up on each other on the left channel. 

It's also my understand that the only thing 'stereo' does vs. mono is that it causes the DR70 to write two tracks onto the SD card for each file, where mono writes either two or four separate files, one per track.  If the mixer panning has both channels panned hard left, a stereo file will still play back with one channel having sound and the other silent.

Please correct me if I'm wrong...this is how it works on the Zoom F8 mixer which I've become WAY more familiar with than the DR70D. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 27, 2015, 01:58:04 PM
^ Hmm, I really have no idea, and had not considered the possibility pan settings might only affect the monitor or camera output.  I suppose we'd need to see a block diagram to know for sure.

Which begs the question: have you seen such a diagram for the F8?  Or is there another way you learned about the signal routing?  I haven't ever looked at a manual for one.

I think that a stereo audio track does contain pan data though, it's just usually hard panned so we don't tend to concern ourselves with it.  If I make a m/s recording to my M10, the channels are hard panned because there is no other option.  That's good, because we want those 2 mic feeds separate to manipulate in the matrix later.  If I were to use my 70D and do 2 mono tracks center panned or a stereo track with the individual channels center planned, then both tracks would contain equal amounts of the mid and side mics.  This isn't the end of the world, but would require an extra step of processing to isolate and duplicate the side channel. 

I could be wrong about this though...  But that's what I think is happening.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: dallman on October 27, 2015, 02:21:36 PM
^ Hmm, I really have no idea, and had not considered the possibility pan settings might only affect the monitor or camera output.  I suppose we'd need to see a block diagram to know for sure.


It would seem to me all you need to do is remove the SD card and put it in a PC and hit play, or upload to soundforge or a similar program and you'll know immediately if the pan only affects output. It makes sense that it would though for a quick mix to a camera without "hurting" the tracks for future adjustments in post.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on October 27, 2015, 05:26:32 PM
^ Hmm, I really have no idea, and had not considered the possibility pan settings might only affect the monitor or camera output.  I suppose we'd need to see a block diagram to know for sure.


It would seem to me all you need to do is remove the SD card and put it in a PC and hit play, or upload to soundforge or a similar program and you'll know immediately if the pan only affects output. It makes sense that it would though for a quick mix to a camera without "hurting" the tracks for future adjustments in post.

Yeah you're right - that would be plenty easy to test that way.  You could even record yourself narrating your set pan adjustments to see if what you're hearing matches what you said you're doing.  I might try this sometime.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on October 27, 2015, 05:36:37 PM
^ Hmm, I really have no idea, and had not considered the possibility pan settings might only affect the monitor or camera output.  I suppose we'd need to see a block diagram to know for sure.

Which begs the question: have you seen such a diagram for the F8?  Or is there another way you learned about the signal routing?  I haven't ever looked at a manual for one.

I think that a stereo audio track does contain pan data though, it's just usually hard panned so we don't tend to concern ourselves with it.  If I make a m/s recording to my M10, the channels are hard panned because there is no other option.  That's good, because we want those 2 mic feeds separate to manipulate in the matrix later.  If I were to use my 70D and do 2 mono tracks center panned or a stereo track with the individual channels center planned, then both tracks would contain equal amounts of the mid and side mics.  This isn't the end of the world, but would require an extra step of processing to isolate and duplicate the side channel. 

I could be wrong about this though...  But that's what I think is happening.

Your comment about stereo tracks makes sense.  I could take my 70D out and get the answer myself but I think I'll let the guy that asked the question return and go through our responses.  Hopefully he'll come back and tell use what he figured out.

About the F8, yes there's a great diagram in the manual.  It's actually repeated in two locations.  Not that the manual is all that great because it's not the greatest manual (it's not terrible, just leaves alot out), but the diagram is an essential element of understand how the mixer interfaces with the inputs and outputs, and especially at what stages the user can apply things like bass rolloff, limiter, etc.   It's not something you feel like you need to take with you to the venue, but for a new owner it's worth going over a few times in order to help understand pre and post-fader signal routing.  I actually installed a .pdf reader on my iphone and uploaded the manual onto my phone just in case I need to reference the manual or the diagram in the field.  So far, I've pulled it up a couple of times at festivals when I had the time, but at that point I was still learning how to use the unit.

(By the way, stay tuned for my F8 review, probably within the next week or so.  I've been working on it and I think it's coming together quite well.  I've spent way too much time on it, but it's been fun.  It should help people that don't have one to understand how it operates, I think.)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: The Other Chris on October 27, 2015, 11:33:11 PM
I really appreciate all the suggestions & help offered in the thread. I'm out of town for a few days but will put your suggestions to the test when I'm home and let you know the results.   Thanks guys!  Chris
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: johnmuge on October 29, 2015, 06:53:47 PM
I unfortunately had another problem this weekend on test #2.  At the 1 hour 47 minute point, the recording levels went up by them self and peak with the red lights flashing and it recorded a weird noise.  From that point on every few minutes, there are pops and skips and also a few other 10 second intervals of level peaking.  I spoke to Brian @ Tascam Tech Support who was very nice and knowledgeable about the deck.  He went over all my settings and the card and external power etc. and confirmed something weird was going on and asked me the send the unit back to Tascam for either repair or exchange.  I'm hoping for the best as I like the deck and I want it to work with confidence.  I will report back with the outcome.  I was using a approved card SanDisk #SDSDUP-016G,  V1.11 firmware, and a Generic Power Bank 20,000 mah ultra thin battery.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: The Other Chris on November 05, 2015, 07:05:43 PM
Thank you guys for the input.  Am I crazy though because on channels 1 & 2 I don't have the "Pan" option,  just "Wide" ranging from 0>100???  Channels 3 & 4 have the Pan option though and I set them to L12/R12.  Plugged into 3 & 4 & even with gain set to High (just for testing) the levels barely registered but I did get separate L & R signals.    What am I missing?? 



(Caveat)  I am apparently an idiot, my apologies.... 
I'm having some problems getting simply 2 channels to record correctly and I need some help.  My set up is simply Nak 300's>DR-70 channels 1 & 2 via XLR's.  I get CH.1 working fine but something's up with CH. 2.  I've tested both mics+batteries+two different sets of cables and can only get sound out of CH.1 EVEN though I show levels on CH.2  On playback 2 is silent.   If anyone's willing to walk me through getting this corrected r.e. Menu>Basic>CH1 settings...CH2 settings or settings overall I'd greatly appreciate it.   PM me if you can help.
Thanks.

You're not an idiot.  Tascam doesn't explain this very well in the manual.  I think your issue is your pan settings, which aren't really panned inputs but panned outputs.  I think what's happening to you is that you're recording both channels 1 and 2 onto your SD card, but when you play them back, if both channels are panned to one side, you'll only get sound out of one side when you play it back.

In the basic menu, toggle to Pan for channel 1 and set it to Left 12.  Then toggle to Pan under channel 2 and set it to Right 12 (it's probably currently set at Left 12).  To avoid this same problem if you ever do four channel recording, do the same thing with Channels 3 and 4.   

By the way, Left 12 is 'left twelve' not Left channels 1 and 2.  The pan setting is a scale from zero to twelve.  Zero means there's no panning and 12 means that channel is panned 100% into the left channel and 0% into the right channel.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on November 05, 2015, 07:10:59 PM
Sounds like you have channels 1 & 2 set to M-S. Check menu settings.

Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: The Other Chris on November 05, 2015, 07:23:41 PM
You sir are a great man.  That was it, many thanks for all the help & suggestions guys :)

Sounds like you have channels 1 & 2 set to M-S. Check menu settings.

Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on November 05, 2015, 07:48:42 PM
You sir are a great man.  That was it, many thanks for all the help & suggestions guys :)

Sounds like you have channels 1 & 2 set to M-S. Check menu settings.

Dave

No problemo  ;D
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 06, 2015, 07:42:35 AM
Thank you guys for the input.  Am I crazy though because on channels 1 & 2 I don't have the "Pan" option,  just "Wide" ranging from 0>100???  Channels 3 & 4 have the Pan option though and I set them to L12/R12.  Plugged into 3 & 4 & even with gain set to High (just for testing) the levels barely registered but I did get separate L & R signals.    What am I missing?? 

If you aren't getting enough gain on high, go into you INPUT menu and change the setting from 'line' to 'mic'.  Just remember that you might need to change it back before a show because your settings might be too sensitive for a loud show.  For most shows, I've found that having my INPUT menu settings at 'line' and on the BASIC menu, have the gain range set at medium or low (assuming you've implemented the firmware updates that installed the medium range as a menu selection item) that gives me a good level range for recording loud rock shows.

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 06, 2015, 07:57:52 AM
Channels 3 & 4 have the Pan option though and I set them to L12/R12.  Plugged into 3 & 4 & even with gain set to High (just for testing) the levels barely registered but I did get separate L & R signals.    What am I missing?? 

If you aren't getting enough gain on high, go into you INPUT menu and change the setting from 'line' to 'mic'.  Just remember that you might need to change it back before a show because your settings might be too sensitive for a loud show.  For most shows, I've found that having my INPUT menu settings at 'line' and on the BASIC menu, have the gain range set at medium or low (assuming you've implemented the firmware updates that installed the medium range as a menu selection item) that gives me a good level range for recording loud rock shows.

He might have the 3/4 set for the internal mics...?

Should be: BASIC > INPUT 3/4 > XLR/TRS
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 06, 2015, 08:46:11 PM
I just did a quick check on the pan settings, and it is as Steve suspected - it only seems to affect the monitor output; not the actual recording.  I did mono tracks centered and hard panned, and stereo tracks centered and hard panned.  Moved in front of left and right mic while speaking, etc.  Pan settings did not affect anything on the actual recording.

To further clarify: The separate mono tracks came out center-panned regardless of the pan setting on the 70D - i.e. they were dual-mono (I was recording a stereo set of mics).  You could easily make them stereo by panning track 1 hard left and track 2 hard right in software, as you would expect.  Conversely, stereo tracks came out hard-panned regardless of the pan setting.  Even with pans manually set to center, the result was a hard-panned stereo track.

I don't have access to a Mid-Side setup at the moment, but I would imagine that the "width" control (which replaces "pan" in M/S mode) does affect the recording, and not just the monitor out.  Can someone confirm this?  I always prefer to matrix later on, so I never tried this when recording using my borrowed M/S rig.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on November 06, 2015, 09:15:11 PM
I just did a quick check on the pan settings, and it is as Steve suspected - it only seems to affect the monitor output; not the actual recording.  I did mono tracks centered and hard panned, and stereo tracks centered and hard panned.  Moved in front of left and right mic while speaking, etc.  Pan settings did not affect anything on the actual recording.

To further clarify: The separate mono tracks came out center-panned regardless of the pan setting on the 70D - i.e. they were dual-mono (I was recording a stereo set of mics).  You could easily make them stereo by panning track 1 hard left and track 2 hard right in software, as you would expect.  Conversely, stereo tracks came out hard-panned regardless of the pan setting.  Even with pans manually set to center, the result was a hard-panned stereo track.

I don't have access to a Mid-Side setup at the moment, but I would imagine that the "width" control (which replaces "pan" in M/S mode) does affect the recording, and not just the monitor out.  Can someone confirm this?  I always prefer to matrix later on, so I never tried this when recording using my borrowed M/S rig.

As you might have noticed, there are two M-S settings, one called 'Monitor', and the other, 'Record'. They both allow real-time monitoring (of the effect on the stereo image of Side mic input level relative to Mid mic input level). However I'm not sure what the difference between them is, as far as what goes to tape. My best guess is that in MS 'monitor', you end up with two raw mono tracks, to be processed later, whereas in 'record', what goes to tape is a stereo mix just the way the levels were set. I think. Still not sure, as although I have various M-S setups, have yet to use them in anger  ;D
Unfortunately there's practically nothing in the manual to clarify any of this  ::)

Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 06, 2015, 11:23:42 PM
^ Good excuse to avoid mid-side recording.  Lol.  I'm sure it has its uses but i have yet to find one for what i do, at least that sounds as good as spaced directional mics.  Its fun, but I don't care for that technique much at all.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jbell on November 07, 2015, 02:23:30 PM
A friend ran my DR70d for the UM Halloween run with no reports of errors.  I have a PNY 64gig card in it.  I also doubt he dumped the files and did a format every night. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 08, 2015, 12:28:20 AM
Good news and bad news update:

Good news (potentially):

Firmware v 1.12 (http://tascam.com/product/dr-70d/downloads/) posted two days ago:
Quote
V1.12 fixes
  • The recording/playback level display now shows more
    precise level changes.
  • Operation stability has been improved.

I'm going to try it out tomorrow.

Bad news:

After having zero problems with a non-approved card (old Transcend), I have had numerous and severe problems with my brand new card which is actually on the list: SanDisk SDSDUP-16G.  The other day when I posted about my panning check, I went back and listened to some practice piano recordings I made.  One of them had severe skipping and dropouts, and even had a loud burst of static at the beginning.  Tonight, I was recording a marching band competition, and a couple early tracks had digital noise, a later track had severe dropouts and skipping, and then toward the end my last tracks failed to record at all, giving me "Write Timeout" errors.  I used this same card last week with no problems, and the same record settings exactly: 24/48 stereo with Dual Rec, so 4 tracks total.  I just sent an email to Tascam Customer Service recommending that they check this card more thoroughly again.

I'm going to do the firmware update and test the SanDisk card again before taking it back to Best Buy.  Tomorrow I'll let it run 4 channels at 24/96 to see if and when things go bad, and I'll report my findings.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 08, 2015, 08:48:13 AM
Update:

Clearly this SanDisk is either a defect / dud, or is not compatible with the 70D.  I'm leaning toward the first option, since it worked perfectly for the first couple recordings I made a week ago, but over the last two days its performance degenerated rapidly into unusable.  This morning I updated the 70D to 1.12 firmware and set it to record 4 channels of 24/96.  Write Timeout after 10 seconds, which was the last thing it was doing at the end of last night's show.  Erase Format and repeated test: Write Timeout at exactly 10 seconds every time.

Popped in my old Transcend and letting it run, and so far no issues.  Not like there have ever been any before with that card.

So I'll be taking the SanDisk back to Best Buy as defective.

BTW, I have yet to see what either of the things mentioned in the 1.12 firmware update are.  The meter ballistics may be a touch faster, but I'm not really sure.

EDIT: The numeric level readout for highest max level now changes in 1 dB steps; previously I believe it changed in 2 dB steps.  Can someone who hasn't updated to 1.12 yet please verify this? 

They could have done so much more to improve the metering, but I'll take any progress.  Also, keep in mind that the gain still adjusts in 2 dB steps.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 08, 2015, 09:45:23 AM
I'll preface this response by saying, obviously I don't know whether your card is a dud or not.  I'm sure it happens.

But if you review the comments on this thread, you'll find that there are people that experienced the same thing you just did.  First their card worked, then it didn't.  Tom's response back then was that the card is probably old and it wore out, but people asked well if that's true then why does the card work in my DR680?  (Response as I recall was cricket sounds.)  Now you're concluding that you have a dud.  Hmm, yeah it's a new card so that's certainly a possibility, but it's a strange coincidence that you're seeing the same thing that others have.

Anyway, I bought the same card as you did assuming that it would work fine and haven't used the DR70D since, so I'll do some testing to see what happens on my end.  (Obviously, based on your feedback, now I can't assume this approved card will work, so once again my confidence goes down a notch so I gotta waste time proving to myself whether the card or the recorder is at issue.  I was hoping I'd gotten past having to do that by spending (wasting?) more money on an approved card.  :banging head:)

You won't be surprised by my response to this, but I don't think it's fair to assume it's not an issue with the DR70D and make Sandisc/Best Buy pay for the error that, in all likelihood (based on your experience repeating what others have seen), is on Tascam.  Have you tried the 'dud' card in another device?  Bet it works fine. 

I acknowledge (and hope upon hope) that the card really is a dud, but I also don't believe in repeating coincidences.  That said, I can't even begin to think of a technical reason to explain why your 'unapproved' card works and your approved card doesn't work now after it did at first.  Maybe firmware v1.12 addressed this whole mess, but I doubt it since Tascam hasn't yet acknowledged that there is anything but an approved/unapproved card issue at work. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: willndmb on November 08, 2015, 09:49:44 AM
I'll preface this response by saying, obviously I don't know whether your card is a dud or not.  I'm sure it happens.

But if you review the comments on this thread, you'll find that there are people that experienced the same thing you just did.  First their card worked, then it didn't.  Tom's response back then was that the card is probably old and it wore out, but people asked well if that's true then why does the card work in my DR680?  Now you're concluding that you have a dud.  Hmm, yeah it's a new card so that's certainly a possibility, but it's a strange coincidence that you're seeing the same thing that others have.

Anyway, I bought the same card as you did assuming that it would work fine and haven't used the DR70D since, so I'll do some testing to see what happens on my end.  (Obviously, based on your feedback, now I can't assume this approved card will work, so once again my confidence goes down a notch so I gotta waste time proving to myself whether the card or the recorder is at issue.  I was hoping I'd gotten past having to do that with an approved card.  :banging head:)

You won't be surprised by my response to this, but I don't think it's completely fair to assume it's not an issue with the DR70D and make Sandisc/Best Buy pay for the error that, in all likelihood, is on Tascam.  Have you tried the 'dud' card in another device?  Bet it works fine. 

I acknowledge that the card very well could be a dud, but I also don't believe in repeating coincidences.  That said, I can't even begin to think of a technical reason to explain why your 'unapproved' card works and your approved card doesn't work now after it did at first.  Maybe firmware v1.12 addressed this whole mess.
agreed
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 08, 2015, 10:17:42 AM
Maybe firmware v1.12 addressed this whole mess, but I doubt it since Tascam hasn't yet acknowledged that there is anything but an approved/unapproved card issue at work.

Well the behavior with both cards is the same with 1.11 and 1.12, in that the Transcend works perfectly and the SanDisk not at all.

The reason for my quick conclusion that this card is a dud is that it worked fine for a while, then quickly got bad, and now I get an immediate Write Timeout after 10 seconds, on both firmware versions, and even right after a fresh format.  It would not be the first dud card I've gotten from SanDisk. 

I will run it through a couple test utilities in my PC though to see if it really is the card that is bad though.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 08, 2015, 11:55:01 AM
I will run it through a couple test utilities in my PC though to see if it really is the card that is bad though.

Thanks.  I really do hope it's your card, but that's what happened to the person that bought my DR70D that I ended up refunding (greenmtnsrider).  I don't think he was using a new card, but he had a couple of good experiences with the card he was using mixed in with some of the digi-noise/skipping issues that have been reported.  I understand that these were somewhat random at first then after about four or five uses, he got the card write error message, after which the card wouldn't work at all.  If you want, PM him directly and maybe you can compare notes because I'm just going from memory of what he wrote to me when he was having the issues, which timewise was right at the very beginning of the ts.com discovery of this issue.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on November 08, 2015, 02:03:51 PM
I'll preface this response by saying, obviously I don't know whether your card is a dud or not.  I'm sure it happens.

But if you review the comments on this thread, you'll find that there are people that experienced the same thing you just did.  First their card worked, then it didn't.  Tom's response back then was that the card is probably old and it wore out, but people asked well if that's true then why does the card work in my DR680?  (Response as I recall was cricket sounds.)  Now you're concluding that you have a dud.  Hmm, yeah it's a new card so that's certainly a possibility, but it's a strange coincidence that you're seeing the same thing that others have.

Anyway, I bought the same card as you did assuming that it would work fine and haven't used the DR70D since, so I'll do some testing to see what happens on my end.  (Obviously, based on your feedback, now I can't assume this approved card will work, so once again my confidence goes down a notch so I gotta waste time proving to myself whether the card or the recorder is at issue.  I was hoping I'd gotten past having to do that by spending (wasting?) more money on an approved card.  :banging head:)

You won't be surprised by my response to this, but I don't think it's fair to assume it's not an issue with the DR70D and make Sandisc/Best Buy pay for the error that, in all likelihood (based on your experience repeating what others have seen), is on Tascam.  Have you tried the 'dud' card in another device?  Bet it works fine. 

I acknowledge (and hope upon hope) that the card really is a dud, but I also don't believe in repeating coincidences.  That said, I can't even begin to think of a technical reason to explain why your 'unapproved' card works and your approved card doesn't work now after it did at first.  Maybe firmware v1.12 addressed this whole mess, but I doubt it since Tascam hasn't yet acknowledged that there is anything but an approved/unapproved card issue at work.





(I am going to give life again to a post I deleted on page 2 or three.)






A product recall is in order.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on November 08, 2015, 02:42:16 PM
 hope it's a faulty card.  Would really be awful to have spent money on the mod and then have the deck go bad out of warranty. 

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on November 08, 2015, 03:09:46 PM
The difference between Monitor & Record for mid-side is so you can play back M/S tracks using the monitor feature and actually hear them mixed m/s. Serious M/S recordists do not mix their m & s on the spot, they record "A/B" and go mix at home.

See page 14 of the Reference manual (screen capture attached)

http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/e_dr-70d_rm_vb.pdf



As you might have noticed, there are two M-S settings, one called 'Monitor', and the other, 'Record'. They both allow real-time monitoring (of the effect on the stereo image of Side mic input level relative to Mid mic input level). However I'm not sure what the difference between them is, as far as what goes to tape. My best guess is that in MS 'monitor', you end up with two raw mono tracks, to be processed later, whereas in 'record', what goes to tape is a stereo mix just the way the levels were set. I think. Still not sure, as although I have various M-S setups, have yet to use them in anger  ;D
Unfortunately there's practically nothing in the manual to clarify any of this  ::)

Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: groovon on November 08, 2015, 03:30:23 PM
The difference between Monitor & Record for mid-side is so you can play back M/S tracks using the monitor feature and actually hear them mixed m/s. Serious M/S recordists do not mix their m & s on the spot, they record "A/B" and go mix at home.

--Yes I know, and I normally do just that. However, due to the built-in matrix, you can monitor the stereo mix--in either mode--while recording, which is useful. I also seem to remember that in M-S 'Record' mode, the two tracks are ganged to one level control (I may be wrong, I haven't done it in a while.)

See page 14 of the Reference manual (screen capture attached)

http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/e_dr-70d_rm_vb.pdf

--Fine, but it's still scant information, and please note that in the deck's menu, the M-S options are NOT named 'Record' and 'Play', but 'Record' and 'Monitor'. So the manual provides not only insufficient information, but is also misleading.

Dave



As you might have noticed, there are two M-S settings, one called 'Monitor', and the other, 'Record'. They both allow real-time monitoring (of the effect on the stereo image of Side mic input level relative to Mid mic input level). However I'm not sure what the difference between them is, as far as what goes to tape. My best guess is that in MS 'monitor', you end up with two raw mono tracks, to be processed later, whereas in 'record', what goes to tape is a stereo mix just the way the levels were set. I think. Still not sure, as although I have various M-S setups, have yet to use them in anger  ;D
Unfortunately there's practically nothing in the manual to clarify any of this  ::)

Dave
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on November 08, 2015, 04:51:42 PM
A product recall is in order.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 08, 2015, 08:52:13 PM
So I did some further testing.  I have a couple of SD card testing programs, although none of them write data the same way the 70D does.  The card passed them, but the write speed is much lower than what I expect: between 11 and 16 MB/s depending on the test.  That still should be plenty fast enough though.  Read speed around 33 MB/s, far lower than the stated 48 MB/s but still OK.  I haven't been able to find a program that will test using continuous writes.  All of these write data in chunks, which is a different animal, but at least it was enough to verify that I got an authentic card.

The only other device I have that takes full-size SD is my older Panasonic camera, and it worked fine for recording 720p AVCHD video after a format.

While doing all this testing on the SanDisk, I ran my old but reliable Transcend card at 24/96, 4 channels until the card was full.  No errors, checked the files and they are perfect.  As I said, I've never had a problem with this card in the 70D.

Tried to put the new SanDisk card back into the 70D, and it wouldn't let me do anything with it now: I got a "bad card" message or something to that effect, it told me I had to replace the card, and it powered down.  This was right after doing the video recording test. 

Put it back into PC, used the official SD Formatter utility to do a full/erase format.  Back to the 70D, and it formatted without incident and now seems to be working fine.  I just recorded a couple hours of 24/96, 4-channel and no errors, popped the card into the PC and verified that there are no glitches on recording either.

It's worth noting that after I had all of my problems last night I tried formatting in the 70D using both the Quick and Erase methods, and continued to get Write Timeout errors after 10 seconds.  That continued today, and the only thing that fixed it was formatting the card on my computer using the SD Formatter utility.

I'm not sure what's going on here.  Did the filesystem on my SanDisk card somehow get so corrupted that the on-board format routines couldn't fix it?  And why was it not even recognized in the 70D after formatting in my camera?  This card appears to be working fine now, but will that last?  All I can do right now is continue the same test I did before until the card is full, and see if I get any problems or this was a one-time thing.

Maybe Tonedeaf and any others who have purchased this same card would please run a continuous test also to see if this model of card really is no good with the 70D and TEAC Japan wasn't thorough with their testing, or if it's just mine.  Card model is SDSDUP-16G.

EDIT: I'm running that card in the 70D now again until the card is full to see if there are any further problems.  If I can do that 2 or 3 times with no issues, then maybe this was a fluke.  This card is going to have to prove itself worthy before I use it again to record something I really care about though.

One other thing I forgot to mention before: for the marching band show I was recording last night, the set that I cared about for our students actually came out fine.  What I do with these recordings is I replace the audio on the video track from my phone or from another camera using Vegas, and then that goes to a private share to use for the students to self-assess following each competition.  What I noticed this time was that even though this particular 10-minute recording was free of audible glitches, it drifted significantly from the video track such that I had to do a cut/crossfade to make the remainder match up.  Even without timecode sync, I never have significant drift for recordings this short - in fact it's the only time I've ever noticed a mismatch at all.  So a longer-than-normal recording may be another symptom of card write problems.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 08, 2015, 09:32:06 PM
^ That's a very interesting sequence and maybe there are some clues as to what might be happening in there.  It's almost like the formatting on the card got corrupted somehow...and then the PC re-format restored the card to original or near original state.  Also, almost seems like there could be a progressive corruption...like over the course of a couple of record cycles...until the card reaches an 'unwrite-able' status. 

I'll run the test you suggested tomorrow.  A couple of questions...

By continuous test you just mean start recording to the card (I'll set it up for four channel recording) and run the card all the way until it's full?

How did you determine that there were no glitches?  Just load the files into your DAW and look for any random spiking? 

Thinking out loud here and answering my own questions...perhaps I'll set it up to record four channels of a test tone from my laptop and let it roll.  That way when I load the recorded files back into my laptop, it'll be easy to see visually if there are any dropouts or glitches on the flat/brick waveform.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 08, 2015, 09:50:07 PM
^ That's a very interesting sequence and maybe there are some clues as to what might be happening in there.  It's almost like the formatting on the card got corrupted somehow...and then the PC re-format restored the card to original or near original state.  Also, almost seems like there's a progressive corruption...like over the course of a couple of record cycles...until the card reaches an 'unwrite-able' status. 

That's exactly what I was thinking.  In my PC repair days, I used to see this happen all the time with failing HDDs.  What's surprising in this situation is seeing this happen with a brand new card, especially since my very old Transcend card has been perfect as I've stated many times.  The card started out performing great for several days, then all of a sudden I had glitching / skipping, then that quickly degenerated into the Write Timeout and finally not even being recognized.

By continuous test you just mean start recording to the card (I'll set it up for four channel recording) and run the card all the way until it's full?

Yes, and I'd go with 24/96 to max out the data rate.  FWIW, what I was doing last night was manually stopping and starting new tracks for each band, about 10 minutes each track.  It shouldn't make a difference if you keep it running though, and then it can be unattended, making new files after ever 2GB.  If anything, I would imagine the potential for errors would be greater in a larger file than a smaller one anyway.

How did you determine that there were no glitches?  Just load the files into your DAW and look for any random spiking? 

Pretty much, and then I spot-check listened at many places throughout the files.  I'm actually now recording 4 channels but only with 1 mic plugged in.  Here's my reasoning - when experiencing the problem before, it happened on all 4 channels (only 2 mics, but was using DUAL REC to record a duplicate at -12dB).  Knowing that, for this test, I can load all of the tracks into my DAW and quickly look for any place where the 3 "silent" channels are not flatlined electronic noise of the recorder.  But there is still one channel that recorded audio so if I do find a problem on one of the "silent" tracks, I can see if there is something audible going on with background noise in the room as a reference.  It's the same amount of stress on the SD card since there are still 4 channels recording.  Before when I was testing the Transcend card I did actually connect 4 mics, but I realized it's not necessary since that proves there's no correlation with the number of phantom powered channels or something wacky like that.

Thinking out loud here and answering my own questions...perhaps I'll set it up to record four channels of a test tone from my laptop and let it roll.  That way when I load the recorded files back into my laptop, it'll be easy to see visually if there are any dropouts or glitches on the flat/brick waveform.

That's probably an even better procedure than what I'm doing.  Thanks for trying this out.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 08, 2015, 10:03:24 PM
One other thing I forgot to mention before: for the marching band show I was recording last night, the set that I cared about for our students actually came out fine.  What I do with these recordings is I replace the audio on the video track from my phone or from another camera using Vegas, and then that goes to a private share to use for the students to self-assess following each competition.  What I noticed this time was that even though this particular 10-minute recording was free of audible glitches, it drifted significantly from the video track such that I had to do a cut/crossfade to make the remainder match up.  Even without timecode sync, I never have significant drift for recordings this short - in fact it's the only time I've ever noticed a mismatch at all.  So a longer-than-normal recording may be another symptom of card write problems.

Great sleuthing work!  This is also very interesting. 

The above reminds me that that one possible answer that's been suggested is that the DR70D may have some kind of an issue with how it's writing data to the card.

You mentioned you experienced significant drift.  I wonder if it would be worth doing a test of the internal clocking on the DR70D against a calibrated clock to see how much drift there is over...say 24 hours.  I'm not sure what it would mean if the DR70D clock is way off, but if somehow there's a mismatch between the data write speed due to an mis-calibrated write and how the card is formatted...perhaps like fitting a square peg in a round hole?!?  I don't really even know the technicalities of what I'm getting at here honestly, but I do find it VERY interesting that you saw drift over a relatively short ten minute time frame when you hadn't seen it before.  (But then the question becomes...why some cards and not others?!?  LOL. )

EDIT TO ADD:  I'll try something out tomorrow.  What I'll do is start my test tomorrow and note the EXACT clock time i start, down to the second...or perhaps I'll set a stopwatch on my phone.  Then I'll do the same when I manually stop the recording just before the card fills up.  Then I'll load my files into the DAW and see how much elapsed RECORDED time the DAW says is on the recording.  I think it'll take four hours to fill the card at 24/96 and four channels, so I'll check to see how many seconds, if any, of drift there is between actual time and the time the recording shows as.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 08, 2015, 10:18:07 PM
One other thing I forgot to mention before: for the marching band show I was recording last night, the set that I cared about for our students actually came out fine.  What I do with these recordings is I replace the audio on the video track from my phone or from another camera using Vegas, and then that goes to a private share to use for the students to self-assess following each competition.  What I noticed this time was that even though this particular 10-minute recording was free of audible glitches, it drifted significantly from the video track such that I had to do a cut/crossfade to make the remainder match up.  Even without timecode sync, I never have significant drift for recordings this short - in fact it's the only time I've ever noticed a mismatch at all.  So a longer-than-normal recording may be another symptom of card write problems.

Great sleuthing work!  This is also very interesting. 

The above reminds me that that one possible answer that's been suggested is that the DR70D may have some kind of an issue with how it's writing data to the card.

You mentioned you experienced significant drift.  I wonder if it would be worth doing a test of the internal clocking on the DR70D against a calibrated clock to see how much drift there is over...say 24 hours.  I'm not sure what it would mean if the DR70D clock is way off, but if somehow there's a mismatch between the data write speed due to an mis-calibrated write and how the card is formatted...perhaps like fitting a square peg in a round hole?!?  I don't really even know the technicalities of what I'm getting at here honestly, but I do find it VERY interesting that you saw drift over a relatively short ten minute time frame when you hadn't seen it before.  (But then the question becomes...why some cards and not others?!?  LOL. )

Well I've only ever seen this drift on this card, and only this one time.  I recorded a competition last week using this recorder / card combo, and there was zero discernible drift between the video and my separate audio track, and the recording was good.  And all of my previous recordings with the 70D using my other card have had no drift compared against the videos from prior weeks. 

Given that it's only happened with this card, I really don't think the clocking of the 70D is is suspect here - I'm suggesting that previously unseen clocking errors may be another symptom to look out for.  Tracks I recorded last night before this one where I found the drift did have occasional digital noise and skips, and they may very well have had clocking errors as well - I just didn't have video tracks to go along with those to try and sync them with. 

The problem with testing the 70D clocking is there is no timecode, so I'm not sure you can even test this properly.  It's not like your F8, like the test that was done where they put one in a freezer overnight with a 744 and checked the clock differences after.

I've been recording to the suspect SanDisk card for almost now and it's still going along fine (I think).  We'll see what the files look like tomorrow.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 08, 2015, 10:34:40 PM
EDIT TO ADD:  I'll try something out tomorrow.  What I'll do is start my test tomorrow and note the EXACT clock time i start, down to the second...or perhaps I'll set a stopwatch on my phone.  Then I'll do the same when I manually stop the recording just before the card fills up.  Then I'll load my files into the DAW and see how much elapsed RECORDED time the DAW says is on the recording.  I think it'll take four hours to fill the card at 24/96 and four channels, so I'll check to see how many seconds, if any, of drift there is between actual time and the time the recording shows as.

That's a good plan.  In reality, you'll only probably get a little less than 4 hours, since you don't really have 16GB to work with.  The formatted capacity for my card shows up as 14.8 GB in Windows.  The Sound Devices calculator (http://www.sounddevices.com/support/tech-notes/audio-record-time-calculations) says that's 3:47 for 15 GB, so figure maybe 3:40.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 08, 2015, 11:02:59 PM
Right.  I understood all those points. 

I'll try to explain better if i can what my thoughts are about the timing.  At minimum, it seems telling to me that you saw the time drift coincident with when you were experiencing the other issue on this card, yet you said that at the same time this portion of recorded audio didn't have any actual diginoise or skipping.  So as you point out, all of these issues seem to be symptoms of whatever is 'the problem'.  To me what's new is that perhaps 'the problem' can be better diagnosed knowing that there seems to be some data write drift or mis-match.  To my way of thinking, this might not be unlike what happened in cassette days when the deck used to record from wasnt calibrated right...to 1.8 inch per second or whatever... And then you play the cassette back on a different deck and it sounds either faster or slower. 

All recorders have some type of a clock... Not timecode... But a clock that keeps time and date information.  If somehow that clock gets corrupted and there's a mismatch between how much data is supposed to be written to the card (48000 bytes per second or whatever) versus how much is actually written, then you might see drift if there's a difference between the rate of data write vs the rate of data read or playback.  Or if the write rate is too high, then perhaps you'd get data bottlenecks with actual periodic losses of data, with the possible result being skipping or diginoise.

Again i don't know how formats happen but perhaps this all goes back to bad card formatting... If card sectors aren't properly segmented... Like if somehow the 70d associates data write time To a formatting segment size... or something like that

Just some thoughts without any real technical basis.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 09, 2015, 06:36:30 AM
Right.  I understood all those points. 

I'll try to explain better if i can what my thoughts are about the timing.  At minimum, it seems telling to me that you saw the time drift coincident with when you were experiencing the other issue on this card, yet you said that at the same time this portion of recorded audio didn't have any actual diginoise or skipping.  So as you point out, all of these issues seem to be symptoms of whatever is 'the problem'.  To me what's new is that perhaps 'the problem' can be better diagnosed knowing that there seems to be some data write drift or mis-match.  To my way of thinking, this might not be unlike what happened in cassette days when the deck used to record from wasnt calibrated right...to 1.8 inch per second or whatever... And then you play the cassette back on a different deck and it sounds either faster or slower. 

All recorders have some type of a clock... Not timecode... But a clock that keeps time and date information.  If somehow that clock gets corrupted and there's a mismatch between how much data is supposed to be written to the card (48000 bytes per second or whatever) versus how much is actually written, then you might see drift if there's a difference between the rate of data write vs the rate of data read or playback.  Or if the write rate is too high, then perhaps you'd get data bottlenecks with actual periodic losses of data, with the possible result being skipping or diginoise.

Again i don't know how formats happen but perhaps this all goes back to bad card formatting... If card sectors aren't properly segmented... Like if somehow the 70d associates data write time To a formatting segment size... or something like that

Just some thoughts without any real technical basis.

I'm with you on all of that, and I agree with your cassette analogy.  When I was saying "clock" I was actually referring to the oscillator on a chip that all of these things have to set their sample rate, etc. which sounds like what you're talking about also.  What you describe as the possible data rate mismatch is exactly what I think is happening.  The question is - what is causing it?  A formatting / filesystem snafu, or something else?

Back to testing stuff: ran the card last night until full as I mentioned, and no problems.  I loaded each of the files into RX as it is a much more powerful tool for visual analysis, and took a couple of screenshots you can see below.  I had one Naiant X-Q plugged into Ch 1, and the other 4 channels were recording but nothing plugged in, and phantom turned off.  You'll see some periodic noise in the spectrum around 30kHz for Ch 1, but it is inaudible.  The other little noises are actual environmental sounds.  No glitches or dropouts anywhere in any of the files.

I'll format and run the same thing again tonight.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 09, 2015, 07:50:13 AM
I'll format and run the same thing again tonight.

Your successful restoration of the Sandisk card on your PC tends to make me want to do my card formats on my PC and not the DR70D.  If there's a possibility that the format process in the unit is glitchy, perhaps conducting multiple formats in the unit would be a way to simulate use over time since many/most of us are in the habit of quick formatting before use.  Obviously, one of my main goals is to figure out/isolate where the issue lies and, if possible, make it repeatable.  This would eliminate uncertainty about the source of the issue and restore my confidence in using the unit.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 07:53:09 AM
Regarding the drift with no apparent errors...

Sounds like just another version of "fail" - just not to the point where the PCM decode fails completely (and makes noise/static). Possibly just another manifestation of the same problem.

Also - I know you want to fill the card for the tests...but I think you should start and stop a few times - and power cycle the deck...things we all do when using the deck...

The one thing we almost never do - is fill the card...and it certainly doesn't sound like there is any correlation in reports so far. I'd get the card -close- to full - like a normal use pattern.

Voltronic - are you certain all your errors are happening real time? Myself and perhaps one other member have had previously good files get corrupted once a card starts failing... with the same problems the subsequent files have.

I mention that only because I'm not sure we know if these errors are related to real-time processes - or something wrong with shut down...boot - or other action - that corrupts the files.

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 08:03:36 AM
I'll format and run the same thing again tonight.

Your successful restoration of the Sandisk card on your PC tends to make me want to do my card formats on my PC and not the DR70D.  If there's a possibility that the format process in the unit is glitchy, perhaps conducting multiple formats in the unit would be a way to simulate use over time since many/most of us are in the habit of quick formatting before use.  Obviously, one of my main goals is to figure out/isolate where the issue lies and, if possible, make it repeatable.  This would eliminate uncertainty about the source of the issue and restore my confidence in using the unit.

That's been my feeling as well. We tapers probably format more than most users. Probably the first thing we all did - grab a good card from the pile, hit FORMAT

The introduction of the ERASE FORMAT function in later firmwares gives a clue they know something is deficient.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 08:13:18 AM
It's worth noting that after I had all of my problems last night I tried formatting in the 70D using both the Quick and Erase methods, and continued to get Write Timeout errors after 10 seconds.  That continued today, and the only thing that fixed it was formatting the card on my computer using the SD Formatter utility.

This is powerful evidence that the TASCAM Format functions are not up to snuff...or the SD Card controller could be buggy. Not sure the latter is fixable.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 08:29:23 AM
One other tidbit.

I tried to use my "bad" card to transfer a few photo files from one Windows PC to another.

The files copied to the card - but when they were transferred to the other PC there were quite a few that were corrupted (only half the photo showed up).
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 09, 2015, 08:32:25 AM
One other tidbit.

I tried to use my "bad" card to transfer a few photo files from one Windows PC to another.

The files copied to the card - but when they were transferred to the other PC there were quite a few that were corrupted (only half the photo showed up).

Did you reformat the card in your pc prior to doing this?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 09, 2015, 08:34:15 AM
It's worth noting that after I had all of my problems last night I tried formatting in the 70D using both the Quick and Erase methods, and continued to get Write Timeout errors after 10 seconds.  That continued today, and the only thing that fixed it was formatting the card on my computer using the SD Formatter utility.

This is powerful evidence that the TASCAM Format functions are not up to snuff...or the SD Card controller could be buggy. Not sure the latter is fixable.

Anyone know if SD formatter does formats any differently than the standard format utility in the pc accessories menu?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 08:42:24 AM
One other tidbit.

I tried to use my "bad" card to transfer a few photo files from one Windows PC to another.

The files copied to the card - but when they were transferred to the other PC there were quite a few that were corrupted (only half the photo showed up).

Did you reformat the card in your pc prior to doing this?

No - just knew it had some space.

It does suggest that once the card gets messed up in the DR-70D - it may still read and write, but the corruption persists with subsequent use.

I'm going to format this one and see what happens...I'm still on one of the earliest firmwares 1.00.0037 -- so I only have "quick" format on the Tascam.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 09, 2015, 09:07:35 AM
One other tidbit.

I tried to use my "bad" card to transfer a few photo files from one Windows PC to another.

The files copied to the card - but when they were transferred to the other PC there were quite a few that were corrupted (only half the photo showed up).

Did you reformat the card in your pc prior to doing this?

No - just knew it had some space.

It does suggest that once the card gets messed up in the DR-70D - it may still read and write, but the corruption persists with subsequent use.

I'm going to format this one and see what happens...I'm still on one of the earliest firmwares 1.00.0037 -- so I only have "quick" format on the Tascam.

Perfect...I was hoping that would be your response.  Could I suggest a couple of things?  First do a format in your DR70D and then repeat what you did last night with transferring photo's to see if the same issue persists, gets better, or gets worse.  Note what happens but if you still have issues after the format in the DR70D, then format your card in your PC and repeat and see if you get a different result.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 09:17:43 AM
One other tidbit.

I tried to use my "bad" card to transfer a few photo files from one Windows PC to another.

The files copied to the card - but when they were transferred to the other PC there were quite a few that were corrupted (only half the photo showed up).

Did you reformat the card in your pc prior to doing this?

No - just knew it had some space.

It does suggest that once the card gets messed up in the DR-70D - it may still read and write, but the corruption persists with subsequent use.

I'm going to format this one and see what happens...I'm still on one of the earliest firmwares 1.00.0037 -- so I only have "quick" format on the Tascam.

Perfect...I was hoping that would be your response.  Could I suggest a couple of things?  First do a format in your DR70D and then repeat what you did last night with transferring photo's to see if the same issue persists, gets better, or gets worse.  Note what happens but if you still have issues after the format in the DR70D, then format your card in your PC and repeat and see if you get a different result.

Exactly my thinking...try to do this as incrementally and SOP as possible...before I try a Windows reformat.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 09:25:19 AM
I'm wondering when the MUSIC and UTILITY folders get written?

Is that part of the format function?

Obviously those aren't going to be created when you format in a computer.

Does the system write those if they don't exist?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 09:40:29 AM
Ok - my "bad" card - I reformatted using the old firmware format - and transferred some photo files from one PC to another - they are fine, clean transfer.

I'll run it in the recorder next for a bit...try a few different rates.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Claus on November 09, 2015, 11:21:02 AM

With all these formatting issues, I am wondering if the following would have any benefit:

If you have a card that has a problem, would erasing the card on an old-fashioned tape eraser before re-formatting in the 70 solve subsequent re-format issues?

My card (a SanDisk) works fine in my 70; it is from "the list", but I recall some years back I had a regular SD card that wouldn't show up in my Nikon after it had worked for a while.
I nuked it with my tape bulk eraser, then re-formatted it in my camera, and bingo: all was well.

Maybe a bit of "brute force" could help here too. Just an idea.

Claus.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 11:41:54 AM

With all these formatting issues, I am wondering if the following would have any benefit:

If you have a card that has a problem, would erasing the card on an old-fashioned tape eraser before re-formatting in the 70 solve subsequent re-format issues?

My card (a SanDisk) works fine in my 70; it is from "the list", but I recall some years back I had a regular SD card that wouldn't show up in my Nikon after it had worked for a while.
I nuked it with my tape bulk eraser, then re-formatted it in my camera, and bingo: all was well.

Maybe a bit of "brute force" could help here too. Just an idea.

Claus.

Probably placebo effect - I don't think magnetics are in play in SD media - not sure it would have any effect at all - certainly nothing predictable or desirable.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 09, 2015, 12:02:10 PM
It's worth noting that after I had all of my problems last night I tried formatting in the 70D using both the Quick and Erase methods, and continued to get Write Timeout errors after 10 seconds.  That continued today, and the only thing that fixed it was formatting the card on my computer using the SD Formatter utility.

This is powerful evidence that the TASCAM Format functions are not up to snuff...or the SD Card controller could be buggy. Not sure the latter is fixable.

If this were true, then I should be having similar problems with all of my SD cards, and I'm not.  It only happened on this one SanDisk, and so far I can't get out to repeat the errors again after formatting in my PC. 

Remember that there's a controller chip on the SD card itself, so that's a possible factor as well.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 09, 2015, 12:10:38 PM
Regarding the drift with no apparent errors...

Sounds like just another version of "fail" - just not to the point where the PCM decode fails completely (and makes noise/static). Possibly just another manifestation of the same problem.

Also - I know you want to fill the card for the tests...but I think you should start and stop a few times - and power cycle the deck...things we all do when using the deck...

The one thing we almost never do - is fill the card...and it certainly doesn't sound like there is any correlation in reports so far. I'd get the card -close- to full - like a normal use pattern.

Voltronic - are you certain all your errors are happening real time? Myself and perhaps one other member have had previously good files get corrupted once a card starts failing... with the same problems the subsequent files have.

I mention that only because I'm not sure we know if these errors are related to real-time processes - or something wrong with shut down...boot - or other action - that corrupts the files.

I actually did start / stop / power cycle a few times for some shorter tracks, and then let it run continuously to fill the remainder of the card.  The idea behind filling the card is to make it write to all the available space to possibly reveal any faulty areas.  I realize no one really records until the card is completely full, at least not on purpose.

Regarding "real time": the Write Timeout definitely was a real time thing.  The other errors or glitches I first heard playing the file back on the 70D, and then verified on my PC after transfer.  I can't be 100% positive, but I'm reasonably sure what I experienced the other night was all real-time.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Len Moskowitz (Core Sound) on November 09, 2015, 12:23:44 PM
EDIT: The numeric level readout for highest max level now changes in 1 dB steps; previously I believe it changed in 2 dB steps.  Can someone who hasn't updated to 1.12 yet please verify this? 

They could have done so much more to improve the metering, but I'll take any progress.  Also, keep in mind that the gain still adjusts in 2 dB steps.

That's too bad. It would be nice to have 1 dB steps and to also have a reliable readout of the mic input gain settings so that we could match channels.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 12:33:34 PM
OK - I just ran off a few 45 minute tracks on a few different settings - using my bad card, freshly formatted in the DR-70D


1st - 24/48 Stereo EXT 1/2 - 1 spike

2nd - 24/96 Stereo EXT 1/2 - 5 spikes

Most interesting is the 3rd try:

4 channels EXT 1/2 and 3/4 MIC (external mic) - Mono @ 24/96

Channel 1: No Spikes
Channel 2: No Spikes
Channel 3: 3 Spikes
Channel 4: 1 Spike

The spike in Track 4 does not coincide with any in Track 3.

Next I guess I try to reformat this in Windows.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 09, 2015, 01:36:52 PM
OK - I just ran off a few 45 minute tracks on a few different settings - using my bad card, freshly formatted in the DR-70D


1st - 24/48 Stereo EXT 1/2 - 1 spike

2nd - 24/96 Stereo EXT 1/2 - 5 spikes

Most interesting is the 3rd try:

4 channels EXT 1/2 and 3/4 MIC (external mic) - Mono @ 24/96

Channel 1: No Spikes
Channel 2: No Spikes
Channel 3: 3 Spikes
Channel 4: 1 Spike

The spike in Track 4 does not coincide with any in Track 3.

Next I guess I try to reformat this in Windows.

That is interesting.  When you format in windows, you should use the official SD Formatter.  Don't use the built-in Windows format function for SD cards, especially of you have a larger card.  Windows won't let you format FAT32 for anything larger than 32GB, and even if your card is smaller, the official SD tool dues a better job.  And then you'll still have to Quick Format in the 70D for it to set up it's config file and folder structure.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 09, 2015, 01:54:19 PM
EDIT: The numeric level readout for highest max level now changes in 1 dB steps; previously I believe it changed in 2 dB steps.  Can someone who hasn't updated to 1.12 yet please verify this? 

They could have done so much more to improve the metering, but I'll take any progress.  Also, keep in mind that the gain still adjusts in 2 dB steps.

That's too bad. It would be nice to have 1 dB steps and to also have a reliable readout of the mic input gain settings so that we could match channels.

Agreed, but until they have per-channel metering for gain setting and input level, I would prefer they leave the gain stepped at 2 dB since it actually helps to match channels.  If I'm setting levels using ambient noise in a church or auditorium, I can see right away if I overshoot one of the channels.

If they could introduce ganged channels, then that would be a situation where it would be helpful to have 1 dB steps.  Actually I found out through testing a few months back that when you move a gain knob, the gain is moving in 0.5 dB steps but then it settles into the nearest 2 dB when you stop moving it.  This was confirmed by the Tascam rep who used to hang out here.  So in theory, they could make this unit adjust gain to 0.5 dB steps but as I said I don't want that unless they introduce better metering and/or ganged channels first.

I suppose it would be nice to have that level of gain resolution anyway, but I think it would be too fiddly with these knobs since they are tiny continuous encoders.  My wish list for MKII would include making all of the gain knobs endless stepped/detented encoders like the Data knob.  I've always been a big fan of stepped pots though, and really would like them on all of my audio gear.  I use a 40 year old Technics receiver in my living room system and the stepped attenuator volume control is just so satisfying to use.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 09, 2015, 08:34:34 PM
That is interesting.  When you format in windows, you should use the official SD Formatter.  Don't use the built-in Windows format function for SD cards, especially of you have a larger card.

Can you link to this? - I see something like it...not sure what's "official" about it..
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 09, 2015, 08:43:11 PM
That is interesting.  When you format in windows, you should use the official SD Formatter.  Don't use the built-in Windows format function for SD cards, especially of you have a larger card.

Can you link to this? - I see something like it...not sure what's "official" about it..

Here you go (https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/index.html).  I call it "official" because it's from the SD Association, AKA the Spectre of Flash Storage Media.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 09, 2015, 08:55:36 PM
OK, I just did another test on my suspect SanDisk card.  Didn't quite fill the card this time, but recorded just under 10GB.  This time I only did a Quick format, power cycled multiple times, and made tracks of varying lengths.  Started with 4 tracks 24/96, then switched it up to 2 track 24/48 with DUAL REC which is how it was set when it started glitching on me the other day.  Just went through all the files in RX, and all is well with no errors.

Here's something that may or may not be significant: after formatting this card in my computer with the SD Formatter tool, all subsequent test recordings I've made in the 70D have been after it was upgraded to the new 1.12 firmware.  In my rush of editing the band show and doing multiple things at once while being frustrated that my other tracks were trash, I just went ahead and did the firmware update before considering doing any of this testing.

The firmware update does say "operational stability has been improved."  That really could mean anything.  I'm curious to see if Tonedeaf gets any problems with this card on the older firmware.  I don't really want to downgrade mine - I never really trust firmware downgrades, maybe irrationally so.

Here's a thought: Several of you have said there may be a problem with the firmware in this unit and that's why it has problems with certain SD cards, even ones that are fine in other 4-channel recorders.  How about doing some tests like I have done with those cards on both the 1.11 and 1.12 firmware, with a fresh Erase Format each time?  The card may still end up being "bad", but it could be interesting to see if somehow after the new firmware, now it isn't.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 09, 2015, 09:07:02 PM
(cut) ... I'm curious to see if Tonedeaf gets any problems with this card on the older firmware.  I don't really want to downgrade mine - I never really trust firmware downgrades, maybe irrationally so. ... (/cut)

I didn't get to do any testing today.  I ended up running around much of the day today.  Will get at it tomorrow.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on November 09, 2015, 10:29:48 PM
Can you link to this? - I see something like it...not sure what's "official" about it..
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/
this one is from the SD association, that's pretty official.

When I had an A-Data card fail (in the DR-70D), the A-Data warranty department requested that I try the official formatter first, and it did restore the card's read & write speed back to factory spec. I still sent the trouble-card back on an RMA, 'cause I know that A-Data will send me a brand-new card, in a sealed factory package when I have troubles...

Quote
Thank you for contacting ADATA USA.
 
Troubleshooting Tips:
1. Check for physical damages - make sure the memory card doesn’t have cracks and/or scratches, these cause damages to internal components and are NOT covered by warranty.
2. If the memory card is not detectable, test and/or reformat it with other devices, it might be incompatible with the original device.
3. If the memory card is detectable but with file corruption, try running the recommended SD Formatting tool - https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/
 
We request customers to return product(s) to our location for further testing. We will be happy to repair or replace your unit if it deemed faulty.
 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on November 09, 2015, 10:55:26 PM
REMIND ME AGAIN WHAT TASCAM PAYS FOR Q/A DEPARTMENT JOBS!?!?!

Oh, no... wanna larf? Tascam needs someone familiar with "CUEBASE!"

http://tascam.com/company/jobs/



Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on November 10, 2015, 05:00:12 AM
HAVEN'T YOU HEARD morst, Q/A is OUT, Marketing is IN.  All the new MBA textbooks teach that now.... ::) :facepalm: ::)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jbell on November 11, 2015, 08:52:37 AM
This PNY card was used in my 70d with firmware 1.11 for 4 show and only reformated one time during those days.  No issues with digi noise.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HIKBW1G?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 12, 2015, 05:34:46 PM
I guess I shouldn't expect any of the big features on our firmware update wishlist to make it to the 70D now - they are coming out with new version:
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175411.0 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175411.0)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: F.O.Bean on November 13, 2015, 11:23:45 AM
I guess I shouldn't expect any of the big features on our firmware update wishlist to make it to the 70D now - they are coming out with new version:
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175411.0 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175411.0)

Exactly! I don't need timecode/HDMI features, so I just want my 70D to record like it should! Since switching to PNY cards a few months ago, I haven't had ANY problems, and I STILL run an m10 as a backup lol ;)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 13, 2015, 11:28:06 AM
I guess I shouldn't expect any of the big features on our firmware update wishlist to make it to the 70D now - they are coming out with new version:
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175411.0 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175411.0)

Not sure I'd call this a "new version"...its a totally different product...not like this is a "mkII"...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: johnmuge on November 16, 2015, 11:17:37 AM
I unfortunately had another problem this weekend on test #2.  At the 1 hour 47 minute point, the recording levels went up by them self and peak with the red lights flashing and it recorded a weird noise.  From that point on every few minutes, there are pops and skips and also a few other 10 second intervals of level peaking.  I spoke to Brian @ Tascam Tech Support who was very nice and knowledgeable about the deck.  He went over all my settings and the card and external power etc. and confirmed something weird was going on and asked me the send the unit back to Tascam for either repair or exchange.  I'm hoping for the best as I like the deck and I want it to work with confidence.  I will report back with the outcome.  I was using a approved card SanDisk #SDSDUP-016G,  V1.11 firmware, and a Generic Power Bank 20,000 mah ultra thin battery.
  I just would like to report that Tascam sent me a brand new unit.  As for customer service, they were very nice to me and I have no complaints with them at all.  Now it's time to give this new unit a good test run.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: mfrench on November 16, 2015, 12:01:49 PM
A success to report; my first four channel effort with this device.  I no longer have phantom powered mics. But I did run a pair of Senn MKE2002 HRTF (ch1&2), and, a pair DPA 4060/MMA6000 spaced-> (ch3&4), at 24/44.1, last saturday morning at an acoustic jazz gig, without any issues.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v729/MokePics2/Chamber%20and%20Classical/DSCN2575_zpsrshosuxd.jpg)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Mike D (VT) on November 17, 2015, 10:54:51 AM
My deck has only recorded about a half dozen shows. The first 3, were okay, I feel like it was like the trial period. Used the mics and tried different tweaks here and there to try for optimal sound.
The next 3 were SBD feeds, and the 1st one was good, but then it started glitching - giving the "Write Timeout" screen. Completely random. It would go for 15 seconds and do it, and it would go for an hour and do it.
Last weekend it happened again. Unless I'm hovering over my deck (and not paying attention to the music), it could happen and I'll miss who knows how much music.

So after skimming the past 20+ pages - Is this in fact a problem with the card? Degraded? This quickly?
And where is the list of compatible cards?
I purchased mine through Busman, and it came with a card.
Never did do the firmware upgrade.
If I missed a side discussion on this, please point me in the right direction. I don't want to botch another show.
Thanks  ~ 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on November 17, 2015, 06:31:56 PM
Here's Tascam's list:  http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/867/dr-70d_tested_media_list_20151006.pdf

I can't recall anyone complaining about a "write timeout" error before (could be wrong) in this very long thread.  The complaints I remember were that there were spikes/glitches in some of the recordings, but others like me have not have issues.   

Whether you have a card issue or some other issue, I cannot say. 

If you have a warranty from Busman, wouldn't hurt to take this up with Busman. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 17, 2015, 11:20:22 PM
"Write timeout" was reported by one user a long time ago, before Tascam had even put out the first version of their media list.

It also happened to me once with my new SanDisk card, but has been fine ever since I did a full / erase format on it with the SD Formatter Utility (https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/).

This error seems to indicate the card can't keep up with the rate of data that the recorder is trying to write to it.  This may have nothing at all to do with the speed rating printed on the card, as those ratings are derived from burst read / write tests and audio recorders send a more or less continuous data stream.  So the card may not be able to keep up.  Or, as was the case in my situation, you have filesystem corruption.  This can definitely happen on a new card, as it did to me.

Bottom line: check to see if your card is in the list linked above.  Do a full / erase format using the tool I linked (don't use the Win / Mac built-in format).

You also might want to update your 70D firmware.  Version 1.11 added the full / erase format option, which actually formats the card.  Previous versions could only quick format, which only erases filesystem information but does not actually format the card.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: noahbickart on November 17, 2015, 11:30:49 PM
I botched a show this summer, due to the same error message. I checked, and a card I had been using seemed to no longer work with the Tascam. I bought one from the approved list, and everything has been smooth sailing since then.

Lots of people are really upset at Tascam for not being more forthright with the information that the vast majority of SD cards will not work, or at least are less likely to work, especially running four channels, especially at 24/96.

On the other hand, I think there has been no reports of a problem with an approved card.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: aaronji on November 18, 2015, 04:51:44 AM
This may have nothing at all to do with the speed rating printed on the card, as those ratings are derived from burst read / write tests and audio recorders send a more or less continuous data stream. 

Speed classes are based on minimum sustained write/read speed, not burst (which, as I understand it, is the more complex task anyway).

On the other hand, I think there has been no reports of a problem with an approved card.

I think there have been a few, at this point...

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 18, 2015, 05:48:19 AM
This may have nothing at all to do with the speed rating printed on the card, as those ratings are derived from burst read / write tests and audio recorders send a more or less continuous data stream. 

Speed classes are based on minimum sustained write/read speed, not burst (which, as I understand it, is the more complex task anyway).

I'll have to go check to see where I read that.
On the other hand, I think there has been no reports of a problem with an approved card.

I think there have been a few, at this point...

To my knowledge, mine has been the only one that I've seen on this forum and it hasn't been repeated in the weeks since it happened.  Who else has had a problem with an approved card?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: aaronji on November 18, 2015, 06:21:04 AM
To my knowledge, mine has been the only one that I've seen on this forum and it hasn't been repeated in the weeks since it happened.  Who else has had a problem with an approved card?

I thought there had been others, but I don't really feel like reading back through the whole thread to find them.  Maybe Life in Rewind or johnmuge?  In any event, that is immaterial.  The fact remains that at least one user has had an issue with an approved card...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 18, 2015, 07:12:40 AM
My deck has experienced 'write timeout' error with UNapproved cards.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: johnmuge on November 18, 2015, 08:25:21 AM
I had a problem using approved card SDSDUP-016G with V1.11 firmware.  I have a brand new, never used DR-70D just shipped to me from Tascam.  Anybody want to give it a try ? $150 and it's yours.  I think I'm going to stick with my DR-680 for multi channel.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: jbosco on November 18, 2015, 02:17:44 PM
I had a problem using approved card SDSDUP-016G with V1.11 firmware.  I have a brand new, never used DR-70D just shipped to me from Tascam.  Anybody want to give it a try ? $150 and it's yours.  I think I'm going to stick with my DR-680 for multi channel.

What was the problem with your first one and why did Tascam send you a new one, I think I missed all that.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: johnmuge on November 18, 2015, 02:34:49 PM
I unfortunately had another problem this weekend on test #2.  At the 1 hour 47 minute point, the recording levels went up by them self and peak with the red lights flashing and it recorded a weird noise.  From that point on every few minutes, there are pops and skips and also a few other 10 second intervals of level peaking.  I spoke to Brian @ Tascam Tech Support who was very nice and knowledgeable about the deck.  He went over all my settings and the card and external power etc. and confirmed something weird was going on and asked me the send the unit back to Tascam for either repair or exchange.  I'm hoping for the best as I like the deck and I want it to work with confidence.  I will report back with the outcome.  I was using a approved card SanDisk #SDSDUP-016G,  V1.11 firmware, and a Generic Power Bank 20,000 mah ultra thin battery.
  The first problem I had was at  George Porter.  At the 30 minute point, it skipped and digi noise till the end of the set and it did the same thing for both the first and second set.  I ended up with about 1 hour of good music and 1 hour of crap.  That was on a unapproved Sandisk card that came with the deck from B&H.  It ran fine with a class 4 Sandisk for 2 shows after that and then I got a approved card and did home testing and it failed the second test.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 18, 2015, 03:52:23 PM
I unfortunately had another problem this weekend on test #2.  At the 1 hour 47 minute point, the recording levels went up by them self and peak with the red lights flashing and it recorded a weird noise.  From that point on every few minutes, there are pops and skips and also a few other 10 second intervals of level peaking.  I spoke to Brian @ Tascam Tech Support who was very nice and knowledgeable about the deck.  He went over all my settings and the card and external power etc. and confirmed something weird was going on and asked me the send the unit back to Tascam for either repair or exchange.  I'm hoping for the best as I like the deck and I want it to work with confidence.  I will report back with the outcome.  I was using a approved card SanDisk #SDSDUP-016G,  V1.11 firmware, and a Generic Power Bank 20,000 mah ultra thin battery.
  The first problem I had was at  George Porter.  At the 30 minute point, it skipped and digi noise till the end of the set and it did the same thing for both the first and second set.  I ended up with about 1 hour of good music and 1 hour of crap.  That was on a unapproved Sandisk card that came with the deck from B&H.  It ran fine with a class 4 Sandisk for 2 shows after that and then I got a approved card and did home testing and it failed the second test.

That SanDisk model is the exact one I have that gave me problems.  I did notify Tascam right away saying that card should be retested, but have not gotten a reply.  FWIW, performance with that card has been perfect since using the SD Association Formatter I linked earlier.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Mike D (VT) on November 18, 2015, 08:08:43 PM
Thanks for all the info. My card isn't even on the list.  I guess I will upgrade the deck's firmware and try to re-format the card. It also seems like dialing down the bit rate from 24/96 to 24/48 might help.
I'll definitely get one of the "approved" cards too.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 18, 2015, 09:20:54 PM
Thanks for all the info. My card isn't even on the list.  I guess I will upgrade the deck's firmware and try to re-format the card. It also seems like dialing down the bit rate from 24/96 to 24/48 might help.
I'll definitely get one of the "approved" cards too.

I wouldn't be satisfied with just recording at 24/48, even if that's what you normally do.  You should be able to record at 4-channel 24/96 if you want to, but that might mean you need a different card. 

In the meantime, definitely try the SD Association Formatter to see if that solves your problem in the short term, even before doing a firmware update.  It's the best tool for the job, and if that fixes things you may have had a corrupted filesystem - approved card or not.  Like I said, you can't do a "full" format on any firmware before 1.11, but you can format it properly with this in your PC.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: aaronji on November 19, 2015, 07:34:18 AM
Thanks for all the info. My card isn't even on the list.  I guess I will upgrade the deck's firmware and try to re-format the card. It also seems like dialing down the bit rate from 24/96 to 24/48 might help.
I'll definitely get one of the "approved" cards too.

The thing to keep in mind is that these issues are obviously due to some defect in the recorder and not the cards themselves.  The problems have been sporadic and I don't think anyone has identified a set of conditions that will lead to them.  The proposed solutions (use cards on the approved list and reformat in the computer) are either suspect (users have had issues with approved cards) or anecdotal (computer format).  Even if the computer format method has been tested enough to qualify as solid evidence, it is, at best, an inconvenient work around (a field recorder that can't be formatted in the field?).  Until such time as Tascam fixes the underlying defect, you will be essentially shooting the dice with this recorder.  Some people seem to have had very good luck, but others have not.  You really just have to decide if the level of risk is worth it to you...   

[EDIT: YMMV, IMHO, etc.]
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: phil_er_up on November 19, 2015, 09:50:40 AM
Thanks for all the info. My card isn't even on the list.  I guess I will upgrade the deck's firmware and try to re-format the card. It also seems like dialing down the bit rate from 24/96 to 24/48 might help.
I'll definitely get one of the "approved" cards too.

The thing to keep in mind is that these issues are obviously due to some defect in the recorder and not the cards themselves.  The problems have been sporadic and I don't think anyone has identified a set of conditions that will lead to them.  The proposed solutions (use cards on the approved list and reformat in the computer) are either suspect (users have had issues with approved cards) or anecdotal (computer format).  Even if the computer format method has been tested enough to qualify as solid evidence, it is, at best, an inconvenient work around (a field recorder that can't be formatted in the field?).  Until such time as Tascam fixes the underlying defect, you will be essentially shooting the dice with this recorder.  Some people seem to have had very good luck, but others have not.  You really just have to decide if the level of risk is worth it to you...   

[EDIT: YMMV, IMHO, etc.]

^^^^^^^^Believe what aaronji said is true!

This feels like a short in your car/truck electronics. Sometimes it works and others times it doesn't. IMO there are so many uncontrollable variables in our hobby that adding the recorder to that list is not even in the ballpark. Add insult to injury they came out with a new unit (DR-701D) without addressing this problem with the SD cards!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: chk on November 19, 2015, 02:13:37 PM
has anyone had issues or given a serious test since upgrading to firmware 1.12? 
i am going to try and run a test this wknd and will report back...thanks
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 19, 2015, 08:44:44 PM
Thanks for all the info. My card isn't even on the list.  I guess I will upgrade the deck's firmware and try to re-format the card. It also seems like dialing down the bit rate from 24/96 to 24/48 might help.
I'll definitely get one of the "approved" cards too.

The thing to keep in mind is that these issues are obviously due to some defect in the recorder and not the cards themselves.  The problems have been sporadic and I don't think anyone has identified a set of conditions that will lead to them.  The proposed solutions (use cards on the approved list and reformat in the computer) are either suspect (users have had issues with approved cards) or anecdotal (computer format).  Even if the computer format method has been tested enough to qualify as solid evidence, it is, at best, an inconvenient work around (a field recorder that can't be formatted in the field?).  Until such time as Tascam fixes the underlying defect, you will be essentially shooting the dice with this recorder.  Some people seem to have had very good luck, but others have not.  You really just have to decide if the level of risk is worth it to you...   

[EDIT: YMMV, IMHO, etc.]

^^^^^^^^Believe what aaronji said is true!

This feels like a short in your car/truck electronics. Sometimes it works and others times it doesn't. IMO there are so many uncontrollable variables in our hobby that adding the recorder to that list is not even in the ballpark. Add insult to injury they came out with a new unit (DR-701D) without addressing this problem with the SD cards!

This thread may turn out to be related - I'm testing my two SD cards using the tool Rainer linked now: http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175071.0 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175071.0)

My thinking on the new DR-701D from a marketing standpoint is that they need to continue to actively support / update the 70D, since those users are going to be their target market for the 701D.  In other words, why would people who felt left out in the cold by Tascam having unresolved issues with the 70D buy the new unit?  Then again, I don't really know anything about marketing so I might be completely off base.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on November 24, 2015, 08:18:29 AM
Not much off the normal price, but this is $18.95 through Nov. 25th:  http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824139-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_016G_A75_Extreme_Pro_16_GB.html

Since Voltronic and johnmuge have both reported problems with the "approved" sdsdup-016g, I bought the sdsdxpa card from B & H even though it appears to be more expensive. 

The approved 32g panasonic card is a clearance item at Adorama, but with shipping, it's over $40.   :o



Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 29, 2015, 04:24:37 PM
Here's something to watch out for...

Last night I formatted my card in my computer (not quick format) - and then popped it back into the DR-70D.

Fired it up and it automatically formatted the card without my intervention.

When I hit record - I had no 1/2 MIC signal...I stopped and checked the settings - they were correct.

3/4 with a SBD feed were fine.

I stopped the recorder again - power cycled it - then it all worked.

Missed most of the first song last night figuring this out.

This is the older firmware - so this may be something that was addressed.

Weird that it formatted the card without asking...sucks for the guy put in the wrong card!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 29, 2015, 05:23:50 PM
If you have a card that glitched in the DR-70D - don't try to use it for anything else.

I screwed myself last night using my old DR-70D Lexar card in my camera...Shot a lot of pics - and no files.

I Full formatted this card in Windows and used it in my camera for a show a few weeks ago - seemed ok. Last night - Pfftttttt.

I ran the trial version of Lexars Image Recovery software - no dice. There is something there - blocks of 2.5 GB and few other 11 MB files with "no preview available"

The camera never really complained - although I do recall it seeming sluggish at one point.

I'd love to be able to blame the DR-70D for destroying my card - but not sure we're there yet!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: vanark on November 29, 2015, 07:37:52 PM
I don't understand why it was formatted on your computer. You would still need to format the card in the device.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 29, 2015, 07:42:22 PM
I don't understand why it was formatted on your computer. You would still need to format the card in the device.

In this case - I did that because this card had been used in the DR-70D and glitched - it wasn't going back in that device so I formatted it on the computer.

I'm sure I formatted it in the Camera also - probably not optional.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 29, 2015, 07:47:38 PM
If you have a card that glitched in the DR-70D - don't try to use it for anything else.

I screwed myself last night using my old DR-70D Lexar card in my camera...Shot a lot of pics - and no files.

I Full formatted this card in Windows and used it in my camera for a show a few weeks ago - seemed ok. Last night - Pfftttttt.

I ran the trial version of Lexars Image Recovery software - no dice. There is something there - blocks of 2.5 GB and few other 11 MB files with "no preview available"

The camera never really complained - although I do recall it seeming sluggish at one point.

I'd love to be able to blame the DR-70D for destroying my card - but not sure we're there yet!

Not sure why you would want to blame the 70D for destroying your card.  Have you really determined that the card is destroyed, or just has a massively corrupt filesystem?  Did you try the SD Association Formatter?  If not, try it, and then format it again in your camera.  If you did all this, maybe this card just decided to die.  It happens.

I had a pretty new SanDisk 64GB micro SD go bad in my old Galaxy S3.  It got to where it could be read but not written to, could not delete files or format it even with low-level tools.  It never crossed my mind once that my phone was to blame - it was clearly a card that had gone bad.  New card of exactly the same model worked great in that phone with no problems, as it does years later in my current phone.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Jhurlbs81 on November 30, 2015, 08:32:27 AM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 30, 2015, 09:53:29 AM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?

I'll try to give you an objective response.

It's tough to answer your question with a high level of confidence about where this is going but the trend over the last month or two is positive.  In general, I think people are having success using approved cards; however, there has been some limited evidence that 'the issue' has revealed itself on at least one of the card types on the approved list (two reported events from different users...same card).  In one of those instances, a reformat of the card using an outside SD card formatter has cleared the issue and the user reports no problems using that same card in the unit since.  In the other, it's not clear if the problem was cleared up or if the user has used the suspect card in the unit.

As an owner of a unit that has been problematic in the past, I also own this same card.  I've used the unit twice with the card and it's performed well over approximately eight hours of use.  I have other recorders available to me, so unfortunately my confidence level using this deck still has a ways to go before I would consider pulling it out as anything but a backup, but that's because I have other units available to me that I have more confidence in.  Obviously, the more people report success and the more successes I experience, the more my confidence grows, but the two instances of glitchy experiences with approved cards continues to infect my conscience.

A month or two ago I wouldn't have recommended this unit, but now that it seems the number of reported incidents has calmed down and the negative trend seems to have turned, and people are having success using a low priced approved card (16gb Sandisk is available for around $15), I'd say to go ahead and buy.  The DR70D is a great value at $200. 

That said, if you have an absolutely mission critical recording, you might want employ some redundancy until you're absolutely sure your DR70D/card combo will perform for you.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 30, 2015, 10:02:46 AM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?

I'll try to give you an objective response.

It's tough to answer your question with a high level of confidence about where this is going but the trend over the last month or two is positive.  In general, I think people are having success using approved cards; however, there has been some limited evidence that 'the issue' has revealed itself on at least one of the card types on the approved list (two reported events from different users...same card).  In one of those instances, a reformat of the card using an outside SD card formatter has cleared the issue and the user reports no problems using that same card in the unit since.  In the other, it's not clear if the problem was cleared up or if the user has used the suspect card in the unit.

As an owner of a unit that has been problematic in the past, I also own this same card.  I've used the unit twice with the card and it's performed well over approximately eight hours of use.  I have other recorders available to me, so unfortunately my confidence level using this deck still has a ways to go before I would consider pulling it out as anything but a backup, but that's because I have other units available to me that I have more confidence in.  Obviously, the more people report success and the more successes I experience, the more my confidence grows, but the two instances of glitchy experiences with approved cards continues to infect my conscience.

A month or two ago I wouldn't have recommended this unit, but now that it seems the number of reported incidents has calmed down and the negative trend seems to have turned, and people are having success using a low priced approved card (16gb Sandisk is available for around $15), I'd say to go ahead and buy.  The DR70D is a great value at $200. 

That said, if you have an absolutely mission critical recording, you might want employ some redundancy until you're absolutely sure your DR70D/card combo will perform for you.

Since its been less than 2 months since there was an actual list of "approved" cards - I think were still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I used my unapproved card for months, maybe 50 shows before I started having problems.

I've only done about 2-3 shows with the approved card. So - too early to tell.

I was being sarcastic about blaming the TASCAM for destroying my card - I shouldn't have used it at all...I had already proven to myself that the corruption persisted following full format in windows.

But - the idea that the DR-70D is ruining cards isn't out of the realm of possibility...we shall see.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 30, 2015, 10:14:43 AM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?

I'll try to give you an objective response.

It's tough to answer your question with a high level of confidence about where this is going but the trend over the last month or two is positive.  In general, I think people are having success using approved cards; however, there has been some limited evidence that 'the issue' has revealed itself on at least one of the card types on the approved list (two reported events from different users...same card).  In one of those instances, a reformat of the card using an outside SD card formatter has cleared the issue and the user reports no problems using that same card in the unit since.  In the other, it's not clear if the problem was cleared up or if the user has used the suspect card in the unit.

As an owner of a unit that has been problematic in the past, I also own this same card.  I've used the unit twice with the card and it's performed well over approximately eight hours of use.  I have other recorders available to me, so unfortunately my confidence level using this deck still has a ways to go before I would consider pulling it out as anything but a backup, but that's because I have other units available to me that I have more confidence in.  Obviously, the more people report success and the more successes I experience, the more my confidence grows, but the two instances of glitchy experiences with approved cards continues to infect my conscience.

A month or two ago I wouldn't have recommended this unit, but now that it seems the number of reported incidents has calmed down and the negative trend seems to have turned, and people are having success using a low priced approved card (16gb Sandisk is available for around $15), I'd say to go ahead and buy.  The DR70D is a great value at $200. 

That said, if you have an absolutely mission critical recording, you might want employ some redundancy until you're absolutely sure your DR70D/card combo will perform for you.

Since its been less than 2 months since there was an actual list of "approved" cards - I think were still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I used my unapproved card for months, maybe 50 shows before I started having problems.

I've only done about 2-3 shows with the approved card. So - too early to tell.

I was being sarcastic about blaming the TASCAM for destroying my card - I shouldn't have used it at all...I had already proven to myself that the corruption persisted following full format in windows.

But - the idea that the DR-70D is ruining cards isn't out of the realm of possibility...we shall see.

Definitely a valid point.  I also used an unapproved card for awhile before problems revealed.  I've been doing full formatting outside of the DR70D since.  My gut feeling, unproven in any way but discussed extensively, is that the quick format routine in the DR70D is buggy.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: hoppedup on November 30, 2015, 10:35:24 AM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?


I own one and have had no issues with a Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB card that I'm pretty sure is not on the list. That said, it is now a backup recorder and will never be a primary based on other people's card issues. If I ever have one glitch, it will be a door stop. Last time I taped I ran an extension horizontally and had my DR-60D clamped to the backside of my stand. I attached the 70D to the 60D to help as a counterweight. It performed flawlessly in that capacity.

My DR-60D has been rock solid and I regret selling one of them to fund the 70D.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 30, 2015, 10:40:48 AM
I thought people here might be interested in a comp I did over the weekend between DR70D and Zoom F8 preamps.  Since the comp was requested in the F8 thread, I've posted it there.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175264.msg2168280#msg2168280 (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175264.msg2168280#msg2168280)
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on November 30, 2015, 11:53:05 AM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?


I own one and have had no issues with a Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB card that I'm pretty sure is not on the list. That said, it is now a backup recorder and will never be a primary based on other people's card issues. If I ever have one glitch, it will be a door stop. Last time I taped I ran an extension horizontally and had my DR-60D clamped to the backside of my stand. I attached the 70D to the 60D to help as a counterweight. It performed flawlessly in that capacity.

My DR-60D has been rock solid and I regret selling one of them to fund the 70D.

I have never had any issues with my 60d, either.  The 60mkii is $124.99 after rebate, now.  The specs on the two XLRs on the mkii are very close to the 680mkii and the 70d.  With the price of the 70d hovering back around $240, the 60dmkii seems to be the better buy right now unless you've got to have four channels of xlr.  http://www.adorama.com/TSDR60MKII.html?emailprice=t&hotlink=t&svfor=5m&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_source=rflaid912772&cvosrc=affiliate.912772
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Jhurlbs81 on November 30, 2015, 04:10:35 PM
Thanks for your thoughts, guys. Nine times out of ten I leave the tube rig at home and stick to mkx>Lemosax>m-10 for convienence.  I wanted this to be able to run both if I wanted, but I think I'll wait for something more reliable 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Chomps on November 30, 2015, 04:29:24 PM
Thanks for your thoughts, guys. Nine times out of ten I leave the tube rig at home and stick to mkx>Lemosax>m-10 for convienence.  I wanted this to be able to run both if I wanted, but I think I'll wait for something more reliable


If you want to borrow mine I would be more than happy to meet up with you and exchange. I have not been recording much and have other options.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 30, 2015, 07:05:27 PM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?

I'll try to give you an objective response.

It's tough to answer your question with a high level of confidence about where this is going but the trend over the last month or two is positive.  In general, I think people are having success using approved cards; however, there has been some limited evidence that 'the issue' has revealed itself on at least one of the card types on the approved list (two reported events from different users...same card).  In one of those instances, a reformat of the card using an outside SD card formatter has cleared the issue and the user reports no problems using that same card in the unit since.  In the other, it's not clear if the problem was cleared up or if the user has used the suspect card in the unit.

As an owner of a unit that has been problematic in the past, I also own this same card.  I've used the unit twice with the card and it's performed well over approximately eight hours of use.  I have other recorders available to me, so unfortunately my confidence level using this deck still has a ways to go before I would consider pulling it out as anything but a backup, but that's because I have other units available to me that I have more confidence in.  Obviously, the more people report success and the more successes I experience, the more my confidence grows, but the two instances of glitchy experiences with approved cards continues to infect my conscience.

A month or two ago I wouldn't have recommended this unit, but now that it seems the number of reported incidents has calmed down and the negative trend seems to have turned, and people are having success using a low priced approved card (16gb Sandisk is available for around $15), I'd say to go ahead and buy.  The DR70D is a great value at $200. 

That said, if you have an absolutely mission critical recording, you might want employ some redundancy until you're absolutely sure your DR70D/card combo will perform for you.

Since its been less than 2 months since there was an actual list of "approved" cards - I think were still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I used my unapproved card for months, maybe 50 shows before I started having problems.

I've only done about 2-3 shows with the approved card. So - too early to tell.

I was being sarcastic about blaming the TASCAM for destroying my card - I shouldn't have used it at all...I had already proven to myself that the corruption persisted following full format in windows.

But - the idea that the DR-70D is ruining cards isn't out of the realm of possibility...we shall see.

Definitely a valid point.  I also used an unapproved card for awhile before problems revealed.  I've been doing full formatting outside of the DR70D since.  My gut feeling, unproven in any way but discussed extensively, is that the quick format routine in the DR70D is buggy.

That's a very interesting theory, but if it were true I would expect it would negatively impact all cards formatted in the unit.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 30, 2015, 07:45:15 PM
My gut feeling, unproven in any way but discussed extensively, is that the quick format routine in the DR70D is buggy.

That's a very interesting theory, but if it were true I would expect it would negatively impact all cards formatted in the unit.

You'd think.  But part of the discussion has been about the possibility of different production runs, potential for poor quality control because it's a low cost unit, etc.  I don't think those debates need to be rehashed and I'm not claiming that the gut feeling I expressed above is the source and solution.  At the same time, I want to try and replicate the issues I experienced with an unapproved card that was problematic and the first place I'm going to focus is the quick format.  If I can find some kind of repeatable action that reproduces the glitches onto that specific card, I can get to the bottom of what's causing the problem...and perhaps determine if the problem is sourced from my unit or from the card.  Don't know exactly how I'm going to do that right now though...maybe I'll 'stress' the card to simulate that I'd used it over and over by doing 20 or 30 quick formats while recording a few minutes between formats.  Don't really know and I have no idea if or when I'll even do this.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on November 30, 2015, 07:54:19 PM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?

I'll try to give you an objective response.

It's tough to answer your question with a high level of confidence about where this is going but the trend over the last month or two is positive.  In general, I think people are having success using approved cards; however, there has been some limited evidence that 'the issue' has revealed itself on at least one of the card types on the approved list (two reported events from different users...same card).  In one of those instances, a reformat of the card using an outside SD card formatter has cleared the issue and the user reports no problems using that same card in the unit since.  In the other, it's not clear if the problem was cleared up or if the user has used the suspect card in the unit.

As an owner of a unit that has been problematic in the past, I also own this same card.  I've used the unit twice with the card and it's performed well over approximately eight hours of use.  I have other recorders available to me, so unfortunately my confidence level using this deck still has a ways to go before I would consider pulling it out as anything but a backup, but that's because I have other units available to me that I have more confidence in.  Obviously, the more people report success and the more successes I experience, the more my confidence grows, but the two instances of glitchy experiences with approved cards continues to infect my conscience.

A month or two ago I wouldn't have recommended this unit, but now that it seems the number of reported incidents has calmed down and the negative trend seems to have turned, and people are having success using a low priced approved card (16gb Sandisk is available for around $15), I'd say to go ahead and buy.  The DR70D is a great value at $200. 

That said, if you have an absolutely mission critical recording, you might want employ some redundancy until you're absolutely sure your DR70D/card combo will perform for you.

Since its been less than 2 months since there was an actual list of "approved" cards - I think were still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I used my unapproved card for months, maybe 50 shows before I started having problems.

I've only done about 2-3 shows with the approved card. So - too early to tell.

I was being sarcastic about blaming the TASCAM for destroying my card - I shouldn't have used it at all...I had already proven to myself that the corruption persisted following full format in windows.

But - the idea that the DR-70D is ruining cards isn't out of the realm of possibility...we shall see.

Definitely a valid point.  I also used an unapproved card for awhile before problems revealed.  I've been doing full formatting outside of the DR70D since.  My gut feeling, unproven in any way but discussed extensively, is that the quick format routine in the DR70D is buggy.

That's a very interesting theory, but if it were true I would expect it would negatively impact all cards formatted in the unit.

I guess everyone with a failed card will have report on attempts to use it in other devices...

And I guess that would be the key...what is different about the "approved cards"? (should they prove to be reliable)

I haven't been able to digest the testing a few pages back...was there a trend there?

I was thinking buggy quick format too - but the problem persisted, and didn't seem to be linked to a firmware version.(just going by the anecdotes here) -

Maybe some problem or defect in the card reader hardware itself...that may NOT be addressable or suppressible in a firmware change.

Could some other design defect be causing glitches?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on November 30, 2015, 08:10:09 PM

I guess everyone with a failed card will have report on attempts to use it in other devices...


Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact sequence I used for reformatting, but the problematic card to my DR70D works fine in other devices.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on November 30, 2015, 08:15:33 PM
My gut feeling, unproven in any way but discussed extensively, is that the quick format routine in the DR70D is buggy.

That's a very interesting theory, but if it were true I would expect it would negatively impact all cards formatted in the unit.

You'd think.  But part of the discussion has been about the possibility of different production runs, potential for poor quality control because it's a low cost unit, etc.  I don't think those debates need to be rehashed and I'm not claiming that the gut feeling I expressed above is the source and solution.  At the same time, I want to try and replicate the issues I experienced with an unapproved card that was problematic and the first place I'm going to focus is the quick format.  If I can find some kind of repeatable action that reproduces the glitches onto that specific card, I can get to the bottom of what's causing the problem...and perhaps determine if the problem is sourced from my unit or from the card.  Don't know exactly how I'm going to do that right now though...maybe I'll 'stress' the card to simulate that I'd used it over and over by doing 20 or 30 quick formats while recording a few minutes between formats.  Don't really know and I have no idea if or when I'll even do this.

The idea of possible QC issues in this price range certainly is possible.  It happened to me with my first Sony M10.  The built-in mics were almost 3dB mismatched, and Sony service determined it was manufacturing defect and sent me a replacement.

Your "stress" test sounds good.  I imagine you'd to this at 4 channels, 24/96 to tax the media to its fullest. 

If you're testing the reliability of the media itself and not necessarily the format routine in isolation, I would propose a similar test again, but run 4 channels at 24/96 and fill the card completely.  When storage media goes bad, it often starts in specific places which could be anywhere across the entire writable area, and not just the "beginning".  By "going bad" I am talking about bad sectors, but your test could throw up some filesystem corruption (caused by a variety of factors) which is the problem I experienced.  If the 70D is somehow causing otherwise good cards to have problems, I think it would be filesystem corruption; not bad sectors which are a much more severe issue.

Your test sounds good for expediency and makes sense for testing the reliability of the format routines, but keep in mind that you'll be putting much more wear onto the "beginning" of the writable area that way.  That would of course make a borderline bad sector on that portion of the card more likely to be hit, but one later on less likely to be "seen" by the recorder.  Since quick formats don't look for bad sectors, writing to a previously-unknown (and thus unmarked) bad sector will definitely cause an error in the recording.  The natural thing to do after this happens is to run a full format, and your formatting program should tell you (but it doesn't always) if it found bad sectors.  Otherwise
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on November 30, 2015, 11:06:34 PM
I guess everyone with a failed card will have report on attempts to use it in other devices...

Count me out. If the factory can't be bothered to fix / debug / maintain their product line, I'm not going to pick up their slack, I have a couple Sonys...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on December 01, 2015, 04:52:50 AM
Can't let this thread end without adding, again......


A Product Recall Is In Order.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: phil_er_up on December 01, 2015, 08:08:41 AM
I want to try this deck, but these card issues are troubling. Are people having issues even with the approved cards?

I'll try to give you an objective response.

It's tough to answer your question with a high level of confidence about where this is going but the trend over the last month or two is positive.  In general, I think people are having success using approved cards; however, there has been some limited evidence that 'the issue' has revealed itself on at least one of the card types on the approved list (two reported events from different users...same card).  In one of those instances, a reformat of the card using an outside SD card formatter has cleared the issue and the user reports no problems using that same card in the unit since.  In the other, it's not clear if the problem was cleared up or if the user has used the suspect card in the unit.

As an owner of a unit that has been problematic in the past, I also own this same card.  I've used the unit twice with the card and it's performed well over approximately eight hours of use.  I have other recorders available to me, so unfortunately my confidence level using this deck still has a ways to go before I would consider pulling it out as anything but a backup, but that's because I have other units available to me that I have more confidence in.  Obviously, the more people report success and the more successes I experience, the more my confidence grows, but the two instances of glitchy experiences with approved cards continues to infect my conscience.

A month or two ago I wouldn't have recommended this unit, but now that it seems the number of reported incidents has calmed down and the negative trend seems to have turned, and people are having success using a low priced approved card (16gb Sandisk is available for around $15), I'd say to go ahead and buy.  The DR70D is a great value at $200. 

That said, if you have an absolutely mission critical recording, you might want employ some redundancy until you're absolutely sure your DR70D/card combo will perform for you.

Since its been less than 2 months since there was an actual list of "approved" cards - I think were still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I used my unapproved card for months, maybe 50 shows before I started having problems.

I've only done about 2-3 shows with the approved card. So - too early to tell.

I was being sarcastic about blaming the TASCAM for destroying my card - I shouldn't have used it at all...I had already proven to myself that the corruption persisted following full format in windows.

But - the idea that the DR-70D is ruining cards isn't out of the realm of possibility...we shall see.

Definitely a valid point.  I also used an unapproved card for awhile before problems revealed.  I've been doing full formatting outside of the DR70D since.  My gut feeling, unproven in any way but discussed extensively, is that the quick format routine in the DR70D is buggy.

That's a very interesting theory, but if it were true I would expect it would negatively impact all cards formatted in the unit.

Could some other design defect be causing glitches?


Did anyone send in a SD card that had problems to tascam?
Someone said they were going to do it....if they did...did they hear anything back from Tascam?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Craig T on December 01, 2015, 09:36:10 AM
I've never used quick format and I've never had a problem.  I've only used unapproved cards.  I recently purchased an approved card, but haven't used it yet.  Based on all the negative reports, I've gone back to using my M10.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 01, 2015, 09:37:24 AM
I think stress testing cards is ok - but - that assumes it's the cards themselves - lets not neglect all sorts of other actions that could be causing this.

We need to look at the anomalies...like running out of USB power with no AAs in the sled...or running out of USB power with weak batteries in the sled.

Inserting and ejecting...power cycle, sleep...
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 01, 2015, 09:40:17 AM
Did anyone else notice that the new DR-701D has card issues right out of the chute...?

Check the firmware update notes - "Fixed a problem where some SD cards did not report the correct size after ERASE FORMAT."
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on December 01, 2015, 10:34:24 AM
I think stress testing cards is ok - but - that assumes it's the cards themselves - lets not neglect all sorts of other actions that could be causing this.

We need to look at the anomalies...like running out of USB power with no AAs in the sled...or running out of USB power with weak batteries in the sled.

Inserting and ejecting...power cycle, sleep...

I agree with your comment about looking for anomalies, but I just wanted to respond that any testing I'd do will not be assuming that the issue is the card itself.  In fact, I've never felt that the issue with my unit is solely a card issue.  But obviously, the data glitching on the card is where the evidence reveals itself and since, as you pointed out, it has been difficult to find any type of repeating pattern, yet the issue might reveal itself with time, the idea was to simulate the advancement of time by putting the unit through a series of cycles, noting what specifically I did between cycles, and then if glitches reveal, focusing on those actions that were performed immediately prior by going backwards to see if the same actions can reproduce the glitches.  So I suppose the 'stress test' I'm thinking of would be more on the unit as a whole than just the card.

Anyway, this is my thoughts.  Frankly, I have doubts that I'll ever do this though becuase it would take a ton of time and patience.  I have time, but little patience when it comes to this unit.  I've pretty much moved on from my DR70D and the only reason I'd do the above it to try to salvage some value out of it to sell it.  But it seems to work fine now with the card I have so if I ever decide to sell, I might just either let time figure out what this issue is or sell the thing as an el cheapo.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 01, 2015, 10:52:47 AM
I think stress testing cards is ok - but - that assumes it's the cards themselves - lets not neglect all sorts of other actions that could be causing this.

We need to look at the anomalies...like running out of USB power with no AAs in the sled...or running out of USB power with weak batteries in the sled.

Inserting and ejecting...power cycle, sleep...

I agree with your comment about looking for anomalies, but I just wanted to respond that any testing I'd do will not be assuming that the issue is the card itself.  In fact, I've never felt that the issue with my unit is solely a card issue.  But obviously, the data glitching on the card is where the evidence reveals itself and since, as you pointed out, it has been difficult to find any type of repeating pattern, yet the issue might reveal itself with time, the idea was to simulate the advancement of time by putting the unit through a series of cycles, noting what specifically I did between cycles, and then if glitches reveal, focusing on those actions that were performed immediately prior by going backwards to see if the same actions can reproduce the glitches.  So I suppose the 'stress test' I'm thinking of would be more on the unit as a whole than just the card.

Anyway, this is my thoughts.  Frankly, I have doubts that I'll ever do this though becuase it would take a ton of time and patience.  I have time, but little patience when it comes to this unit.  I've pretty much moved on from my DR70D and the only reason I'd do the above it to try to salvage some value out of it to sell it.  But it seems to work fine now with the card I have so if I ever decide to sell, I might just either let time figure out what this issue is or sell the thing as an el cheapo.

I think something approaching a "normal taper usage pattern" would be ok. We were not trying to "stress" the cards when they failed.

Like - (unless its your normal setting) forget about running 4 channels at 24/96 to "tax the media to the fullest" - that assumes there is something wrong with the media.

What if the problem only occurs at 24/48...and has nothing to do with cards?

I think there can be something wrong with the device...and only certain on-card tech can protect it from the glitch...thus the "approved cards."

I looked around (with no luck) for someone who had gone out of their way to make SD cards fail - most of these were about destroying data...not making the card fail.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 01, 2015, 11:01:28 AM
I also won't be doing any testing...I have to keep using the thing...Its all I have now.

But I now have an approved card - (no updates to that list since October.)

So - like I said -waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: noahbickart on December 01, 2015, 12:38:03 PM
I had intermittent issues with a card not on the approved list.

Since buying an approved card, I've had no issues.

Has anyone else had problems with cards from the approved list?

I'm still upset that the rep who had been frequenting these parts was run out of town.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 01, 2015, 12:46:51 PM
I had intermittent issues with a card not on the approved list.

Since buying an approved card, I've had no issues.

Has anyone else had problems with cards from the approved list?

I'm still upset that the rep who had been frequenting these parts was run out of town.

You can find him on other forums easily...

Since we've only had a list of approved cards since Oct...the jury is still out...since the trial has just begun!
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: phil_er_up on December 01, 2015, 01:20:40 PM
Did anyone else notice that the new DR-701D has card issues right out of the chute...?

Check the firmware update notes - "Fixed a problem where some SD cards did not report the correct size after ERASE FORMAT."
===================================================================
TASCAM DR-701D Release Notes Updates

Maintenance items
V1.01 fixes


......

Fixed a problem where some SD cards did not report the correct size after ERASE FORMAT.

Fixed a rare problem where noise could be present in a recording at 96kHz and 192kHz.


....
===================================================================
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on December 01, 2015, 05:44:15 PM
And the list of "approved" cards for the 701d is....

http://tascam.com/product/dr-701d/downloads/

  :o

Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on December 01, 2015, 06:03:38 PM
And the list of "approved" cards for the 701d is....

http://tascam.com/product/dr-701d/downloads/

  :o

It may have been asked here way back but I don't remember:

Have any other Tascam recorders been released to market with a recommended media list right away?  Or has that always followed much later, as I think it did with the 70D?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on December 01, 2015, 07:01:21 PM
And the list of "approved" cards for the 701d is....

http://tascam.com/product/dr-701d/downloads/

  :o

It may have been asked here way back but I don't remember:

Have any other Tascam recorders been released to market with a recommended media list right away?  Or has that always followed much later, as I think it did with the 70D?

FWIW, Zoom issued their initial list for the F8 as soon as they started shipping units.  Only issues I can tell with that list so far is that even though they claim that the F8 works with cards up to 512gb, there are currently no 512 or 256gb cards on the list. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: morst on December 01, 2015, 07:19:15 PM
I'm still upset that the rep who had been frequenting these parts was run out of town.
Bah, Tomuo was an un-helpful corporate apologist. And thin-skinned, taboot!  :facepalm:

Good riddance.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on December 01, 2015, 07:46:09 PM
I'm still upset that the rep who had been frequenting these parts was run out of town.
Bah, Tomuo was an un-helpful corporate apologist. And thin-skinned, taboot!  :facepalm:

Good riddance.

yeahyouright morst.  :smash: :coolguy:
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on December 01, 2015, 11:24:02 PM
I'm still upset that the rep who had been frequenting these parts was run out of town.
Bah, Tomuo was an un-helpful corporate apologist. And thin-skinned, taboot!  :facepalm:

Good riddance.

yeahyouright morst.  :smash: :coolguy:

Was Tom's departure from this discussion (and board) premature?  Sure, I'll give you that.  Does Tascam's customer service in general have some serious problems?  Absolutely, it does - and I've called them out on it here and in direct emails to them (which were never replied to).  And the 70D has given some people problems, for which I imagine this has been pretty frustrating, as is the general lack of communication from Tascam about it (now that Tom is no longer here, anyway).  They aren't winning any customer service awards in my book, even though still I enjoy using my 70D which has been mostly problem-free.

But the fact that you two are celebrating that Tom was driven away from this board and are high-fiving each other for it?  Sad and trollish.  Why are you still on this thread, anyway?  You're not contributing anything helpful to the discussion.  Instead, you jump on here every time someone brings up an issue and call for product recalls or a grand inquisition.  Since the Tascam rep isn't here anymore to read those, what's the point, other than your own self-gratification?  You know full well that the things you're asking for have zero chance of ever happening.  I get the need to vent your frustration, but it's really starting to get old and tired - someone please change the record.  Some of us here want to actually talk about using this unit, and to help each other figure things out even when we have had some very serious disagreements (such as Tonedeaf and myself).  If you aren't even using the 70D anymore, maybe it's time to move on.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on December 02, 2015, 05:07:28 AM
I'm still upset that the rep who had been frequenting these parts was run out of town.
Bah, Tomuo was an un-helpful corporate apologist. And thin-skinned, taboot!  :facepalm:

Good riddance.

yeahyouright morst.  :smash: :coolguy:

Was Tom's departure from this discussion (and board) premature?  Sure, I'll give you that.  Does Tascam's customer service in general have some serious problems?  Absolutely, it does - and I've called them out on it here and in direct emails to them (which were never replied to).  And the 70D has given some people problems, for which I imagine this has been pretty frustrating, as is the general lack of communication from Tascam about it (now that Tom is no longer here, anyway).  They aren't winning any customer service awards in my book, even though still I enjoy using my 70D which has been mostly problem-free.

But the fact that you two are celebrating that Tom was driven away from this board and are high-fiving each other for it?  Sad and trollish.  Why are you still on this thread, anyway?  You're not contributing anything helpful to the discussion.  Instead, you jump on here every time someone brings up an issue and call for product recalls or a grand inquisition.  Since the Tascam rep isn't here anymore to read those, what's the point, other than your own self-gratification?  You know full well that the things you're asking for have zero chance of ever happening.  I get the need to vent your frustration, but it's really starting to get old and tired - someone please change the record.  Some of us here want to actually talk about using this unit, and to help each other figure things out even when we have had some very serious disagreements (such as Tonedeaf and myself).  If you aren't even using the 70D anymore, maybe it's time to move on.

Are you happy with this "doorstop" DR-70D, voltronic?

Tascam = corporate thieves

Why don't they take these faulty units back and issue refunds?  Because they are thieves, period.  :smash:
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: phil_er_up on December 02, 2015, 08:00:48 AM
Did anyone else notice that the new DR-701D has card issues right out of the chute...?

Check the firmware update notes - "Fixed a problem where some SD cards did not report the correct size after ERASE FORMAT."
===================================================================
TASCAM DR-701D Release Notes Updates

Maintenance items
V1.01 fixes


......

Fixed a problem where some SD cards did not report the correct size after ERASE FORMAT.

Fixed a rare problem where noise could be present in a recording at 96kHz and 192kHz.


....
===================================================================
Let see...brand new recorder that has issues similar to the previous one right off the bat...

Does anyone find it weird they had problems with the erase format and the SD card?
Do people find it weird that NOISE IS A PROBLEM ON RECORDINGS at  96kHz and 192kHz?

Is this a coincidence that the new and old recorder have similar problems?
Meaning SD card problems from erase format...
Noise on recordings...

Comments?
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on December 02, 2015, 09:29:46 AM
I'm still upset that the rep who had been frequenting these parts was run out of town.
Bah, Tomuo was an un-helpful corporate apologist. And thin-skinned, taboot!  :facepalm:

Good riddance.

yeahyouright morst.  :smash: :coolguy:

Was Tom's departure from this discussion (and board) premature?  Sure, I'll give you that.  Does Tascam's customer service in general have some serious problems?  Absolutely, it does - and I've called them out on it here and in direct emails to them (which were never replied to).  And the 70D has given some people problems, for which I imagine this has been pretty frustrating, as is the general lack of communication from Tascam about it (now that Tom is no longer here, anyway).  They aren't winning any customer service awards in my book, even though still I enjoy using my 70D which has been mostly problem-free.

But the fact that you two are celebrating that Tom was driven away from this board and are high-fiving each other for it?  Sad and trollish.  Why are you still on this thread, anyway?  You're not contributing anything helpful to the discussion.  Instead, you jump on here every time someone brings up an issue and call for product recalls or a grand inquisition.  Since the Tascam rep isn't here anymore to read those, what's the point, other than your own self-gratification?  You know full well that the things you're asking for have zero chance of ever happening.  I get the need to vent your frustration, but it's really starting to get old and tired - someone please change the record.  Some of us here want to actually talk about using this unit, and to help each other figure things out even when we have had some very serious disagreements (such as Tonedeaf and myself).  If you aren't even using the 70D anymore, maybe it's time to move on.

Are you happy with this "doorstop" DR-70D, voltronic?

Tascam = corporate thieves

Why don't they take these faulty units back and issue refunds?  Because they are thieves, period.  :smash:

My opinion, which nobody asked for, is that you're all right.

Without people constantly bitching Tascam will remain complacent and they'll never improve their shitty customer service.  I could care less if you do it here, as long as you don't dominate this thread, which IMHO you haven't.  Morst and Capnhook, I say keep bitching if you want to bitch.  A separate thread highlighting their rotten customer service would be awesome and put even more light on the subject.

Voltronic, you're also right that it's repetitive to keep bringing it up, but they were just responding to the comment that resurrected the concern about Tomuo no longer being around here, which is also repetitive. 
 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on December 02, 2015, 10:22:26 AM
Did anyone else notice that the new DR-701D has card issues right out of the chute...?

Check the firmware update notes - "Fixed a problem where some SD cards did not report the correct size after ERASE FORMAT."
===================================================================
TASCAM DR-701D Release Notes Updates

Maintenance items
V1.01 fixes


......

Fixed a problem where some SD cards did not report the correct size after ERASE FORMAT.

Fixed a rare problem where noise could be present in a recording at 96kHz and 192kHz.


....
===================================================================
Let see...brand new recorder that has issues similar to the previous one right off the bat...

Does anyone find it weird they had problems with the erase format and the SD card?
Do people find it weird that NOISE IS A PROBLEM ON RECORDINGS at  96kHz and 192kHz?

Is this a coincidence that the new and old recorder have similar problems?
Meaning SD card problems from erase format...
Noise on recordings...

Comments?

There's a phrase that fits that I won't post.

The odds of any 70d user who has had or is aware of the "approved card" issue with the 70d isn't likely to buy the 701d, especially for $599 and particularly when there does not appear to be any list of approved cards.  I spent several hours trying to track down an approved card for my 70d.  IMO the list is short and the cards on it are pricey.  None of my other devices are picky about cards.   At this point, I'm not buying anything else from them until they publish any approved list of cards beforehand. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: Life In Rewind on December 02, 2015, 10:36:22 AM
Lets not forget - from the get go - they had the WRONG LIST posted on the DR-70D page...for almost a YEAR!

Before I bought - I checked it - and found my two Lexar cards...combined with the general good reports about the DR-60D - that made me buy.

Don't they at least owe something to all the suckers that bought cards based on the WRONG list!!!!??
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: stevetoney on December 02, 2015, 10:59:06 AM
...and as long as this thread has taken this turn, I'll bring up some past Tascam history which is the original source of my complete loss of confidence in Tascam product support...

They released the DR100 (not mkII) with a low voltage cut setpoint that cause the unit to run for a very short time on phantom power from internal AA batteries before it would cut out on low power due to the fairly rapid drawdown in voltage when the unit was pulling the highest current.  They issued a firmware update to the DR100 which fixed that issue.

They then released the DR100MKii WITH THE SAME ISSUE but without the firmware update!  They were informed AT LEAST four times by me that users would like to have the same update made for the DR100MKii.  I never received a response, and even though they issued firmware updates, they never fixed this issue.

This seems to be a broken record theme with this company.  Rush the next generation version out the door without concern for addressing the design warts on the previous version.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: JiB97 on December 02, 2015, 11:07:03 AM
I'm still upset that the rep who had been frequenting these parts was run out of town.
Bah, Tomuo was an un-helpful corporate apologist. And thin-skinned, taboot!  :facepalm:

Good riddance.

yeahyouright morst.  :smash: :coolguy:

Was Tom's departure from this discussion (and board) premature?  Sure, I'll give you that.  Does Tascam's customer service in general have some serious problems?  Absolutely, it does - and I've called them out on it here and in direct emails to them (which were never replied to).  And the 70D has given some people problems, for which I imagine this has been pretty frustrating, as is the general lack of communication from Tascam about it (now that Tom is no longer here, anyway).  They aren't winning any customer service awards in my book, even though still I enjoy using my 70D which has been mostly problem-free.

But the fact that you two are celebrating that Tom was driven away from this board and are high-fiving each other for it?  Sad and trollish.  Why are you still on this thread, anyway?  You're not contributing anything helpful to the discussion.  Instead, you jump on here every time someone brings up an issue and call for product recalls or a grand inquisition.  Since the Tascam rep isn't here anymore to read those, what's the point, other than your own self-gratification?  You know full well that the things you're asking for have zero chance of ever happening.  I get the need to vent your frustration, but it's really starting to get old and tired - someone please change the record.  Some of us here want to actually talk about using this unit, and to help each other figure things out even when we have had some very serious disagreements (such as Tonedeaf and myself).  If you aren't even using the 70D anymore, maybe it's time to move on.

Are you happy with this "doorstop" DR-70D, voltronic?

Tascam = corporate thieves

Why don't they take these faulty units back and issue refunds?  Because they are thieves, period.  :smash:

doorstop? little dramatic, don't you think?

ummmm i've had no issues with my deck and have never used an approved card from their list, not sure why you are getting so worked up about a deck you don't even own.

did someone from Tascam kick your dog?

you guys act like Tascam makes products specifically for tapers.  newsflash, we are a ridiculously small portion of their target market.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: 2manyrocks on December 02, 2015, 04:58:26 PM
the target market for the 701d is obviously guys hoping to shoot and sync video and audio with Canon and Panasonic DSLRs via hdmi. 

It will be interesting to watch and see what happens because now they are dealing with embedded timecode signal in the recording.    I have to assume that makes the data recording that much more demanding than audio recording by itself. 

Now if they started with the 70d technology as their technology and layered more demanding signal passing and recording on top the audio recording, I would wait and see if they succeed or fail.

But I'm not spending $599 to find out firsthand. 
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on December 02, 2015, 07:31:23 PM
I'm not going to bother inserting quotes - you'll all know who I'm responding to.

I continue to use and enjoy my 70D.  99% of the time, it has worked great for me.  It's not perfect, but I like the way it sounds and it gets the job done.  It doesn't have enough mass to make an effective doorstop anyway.

A separate thread for venting / complaints could be a good idea.  It would be for people to post complaints about all Tascam products that get used around here.  If people think Tascam in general is junk and that thread gets a lot of action, that will ensure it gets seen by lots of people and dissuade them from purchasing their products if that's what your goal is.

Understand that I don't mind the bitching so much - just the blatant repetitive trolling and celebration that someone was made to feel uncomfortable enough to bail.  That's just sad.  I suppose it's your right if that's really what you want to do, but then I have an equal right to complain about you.  And if you're going to bitch, maybe consider doing it directly to Tascam.  If it's the same handful of people repeatedly, that easy to ignore.  We did have this opportunity here on the board before Tom left, so now we're left with customer service contacts, if that is worth anything.  Or, much as I think it was/is ridiculous, file a BBB complaint as Morst did if you think it's truly warranted.

Minor correction to the statement that Tascam had the "wrong list posted... for over a year": The lists posted on the USA site were always correct.  Of course, there was no list at all for quite a while after it was first released, as it seems to be their pattern.  The only wrong list appeared on the Europe page for the 70D, which also had (still has) other mistakes, and is lousy in general which I emailed Tascam about.  That doesn't help you if you based a card purchase on that inaccurate list, I get that.

Regarding issues with past Tascam products: The 70D is the first Tascam product I've used since a 302 pro tape deck about 15 years ago, so I don't have any other past negative experiences to compare to.  But the business with the DR-100 / MKII does demonstrate there is a pattern of rushing things to the market, as does the recent update of the 701D.

I do think that most major manufacturers aren't really paying attention to much on this board, so maybe TS is easy to ignore.  Several company reps hang out on JWSound, though as it seems to have a higher number of audio professionals as members.  Maybe start posting there if you want them to notice you.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: capnhook on December 02, 2015, 08:08:59 PM
The title of this thread is "Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)"......

All my comments have been re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5).

 :smash:


Wow, looks like there will be a part six to this drama.  Time to close this thread, voltronic.  It is getting on peoples' nerves.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: ButchAlmberg on December 02, 2015, 08:16:36 PM
Caphook, feel free to move on..
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on December 02, 2015, 08:25:28 PM
The title of this thread is "Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)"......

All my comments have been re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5).

 :smash:


Wow, looks like there will be a part six to this drama.  Time to close this thread, voltronic.  It is getting on peoples' nerves.

It seems you need things spelled out for you.  (Emphasis mine).

Quote
troll
One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.

One who purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self-amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his or her peers. He will spark off such an argument via the use of ad hominem attacks (i.e. 'you're nothing but a fanboy' is a popular phrase) with no substance or relevance to back them up as well as straw man arguments, which he uses to simply avoid addressing the essence of the issue.
Title: Re: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 5)
Post by: voltronic on December 02, 2015, 08:31:32 PM
Part 6 here (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=175623.0).