Topic: Tascam DR-70D 4-channel audio recorder (Part 4)

[groovon]

I don't of course work for Tascam, and I agree, it does look like they overstated the case. But I think a considered response will get you further than an emotional one if you expect them to listen to complaints and fix problems. Also I doubt it's possible to 'flush out' every single potential fault in a new product, especially when it involves third-party interfaces. Having said that, I would hope they're reading this, and are working on new firmware as we speak.

Dave

[stevetoney]

I don't of course work for Tascam, and I agree, it does look like they overstated the case. But I think a considered response will get you further than an emotional one if you expect them to listen to complaints and fix problems. Also I doubt it's possible to 'flush out' every single potential fault in a new product, especially when it involves third-party interfaces. Having said that, I would hope they're reading this, and are working on new firmware as we speak.

Not emotional, other than I don't understand why a person that apparently doesn't even own one of these units would come into this thread and attempt to tell owners that are having difficulty getting their product to work properly that Tascam's (so far) marginal response to their request for help is reasonable.

[groovon]

Well, of course I own a DR-70(!) --and I trust that Tascam will attempt to fix this problem  Sorry for your frustration, but you're taking my comment the wrong way.

Dave

[stevetoney]

Well, of course I own a DR-70(!) --and I trust that Tascam will attempt to fix this problem  Sorry for your frustration, but you're taking my comment the wrong way.

OK sounds good.  I hope you're right that they're looking into this. 

[voltronic]

Well, of course I own a DR-70(!) --and I trust that Tascam will attempt to fix this problem  Sorry for your frustration, but you're taking my comment the wrong way.

OK sounds good.  I hope you're right that they're looking into this.

I doubt they are, but I just sent a PM to tomuo (the aforementioned Tascam rep) letting him know that this is cropping up for several people with the new firmware, and that a direction to the approved media list does not constitute a complete response.

I have PM'd him several times before and given past experience I don't expect a reply, but we'll see.  The bigger problem as I see it is that we are resorting to trying to contact one particular Tascam rep who happens to frequent this board because Tascam's customer service response is so mediocre.  I have never been able to even get a reply from them.

[voltronic]

I did contact tascam and all they did was direct me to their list of acceptable SD cards.

That's a fairly predictable response. 

And completely understandable IMO, since they've made it known that cards other than those recommended may prove unreliable(!) 

You must work for Tascam!  It's not understandable response AT ALL.  First off, if there are severe limitations to the media can be reliably used in the DR70D, that should have been flushed out at the testing stage.  It's not quite, but I'd say it's pretty close to a design flaw if only a tiny percentage of the worlds SD card media is able to work in your device. 

Second, in their marketing information on their site, it says...'Tracks on the DR-70D are captured to SD card, SDHC or SDXC media – up to 128GB cards are supported.'  The first line in their specification sheet says 'SD card(64MB to 2GB), SDHC card(4GB to 32GB), SDXC card(48GB to 128GB)'

With the list of approved media shown, neither of the above statements is true.

Here's what I think happened: the unit is designed to support all of those media, but only a small sample of cards are actually tested before the product is released.  So the marketing people are being factually truthful about the unit supporting all of those cards.  Then, as the user base gets their hands on it and uses a much wider variety of cards, problems come up and Tascam has to start more thoroughly testing (and yes, they should have done this beforehand).

Couple that with a possible bug in the firmware with writing to certain cards and here we are.  It would be really nice to see more than 11 cards tested too...

[Life In Rewind]

I'm wondering if there's something about our disparate powering schemes that could be behind this issue?

[groovon]

Well, of course I own a DR-70(!) --and I trust that Tascam will attempt to fix this problem  Sorry for your frustration, but you're taking my comment the wrong way.

OK sounds good.  I hope you're right that they're looking into this.

I doubt they are, but I just sent a PM to tomuo (the aforementioned Tascam rep) letting him know that this is cropping up for several people with the new firmware, and that a direction to the approved media list does not constitute a complete response.

I have PM'd him several times before and given past experience I don't expect a reply, but we'll see.  The bigger problem as I see it is that we are resorting to trying to contact one particular Tascam rep who happens to frequent this board because Tascam's customer service response is so mediocre.  I have never been able to even get a reply from them.

I'm more hopeful. I think Tom showing up here means at least someone at Tascam cares about customer relations. BTW, I've just found an issue with my M10. Anyone want to give odds on me getting a personal response from Sony about it?

Dave

[groovon]

Well, of course I own a DR-70(!) --and I trust that Tascam will attempt to fix this problem  Sorry for your frustration, but you're taking my comment the wrong way.

OK sounds good.  I hope you're right that they're looking into this.

I hope I'm right too. Or, that you'll just find a card that works.

cheers
Dave

[voltronic]

Well, of course I own a DR-70(!) --and I trust that Tascam will attempt to fix this problem  Sorry for your frustration, but you're taking my comment the wrong way.

OK sounds good.  I hope you're right that they're looking into this.

I doubt they are, but I just sent a PM to tomuo (the aforementioned Tascam rep) letting him know that this is cropping up for several people with the new firmware, and that a direction to the approved media list does not constitute a complete response.

I have PM'd him several times before and given past experience I don't expect a reply, but we'll see.  The bigger problem as I see it is that we are resorting to trying to contact one particular Tascam rep who happens to frequent this board because Tascam's customer service response is so mediocre.  I have never been able to even get a reply from them.

I'm more hopeful. I think Tom showing up here means at least someone at Tascam cares about customer relations. BTW, I've just found an issue with my M10. Anyone want to give odds on me getting a personal response from Sony about it?

Dave

I had an immediate response from Sony when I had an issue with my M10 a couple years ago.  They were fantastic through the entire process of responding to my issue, getting me set up at a service center, and replacing my unit when it was determined that there was a manufacturing defect.

[tomuo]

Background:

Manufacturer's SD card speed ratings are only true when you write one file to it, and let the card clean itself up with inactivity every few minutes.
This is always the case in a camera, whether in still or video mode.
For PCM audio in the DR-60D or DR-70D, you've got 2 or 4 files being written at once, i.e. the write position on the SD card is jumping around between
up to 4 different locations, and the writes never stop.   SD card manufacturers rarely optimize for this case, which is why many cards end up on the
tested media list as "don't use".
The performance of the card is the problem.  The DR-70D can't reduce the number of files written at once,  that's it's reason for existing, the individual files.

A few messages here just say "Sandisk 32GB".    Sandisk has many different series of SD card. 

If a card worked once but is now not working, that's exactely the point - solid state media gets into a state where it needs constant erases and writes
instead of writes to already empty clusters.    TASCAM tests media to this point to know if it's good enough, not just the fresh from the package condition.

Some SD cards, class 10 or not, drop to <1MB/sec when they have been well used. They're just not fast enough.    The tested media list is there for a reason.

Watch out for counterfit cards as well - even a simple rebadge of a cheaper card with a sandisk label for stuff on eBay.

[aaronji]

^ So why doesn't this seem to be an issue with the R44, the DR680, or most other recorders that use SD?

[jbell]

You took the words out of my mouth!!  It isn't even a problem with the 60d!  I'm thinking it is a problem with the deck not the SD cards. 

^ So why doesn't this seem to be an issue with the R44, the DR680, or most other recorders that use SD?

[greenmtnsrider]

I have no issues writing 4 channel files to either of my DR-2d decks using 32gb Sandisk Ultra SD cards, so I have to discount the card as the root of the problem. It just doesn't seem likely. That being said, a buddy of mine is using a 70d with some no name SD card and hasn't had any issues like the ones reported here. So this leads me to believe the unit itself is in question. Real bummer as I like the deck but it just doesn't work...

[yousef]

I've been following this discussion with interest and thought I'd contribute a possible aside.

My DR-60 on at least two occasions started throwing up write errors and completely locking up - different cards, 'premium' brands and modest (16GB) capacities. I was ready to give it up as a bad unit but found that a firmware upgrade sorted out a known bug which caused write errors when the unit tried to write a marker under certain circumstances.

I'm sure this is a different issue but it perhaps gives an idea of how thorough Tascam's testing is. I certainly won't be running my DR-60 without a back-up for a good while yet.