Topic: hd-p2 and/or compact flash related issues.

[JackoRoses]

Just made it back from a festi and ran into two issues with the p2.
the 1st one doesn't seem to be a huge deal albeit an inconvenience still..
I am using a transcend 8 gb fash card and while it checks out 100% functional on all resolutions I am running into this small issue.
I have been recording 24/96 on these cards and what is happening is I record the 1st set with no issues.
the band comes back on for the 2nd set I hit pause to get the recorder going and the buffer filled up.
When it's time to hit record sometimes the machine will return a error stating the media may be too slow to record at the resolution I am attempting and it stops recording. Usually at this point the band is about to begin or it has and I need to hurry up hit stop and record again. It begins to record at this time and no more issues for the rest of the performance.
I have been working around this by either not using the pause button or hitting record after the buffer fills up and seeing if it will give the error and allowing me a little extra time to react if so.

2nd issue I ran into and a little more serious ( might not even be the p2)
I recently bought a 16gb sandisk card and I used that for the first time over the week.
I had no initial problems running the card but after filling it up half way (7~ gbs)
I ran into a problem.
The bands were all done I had my recorder shut down and was moving over to another stage.
I set everything back up turn the recorder on and it gives me a media error unable to write to card.
I shut the machine down and try again yet still no go on the card.
I pull it out put another card in and it works ok...
So I get back to the campsite dump off the contents of that 16 gb card and start checking it out.
Run a media scan etc on it. It has issues so I reformat it and attempt to transfer some data to the card just to see if it will work or not.
I get about 2 gbs transfered to the card and the laptop reports a error of a write delay problem with the card. I end up having to reboot the laptop. After getting the laptop back up I attempt once again to dump some data onto it. This time it works with no problems.
I'm going to run more tests with the sandisk card and see if it's a card issue or not.
I ended up losing all but the 1st song of the 2nd set of that night with that card as well but I think I had something to do with that as I bumped the timecode button and I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or not yet.

[doubled]

for the first issue

shut the prerecord setting off in setting for project
ive heard that this can cause problems

for the second issue
ive heard some cards may be too large and not readable
also some of the faster cards ive heard of problems resulting

check that

[JackoRoses]

for the first issue

shut the prerecord setting off in setting for project
ive heard that this can cause problems

for the second issue
ive heard some cards may be too large and not readable
also some of the faster cards ive heard of problems resulting

check that

yea shutting off pre-record would fix that huh.. Not really what I want to do, I'm going to put in a trouble ticket with tascam on that issue. They will probably suggest the same thing due to an unsupported card possibly but I will see still...

On the 2nd one I am using the 45x sandisk card , it passed all the tests on the recorder but I understand what you are saying. I am thinking run an ambient test at home and attempt to replicate the issue and go from there.
Any search tips on where to find these issues with large CF cards?

[JasonSobel]

I assume that when you say "16gb sandisk card", you're talking about the Extreme III 16 gig card?  (at least, I think that's the only 16 gig card currently available from SanDisk).  anyway, I've been using that card in my HD-P2 for a few weeks, maybe a month now, without any problems.

I can't comment on the pre-record issue, because even though I have it set to "on", I never use that feature. what I often do is just hit record a few minutes before the band comes on stage, and just start recording.  I figure that even if I record 10 minutes of junk before the band starts playing, I've got plenty of space on the card.  8 hours of 24/96, and with an opening band + two sets of the main act, that's usually about 4 hours max, so even then, I'm only using half the card.  so I might as well just get the unit recording.

as for the second issue you mention, filling it up past halfway.  I have not experienced any problems there either.  in addition to taping shows, I also use the HD-P2 to transfer lots of old DATs.  the most I have ever put on the card is one show recorded at 24/96 (it was just over 2 hours, so about 4.5 gigs there), and then four old Phish shows transferred from DAT.  those were all 16/48, so figure about 1.75 gigs per show.  so that's 7 gigs from the transferred DATs, which brings the total up to 11.5 gigs used on the card.  I put the show that I recorded, and each DAT in a different project folder, if that makes any difference.

so I don't know if you just got a bad card or what the story is, but if you are able to replicate the problem, please let us all know.

[JackoRoses]

I assume that when you say "16gb sandisk card", you're talking about the Extreme III 16 gig card?  (at least, I think that's the only 16 gig card currently available from SanDisk).  anyway, I've been using that card in my HD-P2 for a few weeks, maybe a month now, without any problems.

I can't comment on the pre-record issue, because even though I have it set to "on", I never use that feature. what I often do is just hit record a few minutes before the band comes on stage, and just start recording.  I figure that even if I record 10 minutes of junk before the band starts playing, I've got plenty of space on the card.  8 hours of 24/96, and with an opening band + two sets of the main act, that's usually about 4 hours max, so even then, I'm only using half the card.  so I might as well just get the unit recording.

as for the second issue you mention, filling it up past halfway.  I have not experienced any problems there either.  in addition to taping shows, I also use the HD-P2 to transfer lots of old DATs.  the most I have ever put on the card is one show recorded at 24/96 (it was just over 2 hours, so about 4.5 gigs there), and then four old Phish shows transferred from DAT.  those were all 16/48, so figure about 1.75 gigs per show.  so that's 7 gigs from the transferred DATs, which brings the total up to 11.5 gigs used on the card.  I put the show that I recorded, and each DAT in a different project folder, if that makes any difference.

so I don't know if you just got a bad card or what the story is, but if you are able to replicate the problem, please let us all know.

Jason thank you; yes you are correct about the sandisk card.
I can't remember what I even am using.. 
It's good to hear your card is working well. It may be a bad card I haven't tested it yet. Still cleaning space off the drive for this new round of shows.
I'm almost done and hope to be able to do the testing by this weekend.
I don't have any issues doing what you do about just recording 5-10 mins before the show begins and I think I am going to go back to doing that instead of risking a buffer issue.
Thank you for relating your experience with this card.
I will update as I go here.

[JasonSobel]

ok, I've just run into a problem with my 16 gig Sandisk Extreme II card.

I've been transferring DATs to the card over the past week, and it just crashed on me.  the HD-P2 froze-up completely.  the only way for me to turn it off was to unplug the power.  it then turned on again normally, but froze up again as soon as I tried to hit record.
I put the flash card in my computer card reader to transfer the files.  everything is all there.  if I highlight everything, the total size is 7.99 GB.

I think that's too much of a coincidence here.  there's got to be soem reason why it stopped right before 8 gigs.  and it seems to be the same issue that you have.  I'm going to see if Tascam has anything to say about this.  it's strange though, because it worked for me before going past 8 gigs full.  so who knows what's going on?  have you contacted Tascam about this?

[JackoRoses]

No not yet I haven't had any more time to test anything.
More than anything I wanted to post about my issue while it was still fresh in my head.
Still working on clearing the drive to dump the card contents off of it. I should be done soon.

[JasonSobel]

so, my email from last weekend had gone unanswered, so I gave tech support a call.
the first guy basically told me that they haven't tested the 16 gig cards, and that they couldn't be guarenteed to work.  I told him that "no, it didn't work, the unit froze on me.  twice."  and I made clear that the SanDisk Extreme III series of CF cards is, in fact, on their list of approved media.  I told him that I thought it was a quirk in the firmware, because in the "media information" screen, it shows that the card is 16391 MB, and the count down of remaining recording time is consistent with 16 gig of space, so the unit is clearly able to "see" the full 16 GB.  it just locks up when it gets to 8.  when I asked what the likelihood of them releasing a firmware update to fix this issue, he basically told me "maybe" and I should keep my eyes peeled on their website.  great, thansk for the help... 

so then I asked if he could transfer me to someone else.  and he transferred me to his supervisor (I assume so, anyway, because the 2nd guy I spoke to was still in the tech support department, and told me during the conversation that he "wasn't an engineer").  So, this second guy, at first, was telling me that while he wasn't 100% sure of the reason, it is possible that the HD-P2 was only designed with 8GB in mind, and that it may have been a "design constraint" that the unit was built around.  I then told him many reasons why I didn't think that was true i.e. "from a storage point of view, the 16 GB CF card is formatted as a FAT32 volume, which is the same as a 4 GB card or an 8 GB card" and that basically, it didn't make any sense that this issue would be because of a "design constraint".  I repeated everything I told the first guy, and firmly told him that I believed that the issue was a quirk with the firmware, and that it was my impression that a firmware update could fairly easily resolve the issue.  in the end, he took down all my information, and said that he'd pass it along to the engineers, and that I would be contacted by either him, or an engineer.

so, of course, I'll keep everyone updated with the latest info from Tascam.  at this point, I've redid a test (my second test at 24/192, just to fill up the card as quick as possible.  the first time it locked up on me, I had 5 or 6 Phish shows on there from DAT transfers, all at 16/48).  so it's happened to me twice now.

edit to add:  if anyone else runs into this problem, and wants to call Tascam, I can give you the name of the guy I spoke to (the 2nd guy).  PM me for that info...

[macdaddy]

do we have to send the units back to tascam for a firmware update, or can we do it from our homes..?

[smokydays]

We can do it at home.  Hopefully they will be responsive with this. 

[macdaddy]

bump.

[Taper Jeff]

So did anybody ever hear of a resolution to this 16GB CF card issue from Tascam?

I know that 744's don't have any issues with them...it's too bad that the HD-P2 does!

[kirk97132]

So did anybody ever hear of a resolution to this 16GB CF card issue from Tascam?

I know that 744's don't have any issues with them...it's too bad that the HD-P2 does!

8 GB and no plans to do anything about bigger cards

[phisham]

Sorry for the necro-bump, but wanted to get this answer into the archives.

v1.06 of the firmware corrects the 8GB CF card limit

http://tascam.com/product/hd-p2/downloads/

I hit this problem when I first got my HD-P2, but now I use 64GB cards with no problem after updating the firmware to v1.10