Topic: Edirol R-4

[Brian Skalinder]

The idea is to have the reporter carry one of these or the R-1 and basically have the news bites all set and ready to go ... (ie cut out the post production step of making the sound bite itself). That's one of the reasons for the wave editor. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it saves production money and time, which is the goal. Now, four channels is overkill and I suspect the R-1 will be used more often in this role, but that's is why they put the mics in the units.

Makes sense if I stop to think about it, just didn't realize straight away that on-site production was that big a deal.  I also assumed ENG users would want higher quality mics (of course, baking in another assumption that the built-in mics won't be very good).

[JasonSobel]

so there's been a lot of discussion here about bit-perfection, about how the analog side of things is going to  sound, a brief discussion about powering.  but I think something has been left out of our discussion (please forgive me if this was already covered and I just missed it) :

What about our good old friend, Mr. 2 gig limit?

it says that it records in .wav format, so I'm assuming the 2 gig limit is in effect (again, please correct me if I'm wrong.  I sort of remember hearing that 2 gigs is a limitaion of windows, and that the real limit for .wav files is 4 gigs.  either way, I'm using windows, and this might be an issue)

will this start up another track seamlessly?  has this been addressed anywhere?  any ideas?

[nic]

so there's been a lot of discussion here about bit-perfection, about how the analog side of things is going to  sound, a brief discussion about powering.  but I think something has been left out of our discussion (please forgive me if this was already covered and I just missed it) :

What about our good old friend, Mr. 2 gig limit?

it says that it records in .wav format, so I'm assuming the 2 gig limit is in effect (again, please correct me if I'm wrong.  I sort of remember hearing that 2 gigs is a limitaion of windows, and that the real limit for .wav files is 4 gigs.  either way, I'm using windows, and this might be an issue)

will this start up another track seamlessly?  has this been addressed anywhere?  any ideas?

hopefully, it saves each channel seperately, aka, mono.
that would greatly reduce filesize and the mono files can be easily joined to stereo in post

[kindms]

either that or an auto split feature which would make the file size not as big an issue like WaveLab.

at 1500+ though I think I would still go with the 2 channel SD 722.  Thats assuming that the SD front end is better etc (i think it will be) plus the AES in and some other bells and whistles that the SD has over this. It seems that the SD device has features that I value more as a taper then this device but this thing is really really cool. It is nice to see a unit get soooo close to what i have always wanted

[JasonSobel]

hopefully, it saves each channel seperately, aka, mono.
that would greatly reduce filesize and the mono files can be easily joined to stereo in post

hmm, yes, I didn't think of that.  but still, at 24/96 stereo, you're at 2 gig per hour.  so mono, each track would be at 2 gigs in 2 hours.  I know I'e taped shows that are one long set that goes for more than 2 hours.  so an autosplit feature would still be nice.  has anyone seen any mention of that feature?

[Ed.]

not for sure, but if you're using an ntfs formatted hdd can't your file size be quite a bit larger?  is there even a limit?  i'm not familiar enuf with that too know.

[John Kelly]

The wav format itself is limited to 2 gigs.  Hopefully it'll use either W64 or SDIIextended so the 2 gig limit is not a factor.

I say hopefully, but I'm not hoping since I basically ruled this unit out.

[caymanreview]

why have you rules it out so soon?

[John Kelly]

why have you rules it out so soon?

Price, basically.  At that price I'd rather spend a bit more for a 722.  At least then I could get a digital in if I wanted one.

[caymanreview]

yeah you have a point. we will just have to see about its digi in's

[caymanreview]

quote from Doug Oade from the Oade.com board

    

Tentatively set at 1899.00 ...Doug

[Nick's Picks]

my Edirol guy says....
"$1595 will likely be the street price"
so we can expect it to be between $1475-1600 i'd guess.
This would be for a UA5 w/a hard drive + some fluffy features we'd never use.
I still think that is a good deal.  I"m guessing it will have similar mic preamps and A/D (if not identicle...which would certainly not be a bad thing).

If doug can mod it, then you're looking at $1800 for  mod' UA-5 sound...which is reference quality.

stock FR-2 w/dual 5gb PC cards = $1600 approx.  so it will be likely better to buy the R4 w/its big drive if you are looking for just a recorder. 
laptops are not an option,imo.  If you want 24/96 ROCK SOLID, then you are paying equal...and getting less, imo.  Remember HAL and what it did to its end users? 

[wbrisette]

hopefully, it saves each channel seperately, aka, mono.
that would greatly reduce filesize and the mono files can be easily joined to stereo in post

hmm, yes, I didn't think of that.  but still, at 24/96 stereo, you're at 2 gig per hour.  so mono, each track would be at 2 gigs in 2 hours.  I know I'e taped shows that are one long set that goes for more than 2 hours.  so an autosplit feature would still be nice.  has anyone seen any mention of that feature?

Yesterday I got my DEVA II unit and here is how they get around the the 4 GB issue, They buffer 10 seconds of audio, so when you're coming close to the 4 GB limit, you simply press stop, then record again (you're the human "autosplit"), and it then starts a new session and you don't miss a thing.

Wayne

[Kelso]

hope they'll release a r-2 with two in that'll be around 1k$

[Daryan]

sure it does. it uses PC Card drives or CF cards...of course, you're not going to find a 10+GB drive to fit into it anytime soon...

Not true entirely...10gb cards from Toshiba are due out next month.  40 gb is only a year away!
Plus, the cost of cf cards is dropping monthly!