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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Recording Media => Topic started by: kcmule on June 21, 2008, 02:25:18 PM

Title: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: kcmule on June 21, 2008, 02:25:18 PM
Running 24/96 I've been getting some artifacts in my tapes.
Using a Transcend 133x 16gb card.  Could this be the issue?

I've had problems the last two weekends taping.  Last weekend
there were visual dropouts (flat-liners) in the wav form.  Last
night's sample is attached.

Common elements in the last two tapes have been:

A. Mic cables
B. CF Card

Othwerwise I've used a Microtrack II and a Fostex FR2-LE
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: kcmule on June 21, 2008, 02:49:57 PM
Unless this card is incompatible with both a Fostex and the MTII
it should be fast enough to handle it.  They tested 120x cards
and I'm using a 133x.

Getting real tired of coming home with fucked up tapes!


http://www.fostexinternational.com/docs/pro_support/Operation_CF_20070510.pdf
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: boojum on June 21, 2008, 04:05:34 PM
Here's what I would do: 1) get cables you know are good; 2) record something at 24/96 at home for a couple of hours and check the recording.  It if has failed again it would seem that you are now going to record at 24/48 with that card. 
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: kcmule on June 21, 2008, 04:43:56 PM
Cables have to be good.  I forgot that I patched out into my buddies
R4 last weekend and it didn't have problems, so it has to be the card
I suppose.

Guess it is just a hit and miss deal 'cause I taped Feat last month at
24/96 and it didn't have any problems.
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: kcmule on June 22, 2008, 08:39:12 AM
Using a Transcend 133x 16gb card.  Could this be the issue?

Guess this card is a POS.  I get nasty results regardless of 16/44 through 24/96
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: Dede2002 on June 23, 2008, 09:40:49 AM
Using a Transcend 133x 16gb card.  Could this be the issue?

Guess this card is a POS.  I get nasty results regardless of 16/44 through 24/96

What is POS?
Sorry about that. English is not my primary language ;)
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: T.J. on June 23, 2008, 09:42:40 AM
Using a Transcend 133x 16gb card.  Could this be the issue?

Guess this card is a POS.  I get nasty results regardless of 16/44 through 24/96

What is POS?
Sorry about that. English is not my primary language ;)

Piece Of Sh*t
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: jmerin on June 23, 2008, 09:49:50 AM
maybe you should get a name brand card, life scandisk
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: morst on June 23, 2008, 10:43:54 AM
maybe you should get a name brand card, like sandisk
Is there some reason to believe that Transcend is inferior to a different brand? Transcend has a lifetime warranty on most of their cards, and their SDHC is on the list of approved cards for the Zoom H2. I have had good results with Sandisk and Kingston in the past, but have not had any trouble with my new Transcend 8GB SDHC so I just picked up a second one. I found out that Picklemic got a bad card from Transcend, but I bet any maker could put out a dud once in a while. I'd love to see a chart of failure rates of these little suckers which I now trust with my data!!?
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: Dede2002 on June 23, 2008, 11:51:23 AM
Using a Transcend 133x 16gb card.  Could this be the issue?

Guess this card is a POS.  I get nasty results regardless of 16/44 through 24/96

What is POS?
Sorry about that. English is not my primary language ;)

Piece Of Sh*t
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
This is a great one

Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: kcmule on June 23, 2008, 06:56:33 PM
I just  ordered a new CF card.  Waste of $$ on the first card, can't do anything else with it. :(
I'm going to see if newegg will take it back, but I doubt it.
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: morst on June 23, 2008, 11:02:38 PM
Transcend cards generally are POS. I've had problem with all size and type cards from them. No problem at all using all the same gear and substituting Kingston or SanDisk cards. I don't know why some people defend them so fiercely because i've read of many problems with Transcend cards, but the few people who they do seem to work for defend them to the death.
Well thanks for the tip.

For the record, there is no technology that I would care to defend to the death. However I would die for Hippy Chix.  8)
Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: Digital Quality on June 24, 2008, 11:39:31 AM
Have your tried formatting the card with larger allocation tables? Hook it up to a card reader and format it on your PC like so -

    format <vol:> /a:64k

This has a huge affect on the SD cards, maybe it will help in your case too. You can try 128K I think too. I've been using Transcend SD cards with good success. As long as you didn't get it off ebay from China or something, you should be good.



Title: Re: CF Card Too Slow for 24/96?
Post by: jacobmyers on June 26, 2008, 01:12:19 PM
 133X is supposed to be capable of ~20 MB/sec sustained write rate. 24/96 requires ~2 MB/sec. If anything, the card is "too fast" for 24/96 and the artifacts in your recordings are caused by buffer under-run while recording. Poor speed throttling and/or error correction in the card's write controller would cause this sort of artifact. The solution to the problem is simple: buy "better" cards.