Topic: Tascam CF Recorder Announced.

[wbrisette]

I think there's some serious gaps in the market for this stuff. 
<snip>
So, I think they have a ways to go with this stuff.

Let's all remember that for most of these companies, this is new stuff. It's going to take a while for them to figure out what the marketplace will and won't accept. It's also worth reminding folks that the "tapers" marketshare is nothing. Most of these recorders are aimed at either the musicians or video folks who want to try their hand at recording. Ultimately the taper market wants everything, but doesn't want to spend money on it, which is understandable since that market is in it as a hobby and not for pay. That said, has the taper market ever had out of the box an all-in-one unit everybody was happy with? I can't remember one. The closest is probably the 722 and even then some people don't like the preamps in it. So, I think it's going to be very tough getting everybody to agree on what a good unit is, verses a crappy unit. There are features that some people would love to have, others that most couldn't care less about. That's just all part of the recording scene.

Wayne

[phr]

I don't know to what extent the stuff is really new to anyone.  Even in solid-state recorders, for Marantz at least, the 660 is a follow-on to the 690, 690 II, 670, and maybe the 671.  You'd think they'd understand the issues pretty well by now.  I believe Tascam has also made some solid state recorders in the past.  In a more substantial sense, CF recorders are just DAT recorders with the VCR-like tape mechanism removed and replaced with computer media, and a little extra firmware to handle stuff like the file system, and DAT has been around for decades.  Tascam has made lots of portable DAT recorders before, and this new CF recorder in fact re-uses the chassis from one of those DAT's. SD is more in the Nagra class and the engineers must have worked on other such devices before. I realize not everyone is a concert taper but they must have been selling those DAT recorders to -somebody-.    It doesn't occur to me that musicians wouldn't want good preamps just like tapers want.  (I can understand ENG users being slightly less concerned, but they weren't using DAT much).  FLAC is simply a no-brainer, it baffles me that no CF recorders have it, if they bother supporting WAV. 

[F.O.Bean]

could they really do that open source stuff thats free?

[phr]

Yes of course they could, it's just like Ogg Vorbis which is showing up in many playback units (iRiver etc).

[wbrisette]

(I can understand ENG users being slightly less concerned, but they weren't using DAT much).  FLAC is simply a no-brainer, it baffles me that no CF recorders have it, if they bother supporting WAV. 

You obviously don't know the ENG market. They used DATs *(and still do)* until they couldn't find them anymore, a lot of these folks moved to MD recorders due to size and cost laster. But, to say they weren't using DATs is ridiculous.

Wayne

[oleg]

the eng market don't use dat at all these days , since the cameras aloud the
 same quality of signal recording  , but the film industry continue running dats , usually with good pres ( hhb , fostex pd-4)

[wbrisette]

the eng market don't use dat at all these days , since the cameras aloud the
 same quality of signal recording  , but the film industry continue running dats , usually with good pres ( hhb , fostex pd-4)

Exactly. But the statement was that they weren't using DATs. That was false. They were at one time, just not now as you point out.

Wayne

[ethan]

This is a pretty big unit and the price isn't that much lower than an Edirol R4, which has four channels AND a hard drive.  The R4 only goes to 24/96 but does anyone really use 24/192?  Any thoughts on this unit vs the R4?

I agree about the 4 channels but a hard drive is a liability not an advantage. Hard drive's fail...

-e

[nickgregory]

I agree about the 4 channels but a hard drive is a liability not an advantage. Hard drive's fail...

-e

even if you dont chose to tape to HD with the 722 and tape to CF, the beauty of the HD is that you can transfer the file from that CF to the internal HD....nice feature unless you are going to have $$$$ in compact flash available

[dmonterisi]

This is a pretty big unit and the price isn't that much lower than an Edirol R4, which has four channels AND a hard drive.  The R4 only goes to 24/96 but does anyone really use 24/192?  Any thoughts on this unit vs the R4?

I agree about the 4 channels but a hard drive is a liability not an advantage. Hard drive's fail...

-e

i agree.  within the next year or so when CF cards come down even further in price, HDD boxes will seem like a liability.

[wbrisette]

I agree about the 4 channels but a hard drive is a liability not an advantage. Hard drive's fail...

Even with prices of CF cards coming down, I don't see HD recorders as a liability if designed properly. By that I mean one that is easy to swap out in the field. The lack of being able to do this with most of the current crop of HD recorders does present some issues, but I still think they have some advantages which are hard to overcome with CF cards, unless you have a ton of them. I currently have three 80 GB hard drives and one 40 GB hard drive for my Deva. This was extremely useful when I did the archiving of the main stage at Old Settler's this past year. Each day I was able to record a full day on a single drive, pull it out, pop in a new drive for the next day and go. I didn't have to worry about off-loading until later. Then it was a simple matter of popping in a new drive and mirroring the data.

Now, it is true that all drives fail, but if done correctly, HD recorders can read the SMART data and recoginze when a drive is having problems and prevent you from recording on it before you store something on it that will be hard to recover.

I think having both is a wonderful solution and one which seems to be getting more popular.

Wayne