Topic: MT II problems

[rustoleum]

Last post until I get to update the firmware and play some more but the 3:54 was showing after I was locked onto and recording a 24/48 signal (and it ticked down from 3:54).  I'm not sure if a signal was running prior to plugging in and starting up the MTII, so I'll check that out, too.  One more potential gotcha - for ease of testing I was recording from the coax-out of my computer.  I'll try firing up the minime since that's ultimately what I'll be using this with.  Thanks for the help, guys.  I'll send another update soon.

[guysonic]

ONLY real problems is using unbalanced 1/4" inputs being fed with mics, but will work again to be low noise being driven from unbalanced low output impedance preamplifiers with noise almost identical to graph below showing balanced preamplifier noise plot into TRS inputs.

damn that 1/4 unbalanced mic input plot is ugly!! 

ONLY real problems is using unbalanced 1/4" inputs being fed with mics, but will work again to be low noise being driven from unbalanced low output impedance preamplifiers with noise almost identical to graph below showing balanced preamplifier noise plot into TRS inputs.

just wondering, why would you get high noise with a mic feed but low noise from an unbalanced low output impedance preamp? Thanks for sharing your findings. +++

Most mics have higher >300 ohm impedance than typical ~50 ohm drive ability of solid-state preamplifier output.  With preamp driving unbalanced input, the ground reference noise is coupled into both -/+ TRS input in nearly equal manner, so noise is canceled (common-mode) in same way as balanced input.  With higher impedance like from mic input, the noise signal is strong going into -minus input, and less strong (due to mic output ohms) into + plus ohms, so there's far less common-mode rejection of the noise signal riding on the input ground reference.

[rustoleum]

Update... I loaded 1.0.4 beta firmware on and no change in my behavior.

For running digi-in at 24/48, the available time ticks down as if it were running at 24/96 (~3:54 in my 8gb card).

If I switch to 1/8" in and manually set everything to 24/48, I see an available time of ~7:54, so it seems the MT2 is able to 'see' the whole card and knows how big it is.

Just for shits and giggles I ran the thing at digi-in @ 24/48 out of my minime and left it running as long as it would allow and it ticked down to 3:54 and stopped.  I rebooted the MTII and started a new recording and it detects the remaining ~4GBs and shows me a remaining time of ~1:55.  so, it seems as though when running digi-in it is calculating the available time at 24/96 no matter what the actual input signal is (which is absolutely stupid in my mind).  When I pull the files over to my computer, WaveLab4 sees them as 24/48, so the spdif stream is being detected correctly and the file header and data is presumably being written correctly, it's just the time remaining is being calculated incorrectly.  Some quick tests at 24/44.1, 24/48 and 24/96 show the same thing but the time remaining always shows as if the stream were 24/96.

I don't have another card to try with it, but if the analog in is able to properly detect the size and calculate it based on 24/48 I don't know why the digi-in wouldn't.

In re-reading busterr's post, it looks like he checked his time remaining field going analog in.  can anyone confirm that at digi-in the time-remaining calc is based on anything other than 24/96?  Might be time for an m-audio incident report.... Thanks

Edit: Incident Report opened... we shall see what m-audio has to say.

[busterr]

Alright rustoleum, I see what you're saying now, and yes I did only check the time previously in the menu portion w/ it set to analog in..and never tried recording (via spdif) to see what time actually ticks down. I just checked and when recording(from V3 @24/48 & 24/44.1) w/ "time left on media" setting, mine only shows ~3hrs58min as well.
I'm going to run mine down and see what happens, I suspect I'll have the same results as you. I do know when you have it set for "time until 2gb split" it does not calculate as if it were 24/96... in other words (again when actually recording) with the V3 set to 24/48 it shows ~1hr 55min, and at 24/44.1 ~2hr 05min remaining. So you may want to set it to "time until 2gb" and check to see if you can fill the card, I'm thinking it will. It just seems like a strange anomaly that M-Audio overlooked(like many other things). 

I'll report back when I've tried both methods...up until now all my initial testing was done at 24/96, so I wouldn't have noticed anything odd. And when I'm out in the field I rarely run for more than ~2hr chunks at a time, and wouldn't notice if it's calculating was off. This is something M-Audio should have no problem fixing with an update though, it may not be quick, but they should be able to figure it out. I'll probably file an incident as well in a day or two to try to speed them up a bit.

[rustoleum]

Thanks and +T for confirming, busterr... My next set of tests will be with "Time remaining until split" or whatever it's called.  No info in my incident report, but I would imagine since this is just a calculation error and not a problem detecting and utilizing the spdif error that this can be addressed with a firmware update.  The only question is how long will it take to be addressed.

[busterr]

Thanks and +T for confirming, busterr... My next set of tests will be with "Time remaining until split" or whatever it's called.  No info in my incident report, but I would imagine since this is just a calculation error and not a problem detecting and utilizing the spdif error that this can be addressed with a firmware update.  The only question is how long will it take to be addressed.

Unfortunately having tried both settings now, it makes no difference what it's set to, mine shut down at 4gb as well, with both methods. I'll try my other card as well, but suspect the same results. I'll fill out an incident with them today. 

[rustoleum]

bummer... I got a reply from m-audio regarding my incident report:

"Please change the settings in the Options:Record Time Display and tell me if it then accurately displays the time in respect to the sample rate settings."

I'm at work now and therefore don't have my MTII handy, but I don't think this is a very helpful reply.  I'm not sure if they're asking me to switch between Time Avail on Card vs. Time until split (which sounds like it won't make a difference) or if they want me to confirm the bit/sample rate settings (which can not be configured when set to SPDIF).   

[Soling]

FWIW  I recorded for 3+ hours last weekend at 24/96.  Opener played for an hour and headliner for 2.  Ran my V3 [updated firmware] at 24/96 spdif into my MT II [firmware 1.01] using a kingston 8g 133x CF card.  Came home with 6.64g in several 1.86g files that I pasted together for a "seamless split". Unit chugged along with no issues.  I have record display set to time left on media which looks like this "x:xx/3:51"  Went just over 4g with the headliner with no issues.  Hope that helps.

[busterr]

FWIW  I recorded for 3+ hours last weekend at 24/96.  Opener played for an hour and headliner for 2.  Ran my V3 [updated firmware] at 24/96 spdif into my MT II [firmware 1.01] using a kingston 8g 133x CF card.  Came home with 6.64g in several 1.86g files that I pasted together for a "seamless split". Unit chugged along with no issues.  I have record display set to time left on media which looks like this "x:xx/3:51"  Went just over 4g with the headliner with no issues.  Hope that helps.

Yeah Soling, there doesn't seem to be a problem filling 8gb cards if your recording @ 24/96, I've done it almost a dozen times...the problem is any bit/sample rate other than that. Even at 16/44.1 it calculates as if it's 16/96 and won't let you record for more than the 16/96 length, which is around 5:59:xx, when you should get close to 12hrs out of a 8gb card @16/44.1.

I've now checked with my 4gb card and it doesn't seem to have this issue of only filling 1/2 the card, so it appears it's unique to 8(+)gb cards
Once it stops or you stop it, you can simply hit record to fill the other 4gigs, so it's not really a huge deal unless you need to leave it running straight through for a long period of time.

[anhisr]

Is it just when the spdif signal comes off a V3 or does it do it with other A/Ds?

[busterr]

Is it just when the spdif signal comes off a V3 or does it do it with other A/Ds?

I believe Rustoleum has used both his computer's digi-out and his mini-me...I've been using my V3.

[anhisr]

Just wanted to go over that before M Audio tries to tie this to a Grace problem.

[rustoleum]

I've reproduced the issue with both a MiniMe and my computer's digi-out in 24/48 and 24/44.1

Just posted this update to my incident report in response to their question in a couple previous posts:

Here's an update upon further testing:

The record settings do not allow a selection of sample rate when the input is set to spdif (so there is no way to set it to the same values as my minime), but the bit depth is configured to 24.

When Options: Record Time is set to "time until 2gb split" the time remaining was calculated as though a 24/48 signal was detected (as was set on my minime). However, ultimately, the recording stopped as though the 24/96 calculation was still in effect. I left the MTII recording a 24/48 signal and being powered by an external source (so the MT2 did not run out of battery during these tests). With an 8gb card, I'd expect to be able to leave the MT2 recording a 24/48 signal for about 8 hours. When the MT2 stopped recording and shut itself down, I had 2 files that were 1:55:44 in length and a third file that is 2 minutes and 37 seconds. This means the MT2 recorded for ~3 hours and 54 minutes - the exact value that was incorrectly being calculated for the "time available on media" setting.

Fortunately, I was able to press record again and fill up much of the remaining space on the card with 3 hours and 54 more minutes of recording (for a total of 7 hours and 48 minutes), but with the 2gb split feature, I shouldn't need to press record again. If I want to be able to record a 24/48 signal for 8 hours without interruption, the MT2 should handle that. Clearly, there is still an issue in "time until 2gb split" mode where the MT2 stops recording and shuts itself down because it is determining this amount of time based on a 24/96 signal being recorded regardless of the actual signal.

Please let me know if you need any additional info. I am happy to provide further testing details if I am able to help.

Knowing now that I am able to press record again, I agree this is not as big a deal as I initially thought (and may still be if you're in "time on media" mode), but as long as I have the ear of a customer support guy, I'm going to be hopeful that they will resolve this and provide whatever assistance to them that I can.

[anhisr]

I just sent in a incident report on this issue also. 

[busterr]

I just sent in a incident report on this issue also. 

Not sure what you guys have heard back on this, but I got a message from them stating that they successfully ran for 5+hrs @ 16/44.1. I had to inform him (in a nice way) thats nice and all, but I don't really care if it works for 16/44.1, and if he wasn't getting ~12 hrs on an 8gb card he was having the same problem anyway. I also noted that this didn't seem to be a problem on 4gb cards if that's what they used.
They just got back to me again and said that test was with a 4gb card, and they don't have an 8gb card to test with.

I told them I would test it @ 16bit for them, but I also left them a link for Newegg and told him to try to get the company to spring for an 8gb card . We'll see...they seem to be moving pretty slow on this so far.