MR-8 compatible cards

[mrx]

I've seen the list that Fostex provides about supported CF cards, but wonder what experience anyone else has had with various brands?

PNY and Sandisk are about the only ones you ever see at BestBuy, Circuit City, Costco, Frys, etc. and I know the SanDisk is on the "Not supported" list. I saw a Memorex 256MB for 99 bucks at Computer City - anyone had any luck with that one?

Thanks

[John Williams]

I have some SanDisk 128 meg cards from other gear and they seem to work fine in the MR-8. This is only for solo acoustic stuff so they may fail if I was to use all 8 tracks at once. I'm guessing that the speed of the card is where the compatibility issue is. I could do the math and figure the bandwidth requirement to or from the card for 8 tracks but I'm too lazy.

I also tried a SanDisk Ultra 256 and it worked fine with 8 tracks. This is SanDisk's "high speed" product and I suspect that most "12x" or higher cards would work.

[John Williams]

I have some SanDisk 128 meg cards from other gear and they seem to work fine in the MR-8. This is only for solo acoustic stuff so they may fail if I was to use all 8 tracks at once. I'm guessing that the speed of the card is where the compatibility issue is. I could do the math and figure the bandwidth requirement to or from the card for 8 tracks but I'm too lazy.

I also tried a SanDisk Ultra 256 and it worked fine with 8 tracks. This is SanDisk's "high speed" product and I suspect that most "12x" or higher cards would work.

[mrx]

I see the Lexar 24x is supported, but there's no mention of the 12x. If my math is correct, shouldn't a card require a sustained data transfer rate of 705600 Bytes per second to handle 8 tracks?

(2 bytes (16 bits) X 44100 X 8 = 705600).

This would seem to explain why the Lexar 4x (600KB) won't work. It appears that the Sandisk has similar numbers - their site doesn't give sustained transfer, but an "unofficial" reading on one site put it around 800KB.

[Phineas]

MRX

You are forgetting. Your calculations are for 8 stereo tracks. The Mr-8 has 4 mono, and 2 stereo = 8. So, you calculations should actually be half. I think other factors (Processing, buffering, etc....) are also factors. Also, through some testing, I have found that I can easily do 4 mono tracks on a 4x card with no problems, it was when I wanted to do more than that was when I started running into problems.

Phineas

[mrx]

I believe my math is correct - 1 mono track = 44100 X 2 bytes.

(16 bit resolution means two bytes per sample.)

[Phineas]

Yeah, I forgot a byte = 8bits....lol

My bad

Phineas

[flat-9]

MR-8 compactflash compatability

Has anyone had any luck at all with the RIDATA 256 (20x) ? Will the MR-8 accept it if it has been formatted with a card-reader or camera? I've had no luck with it.
Regarding compactflash cards, we should start our own user-confirmed list. Please post your own personal experiences with the following cards &/or other less known brands. Include MB.
(no here-say please, only personal experience) and don't fear redundancy on a particular card, multiple confirmations are way ok.

BSA media
Hagiwara Sys-Com (Z-series)
Lexar (12x and 24x)
Memorex
Ridata
Ritek
Simple Tech
Transcend (25x and 30x)
Viking

Thanks & Peace,
flat-9

ps to clifchamb, good chops!

[digitcallous]

I have personally used a PNY 128M card and a Viking 256M card with the MR-8 to record. Both of them worked for me.

DC

[mrx]

Did you use the PNY that is availble from places like Best Buy, or did you get a higher performance model online? Did it handle 4+ tracks?

[digitcallous]

mrx.

The 128M PNY is one that I bought at BestBuy for a digital camera. I have to admit I did not thoroughly used it with the MR-8. What I did was recorded a 4-minute long stereo drum track (so 2 tracks), and then a guitar track over this. That was the extent of using it with the MR-8; the recorded tracks sounded perfectly fine though.

DC

[mrx]

But the Viking works ok?

(I checked out the PNY specs and they claim it is a "10X" card.)

[digitcallous]

mrx,

On the 256M Viking card I did a complete 3:45 song which included 7 instrumental and 1 vocal overdubs over a stereo drum track. Some of the overdubs are only a few seconds long. Because I would otherwise run out of tracks, I had to mix tracks down a couple of times. I eventually ended up with stuff on track 1 through 6 and then mixed them down to tracks 7 & 8. Finally I bounced the whole song onto a WAV file which I then copied off to my computer.

I had to do "Delete Unused" several times during the whole process to make enough room for the next overdub, etc.

DC

p.s. The result is up on a website if you want to hear it.

[mrx]

Seems like the Viking is OK, then. Where did you get it?

[Bigsnake00]

What song are you talking about?

[digitcallous]

mrx,

The Viking card was from Amazon and I bought it almost a year ago. I think it was just under $100.

Bigsnake00,

The song was what I put together in the process of learning how to use the MR-8. It was done over a weekend spending about 7 hours totol, so don't expect anything professional quality. I also just mixed the tracks on the MR-8. If I were to do it again I would bring the tracks back to the PC and use mixing software to see whether I can get a better mix.

http://home.attbi.com/~kitn13/music/lov.mp3

DC

[John Williams]

Wouldn't it have been wonderful if Fostex would have made the card slot type II, especially since there's a 4gb MicroDrive in the works?

Anyone dare me to plug my camera's MicroDrive into my MR-8 via an adapter, just to see what happens?

[dyuob]

Originally posted by John Williams
Anyone dare me to plug my camera's MicroDrive into my MR-8 via an adapter, just to see what happens?

Well, it might not hurt to try it, but according to Fostex, it won't work because:

1. MR8 port can only take Type I Card while Microdrive is Type II.

2. As the power consumption of Microdrive is far more than CF card, MR8 cannot work with it.

3. Its transfer speed is very slow so that it cannot be used for multitrack recorders.

However, it still might be worth a try. Let us know how it works!

[John Williams]

I'd have to check the specs but I think the MicroDrive is a bit faster than at least some CF cards. Maybe the "seek" time is slower but the transfer rate is faster or something like that. I'm not going to try it and I'm too lazy to go through the excercise to find out the real facts.

The MicroDrive uses enough power over that of a CF card that it *could* burn a trace on the MR-8's circuit board. It's still tempting though.

[mrx]

I think the speed would be the issue, even if the other stuff could be worked out. I also have a microdrive in my camera and even the camera manufacturer states that it is much slower than solid state cards.

Now an adapter that would let the CF port control an external drive would be cool, or one of those USB drives, but speed would again be an issue.

[mrx]

I talked to a guy at CompUSA about our problem - they have the Memorex, which is on the 'supported' list, at $99 for a 256MB card. Unfortunately he said they charge a 15% restocking fee if the card doesn't work. The search continues...