Fostex DV-40 Brochure

The Industry's Equipment Authority
REPRINTED FROM DECEMBER, 2003
Location/Broadcast
M U
BY ARK LANO
L ocation sound engineers are finally see-
ing a stream of new, nonlinear portable
recording devices, and the Fostex PD-6
is the first of these new machines to
arrive. In addition to Fostex: Aaton, HHB and
Zaxcom, will all have new entries on the mar-
ket within the year. We applaud all the manu-
facturers and look forward to examining this
great spurt of engineering creativity.
F /I U
EATURES N SE
The PD-6, priced at $9,995, is very much in
the family of the respected PD-2/PD-4 line of
Fostex field DAT machines. Essential choices
for machine control, track format, digital/ana-
log recording, sampling frequency, bit rate,
master clock and time code settings are easily
accessible with hardware switches along the
top and front of the machine. Besides up to 24-
bit/48 kHz across six tracks, it also records in
stereo at 24-bit/96 kHz. (No stereo 192 kHz
Fast Facts
Applications:
Film, video, location recording
Features:
8 centimeter DVD-RAM format;
UDF/BWF; 16/24-bit; 44.1 kHz, 48
kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz sampling
rates; all SMPTE timecodes; 10-
second preroll buffer; built-in six-
channel analog mixer; 48V phantom
power, 12V T power; FireWire, USB
ports
Price:
$9,995
Contact:
Fostex at 562-498-4852.
www.fostexdvd.net.
Copyright 2003 IMAS Publishing (USA), Inc. Reprinted with permission.
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Fostex PD-6
Location Recorder
mode, though, which is a great feature of the
DV-40 - Ed.)
The more variable labeling, metadata,
parameter and data intensive controls are in
the software, mostly derived from the Fostex
DV40 studio recorder. Besides Through a
series of unshifted and shifted functions, you
can bring up setup or utility screens on the
LCD display. Use of a USB keyboard affords
macros to get to certain screens even more
quickly and you can store up to seven setup
configurations.
The included manual is generally clear
and comprehensive. You may also download
it as a PDF file from the Fostex website,
along with current and future system updates
for the PD-6, which you can install yourself.
Utilizing a new, ATAPI 8cm drive, smaller
double-sided 2.8 GB DVD-RAM discs are
used for storage of the audio. This format has
been primarily developed as a medium for the
rough and tumble of camcorder video record-
ing, and with the aid of data buffers, is geared
toward handling vibration.
DVD-RAM disks are not as common as
DVD-R or RW discs (you will not find these
discs in Wal-Mart or Radio Shack), but they
are coming, as the major camcorder manufac-
turers are supporting the medium.
In the higher storage consuming configura-
tions, e.g., six tracks at 24-bit/48 kHz, you
only have 24 minutes a side. This means that
if you are doing a five-minute scene in six-
track mode, you need to reload every four
takes. It takes about 40 seconds to eject the full
disc, insert a preformatted disc and have the
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DVD-RAM
machine recognize the disc and be ready to
record. You may be raising your on-set profile
with more frequent reloads. Higher capacity
discs are coming in the future, meanwhile, you
will probably want to budget your disc storage
by only going up to four or six tracks when
needed. This is good practice anyway and will
dramatically extend storage capacity (1 hour
12 minutes for two-track, 24-bit at 48 kHz).
You also have the choice of going down to 16
bits to increase storage, but this is not my pref-
erence. By the way, 96 kHz sampling is cur-
rently limited to two-track mode only.
You also must be careful to not remove a
disc during the write cycle (indicated by the
red led showing drive status) after you stop
recording. You could lose part or all of the new
file if you do.
Extracting the discs from their carrier
sleeve can be a clumsy affair. (The sleeve
lock pins inevitably fall out. No harm done
but disconcerting.) This is necessary to
place it in any other DVD-RAM drive, a
certain requirement once the disc is sent to