Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Looks like Zaxcom has figured out the problem with my DEVA, and potentially the problem of many early generation units. The first of the DEVA IV and V units that were shipped with the internal DVD-RAM drive had a 2X drive. The newer media that is available for use is 3X and 5X, with higher speeds on the way. The older drives had problems with the mounting and stability of the newer media speeds. With the install of a new UJ-85J drive, the unmounting and non-responsive drive issues have gone away. I've had the drive back for 3 days now, and things seem to be very stable. I'm running version 3.39.

Let me know if you're having strange DEVA behavior, I might have some insight.

~PWP

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Pure sad blogging activity. I'm really bad about this. I promise to try and do better this year...

We've got about a month to go here on Jericho. Winding up the season with a lot of action...

Been having a lot of difficulty with my DEVA lately. The DVD-RAM drive has been very unpredictable and unreliable. Considering this is the method of delivery for the entire system...I consider this to be of great concern. The main problem is that the drive tends to un-mount the DVD-RAM periodically, rendering the drive unresponsive and useless until I power cycle the machine. This has been happening intermittently since I purchased the DEVA, but lately more frequent. Then all of sudden, the drive would not recognize any disk, by any manufacturer, or any speed. The common response from both the vendor and the maker of the machine has been, "it must be the media". I would think that, if the same media didn't work in other machines by other manufacturers, such as the Sound Devices 702T. This is not the case. The media works fine in other systems. I have also spoken with several other mixers who are experiencing the same symptoms and problems. Mine is finally going back to Zaxcom for service...let's hope it doesn't sit on the bench too long.

More to come on this matter...

Got a new console at the end of 2006. I'm now mixing on a Cooper 208D. A beautiful sounding mixing panel. I can't believe I waited so long to change over. I'm running all 10 channels on the DEVA, using the digital outputs for the master tracks and all eight iso tracks are running in analog. So far....so good.

Starting to look for work! Oh my...haven't done that in a while.

~PWP