TASCAM MMR-8/MMP-16 Owner’s Manual
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Version 3.1 Update
5
DVD RAM Support
Version 3.1 software for the MMR-8 and MMP-16 adds support for DVD-RAM devices
connected on the SCSI port. These are re-writable optical media drives that use DVD-RAM media
for storing digital data. The current generation of drives tested by TASCAM support the use of
double-sided media with a total formatted storage capacity of 5.2 Gigabytes (2.6 Gigabytes per
side). IT is important to note that while these drives and media have an attractive ratio of cost to
storage capacity, they are much slower than hard disk media, particularly when writing to the disk.
Read (playback) performance is much faster. It is hoped that future generations of these devices
will exhibit speedier performance.
Backup, Export, TapeMode Conversion
The most reasonable use for DVD-RAM devices with the MMR/MMP is for Backup, Export, or
TapeMode Convert. The low cost of the media when compared to standard magneto-optical media
makes it more suitable for long-term archiving of projects and media. No special operations are
required when using a DVD-RAM device. If it is connected (using a short high quality SCSI cable)
to the external SCSI connector on the back of the MMR/MMP unit, it will be available as a SCSI
device for all normal disk operations by the MMR/MMP unit.
Record
While it is possible to record up to two tracks of 16-bit audio to a DVD-RAM drive, this
performance is not guaranteed. This is because the current generation of DVD-RAM devices have
very slow disk write performance compared to hard disk or magneto optical devices. In
performance tests, recording one or two tracks seems to work in most cases, but TASCAM does
not support DVD-RAM devices as a recording media and cannot guarantee record performance.
Playback
In our tests, DVD-RAM devices exhibit much better read (playback) performance than write
(record) performance. Playback of up to six tracks of 16-bit material or four tracks of 24-bit
material seems to work fine in most cases, but again this level of performance is not guaranteed.
1024 Byte/Sector Media Support
Version 3.1 adds support for Magneto Optical media formatted for the Macintosh HFS file system
with either 512 bytes per sector or 1024 bytes per sector. While MO media has been supported in
the MMR/MMP from the beginning, 1024 byte per sector Macintosh formatted was not previously
allowed and would not mount on the MMR/MMP. This enhancement allows the MMR/MMP to
access Pro Tools or OMF files which have been copied to 1024 byte per sector Macintosh
formatted MO media .
