Tascam DVRA1000 High Definition Recorder

http://www.zzounds.com/item--TASDVRA1000 is something I've just had drawn to my attention - should be available here very soon.   $1300 in the USA it seems.  

"The new TASCAM DV-RA1000 recorder is a professional solution for recording high-resolution audio -- up to 192kHz/24-bit -- to inexpensive DVD media. The new recorder even features Sony's DSD format, the basis for audiophile Super Audio CDs, as an available recording format. Its professional I/O includes balanced XLR connections, AES/EBU and SDIF-3, and it records standard CD-DA, WAVE and DSDIFF files to CD and DVD discs. The DV-RA1000 can also operate as a professional CD recorder, recording standard audio CDs for studio or meeting room installations.

The DV-RA1000 features digital recording formats from CD audio resolution all the way up to 192kHz/24-bit and DSD recording -- the formats used by DVD Audio and Super Audio CD. This rackmount stereo recorder features a user-friendly design on the front panel and professional connections on the back. Advanced features like a USB 2.0 connector, RS-232 serial control and multiband compression and EQ establish the DV-RA1000 as the new standard for studio mixdown recorders."

Cool, huh?

Note that the DVD discs it records cannot be played in a DVD player, if that matters to you.

Q: Does it record DVD Video files that I can play in a DVD player?
A: No, there is no video on the unit and DV-RA1000 discs can't be played in a DVD player.

Here is a link to the TASCAM faq:

http://www.tascam.com/Products/DV-RA1000/DVRA1000FAQ.html
http://www.tascam.com/Products/dvra1000.html

Edit:  Oops!  Sorry Peter.  Didn't scroll far enough down the page at your link to see that the FAQ was included on the page.

On the German tascam site you can download the "quick start" pdf which indicates that formatting the DVD before you record takes 20 minutes! - so you'd have to be sure of have some ready before you needed them.

It certainly looks like a good DAT replacement, but the joy of a plain CD audio recorder is that it takes almost no time to transfer to the PC, and the good old Red Book format does allow for rapid processing and smaller storage sizes without being a complete disaster quality-wise.

I'm not clear on whether you can play on this device data DVDs with audio on them created by post-processing.  In other words, what seems essential to me is that you take the DVD out of the machine, load it into Audition from your PC DVD drive complete with markers, work on it, and write the result on the PC at x4 or x8 back to a DVD which this device can then play (on air, say).

It's that workflow detail that would make or break the case for it.  Going back to realtime transfers in either direction, DAT-style, does not feel like progress to me regardless of the sound quality.

One downside the quick-start guide appears to indicate is that if you use it for CD recording instead of a normal CD recorder, you can't press a button to put tracks down on the fly, which for me is also essential (were I to use it in that mode).  I don't want to have to hunt around for movements in long classical works.

Still for all that, I think Tascam are going to be onto a good thing with it.

One downside the quick-start guide appears to indicate is that if you use it for CD recording instead of a normal CD recorder, you can't press a button to put tracks down on the fly...

That's odd, since that's standard on other Tascam burners, including ours, and probably is standard on just about every hardware CD recorder.  Seems pretty strange.

I don't understand the formatting part of this, unless this is basically a packet-writing application.  I suppose you could always format a bunch of discs before a string of busy sessions.  

Surely these are standard UDF DVD-ROM discs that can be read in any computer.  I have no idea what you'd do with a DSD file, but 24/192 we can relate to!  

Agreed -- Tascam has a good concept going here.  Too bad it's not like the Alesis Masterlink that includes hard drive recording.