News posts from 2003 Q1
 

<<<-- Originally posted by James Emory : Picture & Info

http://www.dtvprofessional.com/2002/...chi_dvdcam.htm -->>>

Looks quite good, hope it can really use the new DVDs that hold over 20 GB - but they are expensive.

Have an IBM Travelstar/Deskstar . . . sign up for Class Action Suit
 

I've seen several reports of this today. This is a link to the legal firms page http://www.sheller.com/ibmpress.htm a separate page list actions in seven other states http://www.sheller.com/ibmclassaction.htm Visit both pages, there is a questionnaire to fill out etc. If you've had problems with a Deathstar this is your chance.

Jeff

Yes, I saw this also. Certain models of IBM's Deskstar line have been plagued by troubles. It may be poor luck to write this, but I have two (one of which is the most dreaded 75GXP) and I've had no problems with either. My 120Gb, which is my main media drive on my Mac 1GHz has been top-notch.

So I suppose the next you'll hear from me will be when I'm crying in my beer over my drive crash.

Yup, you've jinked yourself now. Good luck.

Jeff

I have lost 4, yep count 'em, 4 IBM "Deathstars". Both the main drive and the backup drive twice. Nothing hurts worse than after losing everything on your computer you are told you will not only have to pay to send your drives back but you will have to wait about 6 weeks to get another one in return...twice!
I don't think I would ever be able to buy another drive from IBM. I ended up buying Maxtors to replace the IBM's and when I got the IBM's back I put them in my PC's which I barely use anymore (I use Mac's for video production). I think I have already filled out the forms a few months ago but I haven't heard anything since.

Too bad for IBM, their drives look good on paper but enough is enough. The force aparently wasn't with me and the dark side came and took my stuff away.

What a Nice Looking page . It's a shame that the information is incorrect on so many things.Sort of negates the usefullness of the concept behind the page.Why in the world would someone put up a informative page like that and not be sure they were acurate? Makes no sense at all.
KennJ

Yup I had one of my 3 60GB deakstar drives fail, took over 4 weeks to get replaced, a friend of mine had 2 and one has been acting up intermittently. I now use only Maxtor and Wetern Dig, although my first WD drive came in defective! I have one system with 6 Maxtor drives 7200 rpm, been running great, and another 3 Maxtor drives running in other system all great. I think Maxtor build a high quality drive. I think WD builds a very good perfromaing drive, but their quality is not as good as Maxtor. I am phasing out my IBM drives and then no more. As it is they sold that division to Hitachi so IBM is out of low end disk drive business.

Its yet another dismal review of camcorders. The Value Watch does not include image quality as one of its measured values! In fact under Editor's Ratings image quality gets rated only a mere 30 points.

It is a good looking table in spite of what it has wrong...

Happy Mardi Gras,

IBM seems to be doing a lot of "strange" things with their drives
for more than a year now. I'm not buying from them anymore
at the moment. I'll stick to other brands.

But the golden rule still applays for any: BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP

The United States Copyright Office
 

is now taking public comments on the section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Check out this Mix Online article:
http://mixonline.com/ar/audio_notes_net_18/index.htm
Links to the copyright office etc..

let 'em know what YOU think!

Mark

Good post! Thanks for the link,

My 75GXP 20 gig has been great for 2 years now... But I'm in Canada, so it doesn't mean jack all if my drive did die. I house my DV stuff on a WD JB drive though :D

Panasonic Price War
 

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/panasonic_minidv_camcorders_ces_pv_dv953_dv73_dv203.htm

Read all about it!

SmartDisk FirePower portable drives
 

Smartdisk recently announced the production of their newest portable hard drive solution. 200 GB, current 400mbps Firewire and the newer 800 mbps FireWire supported, as well as USB 2.0. 7200rpm and an 8meg cache and should be out in March...

http://www.smartdisk.com/Press%20Rel...tFirePower.asp

One thing I thought I'd add. I've found that you get a much better deal by getting your own hard drive rig together. For example, take a Western Digital WD1200JB With 8 MB Cache, and find yourself a good external firewire case, put em together, and you've got yourself a blazing fast external firewire drive that will satisify all your needs for DV, much lower cost, and top-dollar performance and reliability. And pricepoints on drives these days suggest that you could get two 120 Giggers for the price of one 200 Gigger.

Some info on the WD1200JB w/8MB Cache
http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage...305/index.html

And a link to some firewire cases. Haven't used these particular cases, but they're all about the same. I don't think these are Firewire 800, but I'm sure a little searching on the Net could yield that type of case too.

http://www.zeehoo.com/miva/merchant....ategory_Code=A