WTF! ...Tascam DR-10CS Micro Linear PCM Recorder is Discontinued ???
- Thread starter TheDingo
- Start date
This is the new thing, where the turnover cycle in gear is so fast that they don't have time to even put out the physical gear. Look at cameras - a new camera is not even out and people are already discussing what the next one will be like. So Tascam took the next logical step and skipped actually putting out the physical gear. From now on, the gear will be discussed and released in PR form only. That lowers the production cost and materials cost, and they pass on the savings to the customer. It still demands R&D costs and marketing costs, but with Chinese competing so hard on cost, it's hard to make money on manufacturing physical gear anyway. Welcome to the virtual economy. There are many advantages, not only in faster product cycle, but you save on transport/shipping costs as well as storage. The Japanese pioneered Just In Time manufacturing, and now Tascam is leading the way in Just In Virtual Time selling and marketing. You don't need the physical product which can break and so on - which is another savings in warranty, repair and servicing costs. Look at software, once upon a time they had at least the cost of discs, then it was all downloads, and now not even downloads, it's moved into the cloud and you use it by subscription - see how Adobe pioneered that. Film too - no longer physical, it went to being recorded on various digital media and now transmitted digitally to theaters. But film production is also moving in that direction - films will no longer be experienced in theaters (that's dying), or large screens at home (that's passe), and the current way it's seen on iPads and phones will be phased out too - it will be experienced entirely in your mind. You will imagine the film, so that way they save on production costs and salary for above and below the line. Then you can discuss imaginary films online in our virtual reality. I have seen dvxuser pioneer that too throughout the years - so many film plans discussed, and they never happen physically, it'll all left forever in the imagination. Welcome to our new virtual world. It's like this post I just wrote - you learn nothing new about the actual DR-10CS product, but there is a lot of talk around it without conveying any actual information. Welcome to the new dvxuser! Great taste, less filling.
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GaryNattrass
Veteran
You should see the 8k 3D camera with 22.1 surround sound I virtually got for $300 last week, my clients are well impressed and can't wait until the 16k model comes out virtually next year! 
rogar-Shock(DBG):
As for Tascam they more than likely A: could not get them to work or B: they breached someones copyright.
rogar-Shock(DBG):As for Tascam they more than likely A: could not get them to work or B: they breached someones copyright.
With zaxcom by the sound of of it:
http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/...oming-out-of-Tascam-at-the-moment#entry273351
http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/...oming-out-of-Tascam-at-the-moment#entry273351
Not a Juiced Link lawsuit. Zaxcom has a patent on recording wireless on the transmitter. They've had it for years. Based on it not being sold in the US but being available in other countries, my spidey sense tells me the patent on the Zaxcom recording transmitter is a U.S. patent only and they are talking with Tascam about this.
I'll bet there is some sort of settlement worked out and the Tascam products will eventually be available. As to when that will be....who knows? Once you get lawyers involved time seems to actually go backwards.
I'll bet there is some sort of settlement worked out and the Tascam products will eventually be available. As to when that will be....who knows? Once you get lawyers involved time seems to actually go backwards.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Not to get too far afield but in the US you can not patent an idea, only a physical "thing" such as hardware or a chemical formula. Which is why software is a copyright issue not a patent one.
So Zaxcom can not patent "recording on a wireless transmitter", though they could patent the physical device, or some specific mechanism inside the device.
The Japanese let you patent pretty much anything you want, which becomes a problem for folks in the US because all of those bogus patents can be used as "prior art" to attack a US patent.
It's more likely something like a trademark infringement issue or a law suit alleging that Tascam is trying to sell their recorders by confusing the market and fooling people who were going to by the Zaxcom product. In both cases they are positions not likely to hold up in litigation and are really just moves to get a piece of someone elses pie. The threat isn't loosing the suit it's loosing the time to market while being tied up in litigation.
The other possibility is that someone from Zaxcom ended up working for Tascam and Zaxcom is claiming the device was based on stolen material.
Whatever the story IF they are selling anywhere in the world and work decently they will show up in the US. In the mid 80's most of the DAT recorders in the US were brought in because the US had put some really restrictive limits on DAT recorders that sold for less than nose blead prices.
So Zaxcom can not patent "recording on a wireless transmitter", though they could patent the physical device, or some specific mechanism inside the device.
The Japanese let you patent pretty much anything you want, which becomes a problem for folks in the US because all of those bogus patents can be used as "prior art" to attack a US patent.
It's more likely something like a trademark infringement issue or a law suit alleging that Tascam is trying to sell their recorders by confusing the market and fooling people who were going to by the Zaxcom product. In both cases they are positions not likely to hold up in litigation and are really just moves to get a piece of someone elses pie. The threat isn't loosing the suit it's loosing the time to market while being tied up in litigation.
The other possibility is that someone from Zaxcom ended up working for Tascam and Zaxcom is claiming the device was based on stolen material.
Whatever the story IF they are selling anywhere in the world and work decently they will show up in the US. In the mid 80's most of the DAT recorders in the US were brought in because the US had put some really restrictive limits on DAT recorders that sold for less than nose blead prices.
Juiced link just added an update about the lil dar. Now theres two versions. One with wireless sync. Love to hear peoples thoughts. http://juicedlink.com/blogs/news/15...s-control?mc_cid=2b34289c1d&mc_eid=f0ef7d8673
So, according to JWS there has been a settlement in which no DR-10CL (Lectrosonics versions) will be sold anywhere in the world, and the DR-10CS (Sennheiser) versions will be sold anywhere in the world except the US.
http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/24433-tascam-dr10-mini-recorder-in-use/&page=5
The basic premise is that Tascam was infringing upon Zaxcom's patents by marketing a recorder to be used with a wireless transmitter. (Zaxcom has wireless transmitters with a recorder built in & patented the idea.)
Supposedly Zaxcom had some terms to license their patent to Tascam, but Tascam passed. The DR-10X will still be sold worldwide.
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Personally I get it. I understand why Zaxcom would sue Tascam, but I really feel like this is a good example of how our patent law is broken. If Lectrosonics or Sennheiser put a recorder in their transmitters, yes, pure patent infringement. But the DR-10C is a poor man's alternative to Zaxcom that is missing a lot of the features that Zaxcom offers.
This just seems like an attack on innovation. And the fact that the settlement singled out the Lectrosonics versions, that just plays like Zaxcom is only doing this to harm Lectrosonics or Lectrsonic's users, not Tascam as Tascam will still be making the Sennheiser versions.
http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/24433-tascam-dr10-mini-recorder-in-use/&page=5
The basic premise is that Tascam was infringing upon Zaxcom's patents by marketing a recorder to be used with a wireless transmitter. (Zaxcom has wireless transmitters with a recorder built in & patented the idea.)
Supposedly Zaxcom had some terms to license their patent to Tascam, but Tascam passed. The DR-10X will still be sold worldwide.
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Personally I get it. I understand why Zaxcom would sue Tascam, but I really feel like this is a good example of how our patent law is broken. If Lectrosonics or Sennheiser put a recorder in their transmitters, yes, pure patent infringement. But the DR-10C is a poor man's alternative to Zaxcom that is missing a lot of the features that Zaxcom offers.
This just seems like an attack on innovation. And the fact that the settlement singled out the Lectrosonics versions, that just plays like Zaxcom is only doing this to harm Lectrosonics or Lectrsonic's users, not Tascam as Tascam will still be making the Sennheiser versions.
Related product, check out this new recorder at a decent price:
https://www.cinema5d.com/mikme-wireless-recording-microphone-on-indiegogo
This could be a nice product indeed if you needed it. Wondering how good the app is for a phone? Will it have meters, or can you monitor the audio as well?? Check out the little audio clip of the singer. Internet I know.
https://www.cinema5d.com/mikme-wireless-recording-microphone-on-indiegogo
This could be a nice product indeed if you needed it. Wondering how good the app is for a phone? Will it have meters, or can you monitor the audio as well?? Check out the little audio clip of the singer. Internet I know.
Richard Crowley
Veteran
Not entirely different from another indiegogo product: "Instamic"
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/instamic-the-smart-small-gopro-of-microphones#/story
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/instamic-the-smart-small-gopro-of-microphones#/story
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
RE: patents.
THe point of patents is not to stifle creativity and product development but to foster it by giving new products a window to make a profit. BUT you can only patent hardware not ideas so how exactly Zaxcom has a patent that would stop Tascam I have no idea. You can not patent a transmitter that records only YOUR transmitter that records. So someplace in there there must be some specific hardware spec that makes it litigatable.
Generally US patents are almost useless. Only 10% stand up to a challenge and other countries (notable Japan) have allowed just about anything to be "patented", you can patent things that you admit don't work. The result of that is that Japanese patents rarely stand up in the US, BUT the point from the Japanese side is not that their patents will hold up but their patents are considered "prior art" and blow away US patents.
In the US you see trademark issues killing things more often than patent ones because trademarks are more flexible. So you might successfully claim that the Tascam product looks like the Zaxcom one and have a chance.
THe point of patents is not to stifle creativity and product development but to foster it by giving new products a window to make a profit. BUT you can only patent hardware not ideas so how exactly Zaxcom has a patent that would stop Tascam I have no idea. You can not patent a transmitter that records only YOUR transmitter that records. So someplace in there there must be some specific hardware spec that makes it litigatable.
Generally US patents are almost useless. Only 10% stand up to a challenge and other countries (notable Japan) have allowed just about anything to be "patented", you can patent things that you admit don't work. The result of that is that Japanese patents rarely stand up in the US, BUT the point from the Japanese side is not that their patents will hold up but their patents are considered "prior art" and blow away US patents.
In the US you see trademark issues killing things more often than patent ones because trademarks are more flexible. So you might successfully claim that the Tascam product looks like the Zaxcom one and have a chance.
Rick R
Veteran
Sorry to say, I don't think that's going to happen in the near future. The case has been agreed upon by both litigants in court. You have to buy from somewhere outside the US... others have done this... but they are now in jail awaiting prosecution..
(.. only kidding)
I've been down the "patent rabbit hole" very deeply. This isn't true. You can patent ideas, software, and concepts. Just ask Apple or all the software patent trolls out there.
The Zaxcom patent specifically covers the idea of a "virtual multi-track recorder", which is basically having a bunch of little recorders on talent, say on a reality show where you have 10 people running around, and each person has a little recorder on them, and then the audio from each of those is brought into a DAW and synced up to give you 10 tracks synced up. I read it. It's pretty broad, and it's that way on purpose.
You can patent lots of ideas and never actually deliver those ideas as products to the marketplace. You'd have to have a LOT of money to do so and then be willing to wait for someone to want to license your idea or violate your patent. Patents are actually very helpful and useful to a degree. I've been involved in a few and I can tell you we'd never develop certain products if we couldn't get them patented because our industry is full of people who have businesses that do nothing but create products that are cheap copies of existing products.
When you want to patent something, you have to get two patents if you want global coverage. One for the US, and another internationally. Heck...it could be more. I've only looked into patent coverage in Europe. I'm not sure about coverage in Asia or other places. Even then, good luck going after a chinese company ripping off your stuff that is one of a million factories over there.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Sorry I worked for an inventor for quite a few years and worked with a patent attorney for part of that time. Patents are for hardware and processes not concepts. Now you may be right that folks have applied for everything under the sun and as the attorney used to say a patent is just a ticket to litigate, it doesn't actually protect anything, so IF you have deep enough pockets you can defend just about anything. But no patent for the idea of lots of recorders would stand a real test unless it was connected with something tangible.
Software has generally been protected under copyright law. Software that is integrat to specific hardware could probably be patented as being part of the hardware. But you can't patent the idea. If you could IBM would still be king for owning the idea of a disk operating system. But even their BIOS was protected under copyright not patent.
And BTW having a "cloud" of recorders is exactly what wedding videographers have been doing for years with lots of handheld recorders so IF Zaxcom had been able to patent that idea it would be nullified by "prior art". You can only patent something that doesn't already exist, copying something already out there is not patentable.
So as I said there may be talk about what the purpose of the devices are in the patent but specific functionality/ structure that is new and original is what the patent has to be granted on.
With this Tascam case I suspect that the main point was that the recorder looks like a small wireless transmitter, probably close to the Zaxcom unit. They can go after them for making a product that deliberately tries to fool a customer. There also may be some issue tied to that same misleading connected to the fact that these things were advertised in such a way that a lot of people thought they were actually transmitters. And there may be something in the shape/ style that comes too close to the Zaxcom unit. You can for instance patent a case design. All of the above would be an iffy case but it could tie Tascam up in court and keep the product off the market for long enough that it wouldn't be competitive by the time they could sell it. In the end that is probably the main reason it's not going to show up here. It's cheaper to not sell it in the US. For years you couldn't by a non $$$$$$ DAT deck in the US that recorder at 44.1, didn't stop a lot of them from ending up here.
Makes me more disappointed with Zaxcom, a company I have not been a big fan of anyway. A product like this is relatively easy for them to block since it's a drop of income for Tascam so the profit wont pay for many lawyer hours, but is so not a threat to ANY Zaxcom product that it's just a pissy move. The really silly part is that they brought attention to the concept so I expect a lot of devices like this to show up in the next couple of years.
Software has generally been protected under copyright law. Software that is integrat to specific hardware could probably be patented as being part of the hardware. But you can't patent the idea. If you could IBM would still be king for owning the idea of a disk operating system. But even their BIOS was protected under copyright not patent.
And BTW having a "cloud" of recorders is exactly what wedding videographers have been doing for years with lots of handheld recorders so IF Zaxcom had been able to patent that idea it would be nullified by "prior art". You can only patent something that doesn't already exist, copying something already out there is not patentable.
So as I said there may be talk about what the purpose of the devices are in the patent but specific functionality/ structure that is new and original is what the patent has to be granted on.
With this Tascam case I suspect that the main point was that the recorder looks like a small wireless transmitter, probably close to the Zaxcom unit. They can go after them for making a product that deliberately tries to fool a customer. There also may be some issue tied to that same misleading connected to the fact that these things were advertised in such a way that a lot of people thought they were actually transmitters. And there may be something in the shape/ style that comes too close to the Zaxcom unit. You can for instance patent a case design. All of the above would be an iffy case but it could tie Tascam up in court and keep the product off the market for long enough that it wouldn't be competitive by the time they could sell it. In the end that is probably the main reason it's not going to show up here. It's cheaper to not sell it in the US. For years you couldn't by a non $$$$$$ DAT deck in the US that recorder at 44.1, didn't stop a lot of them from ending up here.
Makes me more disappointed with Zaxcom, a company I have not been a big fan of anyway. A product like this is relatively easy for them to block since it's a drop of income for Tascam so the profit wont pay for many lawyer hours, but is so not a threat to ANY Zaxcom product that it's just a pissy move. The really silly part is that they brought attention to the concept so I expect a lot of devices like this to show up in the next couple of years.
Well, if software isn't supposed to be patented then the patent office is doing a terrible job. There are software patent trolls out there making lots of money.
What I do know is that there are two types of patents out there. Design patents and Utility patents. Design patents are pretty much worthless because they protect just the "look" of something, so I can get a design patent on a boom pole (really, I couldn't at this point since they've been around for years...) but that doesn't mean someone can't make something that does the same thing but just looks different. If I come up with a new way of doing something, say a new zeppelin idea, I can get a utility patent on that, and that is actually worth something. That means that nobody can copy the way my new zeppelin works and how it does what it does. Even then, the patent has to be written in a broad enough way...and then be approved...to even be worth it. I've seen some patents that are so specific that they are worthless and are easy to get around. I've seen some that are so broad I've been shocked that they even were approved. The amount of time to go from provisional patent to actual patent is years. The patent system is good and bad. It's good because I can protect my ideas. It's bad because it can take tens of thousands of dollars and years to get to the end and can stifle innovation for the little guys out there with big ideas. I see it on Shark Tank all the time. Someone doesn't have a patent on a great idea, but they are just themselves and maybe a few people working out of a garage. If they don't have a patent then they are told their idea is going to be stolen and they will be squashed as a company.
It's too bad there are so many companies that exist purely on ripping off other people's ideas, and these companies exist in virtually every market sector...and I've even seen some of our K-Tek products blatently ripped off, down to the smallest detail, but since these ideas weren't patentable there was nothing we could do.
What I do know is that there are two types of patents out there. Design patents and Utility patents. Design patents are pretty much worthless because they protect just the "look" of something, so I can get a design patent on a boom pole (really, I couldn't at this point since they've been around for years...) but that doesn't mean someone can't make something that does the same thing but just looks different. If I come up with a new way of doing something, say a new zeppelin idea, I can get a utility patent on that, and that is actually worth something. That means that nobody can copy the way my new zeppelin works and how it does what it does. Even then, the patent has to be written in a broad enough way...and then be approved...to even be worth it. I've seen some patents that are so specific that they are worthless and are easy to get around. I've seen some that are so broad I've been shocked that they even were approved. The amount of time to go from provisional patent to actual patent is years. The patent system is good and bad. It's good because I can protect my ideas. It's bad because it can take tens of thousands of dollars and years to get to the end and can stifle innovation for the little guys out there with big ideas. I see it on Shark Tank all the time. Someone doesn't have a patent on a great idea, but they are just themselves and maybe a few people working out of a garage. If they don't have a patent then they are told their idea is going to be stolen and they will be squashed as a company.
It's too bad there are so many companies that exist purely on ripping off other people's ideas, and these companies exist in virtually every market sector...and I've even seen some of our K-Tek products blatently ripped off, down to the smallest detail, but since these ideas weren't patentable there was nothing we could do.
Send me a PM, and I'll send you the contact info of the company where I bought my Tascam DR-10CS units from. ( £200 each plus £20 to ship two units to Canada )
I emailed the company before buying to find out if they would ship to Canada, and they replied that they ship everywhere, including the US.
I emailed the company before buying to find out if they would ship to Canada, and they replied that they ship everywhere, including the US.
I laughed, haha
Good one!