"Matt Ion" wrote ...
They go into lots of detail in the manual on transferring
files over ethernet, but note that the ethernet connection
can be slower than transferring over lightpipe; however
they don't say much about transferring via lightpipe other
than diagrams showing how to connect it.

At 10MB, the built-in ethernet port is absurdly slow and out
of date. However it is still faster than grabbing the data in real-
time via the lightpipe. At least in my experience.

We've got an ADAT PCR card in the machine now, to
interface with the ADATs and dump tracks via ADAT
Connect, but Connect only handles up to eight tracks at
a time. I notice from the manual that the HD24 also
apparently divides lightpipe I/O into three groups of eight.

Does this mean I'm still limited to transferring tracks eight
tracks at a time using the same old Connect software, if I
elect to use optical transfer?

Yes, unless you can come up with some way to capture all 24
tracks via the three parallel Alesis lightpipes.

Is it still a realtime dump, as with tapes?

Yes, it is a realtime dump, as with tapes.


I know there's a firewire option available for the HD24,
but that's a relatively hefty extra cost, in addition to needing
to add a firewire card to the PC ($25 for a PCI firewire card,
$300+ for the HD24 adapter, pffft).

They sell a "Fireport 1394" which appears to be a conventional
drive-bay to firewire adaptor hardware bundled with their
proprietary software. It is orders of magnitude faster than
the 10MB ethernet or the real-time lightpipe(s).