I'm researching buying one of the CitiDISK HDV hard drive recorders. After looking back at some old posts, it seemed in the past there were some reliability issues. Some serious some not. It also seemed that a lot were sent back to Shining.
But most of those posts are a year old. I'm curious if anyone uses this product currently and if over the past year they've fixed a lot of their problems. It sure is cheaper than Firestore, but not worth a penny if it doesn't work.

Any feedback is really welcomed.

Hi David,

Please read my post created on 2/2/07 ("Another Citidisk Warning"). Shining is currently working on a firmware fix for this problem (i.e. the Citidisk's tendency to lose footage when something goes wrong) but until they solve it I wouldn't recommend purchasing one. If you need something right away I'd recommend buying a Firestore (which I also own). It's more reliable and hasn't lost any of my footage like the Citidisk has. If, however, you can wait until Shining fixes their problem (but they admit they don't know how long that will be) then I think the Citidisk will be a worthwhile investment.

Gary Burlingame

David, Gary,

I've had the CitiDisk HDV for a year and have not had any real problems. At some point I did loose some DV clips while shooting, and it turned out the reason was that I did not hit the rec buttom properly. The timecode stored on the disk would be nice, as well as the quick play of HDV footages back to the XL H1 view finder. Otherwise, no reasons to complain. Needless to say, I have nothing to do with the company.

I saw another post where the guy said that he hated the CitiDisk with all of his heart. Wow. I don't have a good feeling about their product. Lauri, you seem to be the only lucky one which is good.

Any update or comment on the CitiDisk? I would love to get the Sony DR-60 but the price is too high. A 80G HDD is selling for US$899 which is still ok.
Given that there is no LCD, how do we know what is the battery and HDD status? I'm concern about battery lifespan too.

I demo'd the unit but gave it back after 2 days.
Not ready for prime time!

I demo'd the unit but gave it back after 2 days.
Not ready for prime time!

Seems to have v bad responses from all the reviews I've read. I think I better skip it. Reliability is utmost important for me. Seems like have to get the Sony. It is the most practical I've seen until now to be used on a Merlin.