Jump to content

Welcome to our new reality


Recommended Posts

20 hours ago, Wandering Ear said:

This is going to be more of an issue going forward, especially for special events and sports.  

I've already experienced this at big events. When 600mhz goes away the issue is going to be compounded with the rights holder taking a majority, if not all, of the spectum space.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, Jack Norflus said:

I've already experienced this at big events. When 600mhz goes away the issue is going to be compounded with the rights holder taking a majority, if not all, of the spectum space.

Markets with a lot of broadcast stations are going to have a very hard time.  I had a hard enough time the other day fitting 14 channels of intermod free wireless together around the TV stations here, I can only imagine how it's going to be once the stations are repacked and I'm limited to 2 1/2 blocks.  Let alone an event with hundreds of channels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I originally thought that all these wideband transmitters/receivers were going to be our savior in crowded RF markets like Los Angeles, but now with the news of not only the 600mhz going bye bye but also parts of the 500, I'm not sure what everyone is going to be able to do.  It's just going to be a huge pray and scan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

High density digital wireless is the only viable solution at this point. The Zaxcom ZHD transmitters should be shipping soon. I'm sure the other manufacturers are working on high density solutions but this can only be accomplished in a pure digital software platform. At this point, other than Zaxcom, the only viable digital units are from SHURE and Sennhesier, and now more recently from Audio, Ltd. The offerings from SHURE and Sennheiser have been designed primarily for fixed installations, one of the reasons why Zaxcom has pretty much owned the digital wireless space for production sound for the last 10 years or more (I don't remember when I got my first digital wireless). The latest offering from SONY, the DWX series, looks promising and is a pure digital wireless. SONY doesn't yet have the receiver side worked out for our specific use --- their priority has been, of course, to integrate with their video cameras, which has not proven to be very useful for us.

Any way you look at it, the situation sucks for most mixers who have had to invest heavily into wireless over the last several years because of the increasing demands placed on us in production (wiring everybody all the time, wireless booms, etc.).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Jeff Wexler said:

High density digital wireless is the only viable solution at this point. The Zaxcom ZHD transmitters should be shipping soon. I'm sure the other manufacturers are working on high density solutions but this can only be accomplished in a pure digital software platform.

Hopefully a dual channel slot receiver with ZHD will be coming soon too.  Once they have that all figured out, it's going to be hard to beat!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as a solution I agree that the fully digital High Density approach is the way forward. Any word on how much per channel? 

But I also have to wonder whether the frequency coordination should be more stringent in weighing each requestor's application. You don't need lossless, latency free audio for everything, move broadcast IFB to the specified 944MHz band, move other coms to cell phones, VOIP, etc. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Werner Althaus said:

As far as a solution I agree that the fully digital High Density approach is the way forward. Any word on how much per channel? 

ZHD wireless is the same price as non ZHD wireless. 

 

9 hours ago, Werner Althaus said:

But I also have to wonder whether the frequency coordination should be more stringent in weighing each requestor's application.

There are a handful of guys who the frequency coordination for large events and I know several of them have been in contact with Zaxcom regarding ZHD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Jack Norflus said:

There are a handful of guys who the frequency coordination for large events and I know several of them have been in contact with Zaxcom regarding ZHD.

I was just imagining that a frequency coordinator gets a number of channels requested per operator. Instead of granting them until all spectrum is gone maybe it'd be better to defer granting all but the most critical channels ,mics and IFBs that need to be full fidelity, 100% reliability and real time (not every wireless com or PL needs to be in theUHF/VHF spectrum, move some of those communications to VOIP or cell phones for example. ). That way the valuable UHF spectrum would be reserved for mics and IFBs that need it. When I work with RF guys at large venues their list of frequencies usually include a lot of channels that don't need to be located in the ever shrinking UHF band. Not sure how realistic it is but shouldn't someone ask "Do you really NEED all those channels?"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Werner Althaus said:

I was just imagining that a frequency coordinator gets a number of channels requested per operator. Instead of granting them until all spectrum is gone maybe it'd be better to defer granting all but the most critical channels ,mics and IFBs that need to be full fidelity, 100% reliability and real time (not every wireless com or PL needs to be in theUHF/VHF spectrum, move some of those communications to VOIP or cell phones for example. ). That way the valuable UHF spectrum would be reserved for mics and IFBs that need it. When I work with RF guys at large venues their list of frequencies usually include a lot of channels that don't need to be located in the ever shrinking UHF band. Not sure how realistic it is but shouldn't someone ask "Do you really NEED all those channels?"

I absolutely agree but that would involve manufacturers building reliable products that will yield decent range in those frequencies. And it would involve the end users selling off that gear and reinvesting in new gear.

Given that some shows can actually require a hundred or more channels of full fidelity wireless audio.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am somewhat lucky in that I live on a geographically isolated island so have been largely immune to these problems; however I am also a radio ham so well aware of the constantly rising RF noise floor.

I am surprised to see high density wireless being the proposed solution to these problems when most other technologies are going in the opposite direction with spread spectrum.  There is a lot of discussion in the UK at the moment for the use of the 'white space' between UHF digital TV channels with the suggestion that radios would be GPS equipped and automatically switch to the allocated channel blocks depending on their location.

What I find more interesting is spread spectrum, which allows wireless devices to operate at levels well below the noise floor.  Essentially one radio mic could use many 10's or 100's of Mhz of spectrum and share that same spectrum with multiple devices all in the same block.  It would just be variations in modulation and clever software based decoding that allows this to work.  The tech is so robust that it could cross channels already in use by TV with little ill effect.  As far as I am aware, the technology for very broad spread spectrum communication is already here, it's the regulations on traditionally channelised spectrum that prevent its use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...