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geordi

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Everything posted by geordi

  1. Jay, first let me say thank you for a very informative reply. I'm not completely convinced yet, but I know I have a lot more to learn about the subject, so this discussion and any reply from Mr Ruck or Mr Holly is very welcomed. With my experience working with multiple wireless in a confined location, I would love to advance to the level of "Reality Supervisor" on a program, but I am not there yet. I'd be happy to talk with you more about that anyway, especially if you know of anyone on the East Coast that needs a wireless monkey! Where I got my practical experience isn't far from event mixing or reality mixing - Live theatre. I have been mixing for live theatrical productions for almost 20 years now (wow, has it been that long?) and some of the biggest productions were also the most insane for coordination. That campus location was where I did 3 different major musical theatre shows, and wasn't terribly hard to coordinate with outside transmissions... There basically weren't any near the gear I had. The problem was that I didn't have enough gear with sufficient channel spacing, so I was really only coordinating with myself. I'm not sure what the IAS or TTi initials mean, but the tests I did were against my own transmitters, with a fairly sensitive handheld scanner and a full wave antenna. I tuned the exact frequency of the transmitter, had some signal piped through it (obviously this was analog only) and simply wandered around the building to see if *anything* was discernible or was it white noise. Literally, less than 200 feet beyond the walls of the theatre (which opened onto huge corridors on all sides, 3 of which were the theatre's own spaces where we had total control) there was nothing but noise. The coordinator on campus came into the theatre with a rack mounted scanning rig of some type (I cannot recall the name) and when he did a scan with all my stuff off, still insisted that the peaks in the room would not allow my stuff to work. I wasn't directly on top (or even within 25 kHz IIRC) of any minor peak, and 10s of MHz away from the Class A that was on campus. His biggest problem was that he was convinced that intermod would be my problem... And I disagreed b/c I was working with fairly close reception distance, and half-wave passive antennas. The receivers that had the amplified shark fins DID have interference problems... Even when they were the only transmitters active. They were picking up their own reflections, b/c they were too sensitive in my opinion. Anyway, back to the licensing stuff - One theatre I worked at in Ft Lauderdale Florida might have benefited from talking to an area coordinator, if there was a possibility of that person providing enough 25kHz channels for mics. This was a converted movie theatre located between... a major airport (2 miles south), a class A TV tower (4 miles west), a cellphone tower (1 mile North), and in a dense urban environment. Oof. The show I mixed there wanted to use 21 wireless, 6 wires for the band, and 4 channels for playback. Thank God that their assisted-listening devices were infra-red! I can't recall how exactly everything was configured there, its been a long time. But they had a spread of gear in VHF, UHF, fixed frequency VHF, fixed UHF (I think) and none of the systems were interconnected OR accessible, even if they had scanners - The receivers were all in the proscenium arch overhead. I did not set this place up, I was called in to mix after it was already almost opening night. Thinking about a situation like that however... Mixing Beauty and the Beast in a state park with 25 wireless was easy, and that one I DID set up. Again, I was in a location isolated by distance from anything that I did not control... And only had to deal with incoming noise from the environment. With regard to low power microphones versus WSD, will the coordinators actually be able to command those devices to back off of specific frequencies? Unlicensed devices (part 15, etc) it would seem would still be on their own, so how would they be told to shut down? Each of the places I have mixed a ridiculous number of wireless has been a location isolated enough that I know I have been safe from CAUSING any interference, my problem is receiving someone else's signal on a channel I might want to use. Obviously we (as portable mixers) would still need to scan the local space when setting up our stuff... How would being licensed change that, when theatres like where I have mixed at are bound to still be transmitting themselves, with no coordination? Finally - You mentioned that yearly filing would be adequate... I would imagine that would be the case for a fixed location like a studio lot in LA, where (as you said) the possibility for interference is between the two stages next to each other. If coordination like that is the goal, so that perhaps each studio could get their own channel space free of WSD, then they would only need to fight for air with their own low powered set devices. Some overlap could even be allowed, if spaced physically far apart enough (a mile or two) to eliminate any chance of cross contamination. The question is... What about for portable operations like what a lot of us do, working from a bag / cart / truck in [insert today's address] on a location? How would the notification work, when in many cases we may not even know the actual location until the day (or evening!) before call time? Thanks again for having this discussion, I hope the rest of the group finds it as fascinating as I am! (Sorry to anyone else, this seems to have become another book too. I didn't mean it, honest!) --James Hulse Gator Audio jim [at] gatoraudio [dot] com
  2. Jay, I can appreciate the resolve of someone who wants to be letter-perfect on the side of the law, but reading through the sections you quoted shows me that even when the FCC drew these regs up, they had no intention of either full enforcement OR of understanding the laws of physics surrounding this. Please do not misunderstand me: I am not advocating "pirate operations" if there is a clear need for licensing OR the possibility of your signal getting in someone else's way. On a location shoot however (not located in any fixed studio-based backlot or building) the restrictions of even the Video Assist section are beyond onerous to the point of ridiculous. I'm using the Video Assist section as the example, simply because it clearly steps out the requirements specific to our industry. Section 3-D says that you have to be limited to 250mW of output power. Ok, no big deal there... But section 3 by itself says flat out, you cannot use the gear AT ALL within 80 miles of any TV transmitter, regardless of size. Show of hands: Who DOESN'T live or work within 80 miles of at least ONE TV transmission tower? Wait... I think I see one person... Way out in a cornfield in Kansas. My point is that with that little statement alone, they have completely eliminated ANY hope of legally operating an ultra-low-power system in much of the country. So what are they doing by collecting fees and offering licenses that cannot be legally utilized? Collecting fees. The last section, G, is the really scary one. In order to operate legally, a license holder must potentially notify everyone and his dog within 100 miles of his 1000 FOOT transmission circle that he is there. Now, play devil's advocate with me for a second - What happens if after he does that notification, a mouse farts on the big TV transmitter cable and Little Edna Busybody gets a static line in her soap? First she calls the station... And the station (Who hadn't had any problem the day before, naturally) instantly points at the ONLY thing they can think of that had changed in their recent memory... The licensee's existence. Are the two events related? Of course not. However, because of that draconian requirement, everyone now has a target to point at for blame, and the individual licensee must stop all his own work (annoying his producer a LOT) and defend himself in ways that probably will be as much fun as that application was originally to get licensed. By being licensed, you are both establishing yourself as an "I-am-a-good-legal-citizen" for the FCC... And as someone that can be harassed by the FCC over any complaint because "You should know better as a licensee." This is not a good idea, the payoff is not sufficient enough. I had to deal with a local campus-level frequency coordinator last year, in a location where I KNEW beyond a shadow of doubt (B/c I ran my own tests) that my signals weren't even leaving the ROOM I was in. I had to arrange 24 wireless mics over 3 different groups (Shure transmitters) in an area of the country where the nearest TV transmitter was 1/2 mile away on the same campus, and the nearest Class A was 60 miles away. This building was within a cluster of 5 others, surrounded by hills, so even if my 100mW signals had gotten out... The hills would have killed them. I had everything working perfectly, even though Shure themselves were dubious b/c of the transmitter 60 miles away that WAS on a 1st harmonic with some of my wireless. Nobody complained about any interruptions or static... And then I talked with that coordinator on campus. HE threw a hissy fit, not because someone had complained (nobody had) but because his own wireless system planner said what I was doing couldn't possibly work, and I needed to cut off half my transmitters because his system said they would compete... With more of my own systems. I view the FCC requirements like that guy - Wanting onerous notifications for signals that struggle to go through 2 layers of concrete block, and even then... Cannot be measured beyond 1000' from the source! The FCC is operating from a position of EXTREME caution, which is justified in some higher-wattage cases, but not for our gear. How many of us have ever been visited on set by an FCC rep? I'd wager not many. How many of those have been fined? I'm sure the answer is zero. The FCC knows we exist, because of the great work of advocates like Lectro and Shure, who have a deep-seated interest in seeing us protected. If they are allowed to sell their gear, it stands to reason that we will be able to use it without risking interference to much higher powered licensees, simply b/c our stuff cannot shout louder than their stuff does. Thanks to whoever reads this, I realized just now that I kinda wrote a book. Oopsie.
  3. Oy vey! Talk about putting your foot in your mouth... Stepping on a verbal land mine, he didn't just step on it, he jumped around on it, then somehow made it worse! Kirsten Dunst sitting next to him there looked like she wished she was ANYWHERE else right then.
  4. And that is one thing that Lord Steve and I agree on - Flash can wither and die tomorrow... And the world will only be the better for it. I'm not a fanboi by any means, but I respect decent hardware and functionality. Flash however... Is an abomination that forces me to download an ENTIRE SITE (when coded in that mess) before seeing even the first page. So many sites use flash when there isn't any good reason to, it is just a plague on the internet not unlike the Biblical plagues of frogs or locusts.
  5. For me... Its that thing to use to capture "environment" to mix with my clean lav tracks. On a recent studio project, I used two different booms instead of any lavaliers (hey, its indoors in a proper studio, should sound great, right?) for the most part... Yes. But I still think lav would have given perfect audio, avoiding even the slightest glitches, just because I am my own harshest critic. I want it perfectly clean every time. If a producer asked me if I owned a boom however... I would become VERY nervous about the quality of that upcoming production.
  6. Hey Jason, I think I talked with those guys at NAB, there was a battery vendor a couple booths away from B&H that was offering a Li-ion battery chemistry in lots of formats, including the gold mount. And you are correct, you have to use their charger with it. Don't misunderstand my preference for NiCd, it just happened to be a great deal at the time. I'm not crazy about the weight, but you can't argue with "buy these for almost nothing, I have no way to charge them" and a quicky charger from Ebay. Those Li-ion packs look just like the Trimpac, but weigh about 1/4 as much, with twice the power. The ONLY thing that makes me still like the NiCd is this: With one of AB's "Lifesaver" chargers, all the downsides of "memory effect" and improper cycling of the batteries are eliminated. NiCd still has (AFAIK) the best cycle-life of all the options, especially for low-amp-drain (compared to a camera) uses like our audio. The thing to be aware of with any of these is the "recharge-voltage" point, and STOP USING the battery when (or just before) it gets to that point. If you drain the pack below that voltage, the individual cells can be permanently damaged. For a NiCd that produces 1.2v per cell full, (12 cells) I believe the stopping point is at 10.8 volts, or .9 per cell. Battery manufacturers can tell you this number for their packs. In any custom system like we might be using, WE have to be the arbiter of when to stop draining, as a Sound Devices will continue to function with a supply as low as 10v... Which would be critically damaging to the battery. For me, I have a Lifesaver charger which will automatically condition and protect the AB batteries when needed, so I stop at 11.0 volts, just for an extra little bit of safety for the battery.
  7. I'm not certain what others use, but I personally haven't aligned with the NP1 crowd b/c I'm not impressed by the lack of a locking connector for it. I scored a couple older Anton Bauer Trimpac batteries which are compatible with a slim Gold Mount locking sled. With either a D-tap or 4-pin XLR to get the power out, (I use the XLR with a custom distribution cable) I currently power my bag from the AB for much of the day. I also use the AB to power an AT895 microphone separately, and after 8 hours on set, it was STILL reading 14.3 volts. Your bag life will vary I'm sure, as I'm only using a 722 and a 442 in the bag, with a Lectro Venue base station for wireless. With that setup, I can go at least half the day without changing a battery. The AB Trimpac is a 45watt hour battery, 14.4 nominal NiCd chemistry.
  8. Uh-oh... My boom op buddy (who has been spending a recent windfall on gear for both of us) just bought one of those series here with just that usage in mind. Now, I'm not so sure that was a good purchase, although I didn't get a chance to give a lot of input about the cost or the selection before he got it. Personally, I think he paid too much, but I haven't seen it yet to really evaluate it.
  9. Points to the Senator for accuracy - Yes, I was referring to the 1/4 wave BNC omni whips that are supplied with the likes of Lectro, Shure, or Audio Technica. I haven't worked with any portable units that came with 1/2 wave, but I did use some Shure rack-mount units that had them in a theatre. Not bad, I honestly didn't notice any problems with reception from those, even though I was at 100' distance from the stage at the closest. This was the same theatre where I was stuck using a couple of 3dB-or-10dB-gain sharkfins for half of the wireless... Set on 10dB (and I was told not to modify) in a 180 seat concrete block theatre and they wondered why they were constantly having high frequency transient issues. The units I set up that could only use the 1/2 wave omni whips? Worked great, thanks. I banged my head against that place's entrenched ideas that they "were right in all things" for 9 months, until I finally realized where the problems were coming from - Pride and nepotism. The person who had selected all that gear (and insisted that the fins were needed to prevent wireless harmonics) believed he knew everything there was to know about wireless... Yet understood nothing of physics. He was convinced that a TV station 30 miles away (and 75 mhz) from our wireless would cause harmonics that would be detectable. He also insisted that b/c Shure's Wireless Workbench software said only 15 channels could be used... That was it, period. I don't think he liked it very much when in my first theatre show there... I had 22 channels working perfectly fine together, not interfering with anyone. The question was, was he more annoyed that I got more than his precious program said were possible... Or that I had gone directly to Shure to get the frequency chart, and not coordinated with his department? FYI: This was inside a solid concrete and steel theatre building, where the nearest building using wireless was more than 500 feet away across a parking lot. Our signals didn't even leave the lobby.
  10. Wireless antennas (the factory ones anyway) are an omnidirectional style. Sharkfins are fairly directional, and the receiving surface is the edge facing away from the mounting point. Think of them like an arrow - Point directly to the target. In a high-RF environment, fins can help you pick out your signal, but it has been my experience that if you are too close to your source transmitter, an amplified antenna can actually cause MORE problems than just letting the factory antenna deal with the environment. Think of it like audio input peaking from too much gain - You get too much signal, but you are also bringing the noise floor above the gate level too - Which lets it into the audible range. Even working in a live theatre situation, I don't use fins unless I am getting to the limit of the "factory distance" so that I let the system do its normal filtering. I would use the fins at distances of 75-150 feet, mounted as high as feasible on my cart to try and clean a marginal signal. For normal operation, running the factory antennas from the top of my cart / bag with the cart just off set (distance ~30') has been great. Then again... I work mainly in an RF desert - There isn't much around where I'm at usually.
  11. True... Which begs the question: For those of us operating Part 15 devices (that's everything we use) with exceedingly low power outputs (less than 250mw) where the sum-total range of our field of influence is less than 1000' of detectable signal... Other than the moral implications of operating a transient "pirate radio" transmitter... Who's to know what we-the-mosquitos are doing besides us alone? Part 15 specifically states that we cannot cause harmful interference to anything else, and assuming that the gear we have hasn't been modified in some way, it won't. At the same time, our power levels are so low as to be jammed off the air by just about anything else, so the chance of US causing interference with something operating at a MUCH higher output power is minuscule to the extreme. Even some consumer gear like a CB radio operates at 4 WATTS which is about 2000 times stronger than our microphones. Should a perfect atmospheric inversion allow that 26mHz frequency to cause a harmonic against a microphone frequency (call it VHF for this example) that microphone won't have a prayer of cutting through the jamming from the CB power. Its the same with TV stations now, that we have to steer around, or the coming-someday internet providers. We won't be noticed by them, but we will have to steer around their blocks of noise to find a hole for our microphones. Technically, according to my own letter-of-the-law reading, ANY wireless microphone on ANY block is capable of being a "pirate radio" transmitter unless the operator has been registered and licensed, and the location of that transmitter is known to the FCC. Are we really going to do that for all our out-on-location shoots? Of course not. So in that respect, we are already in the gray area and have been left alone. Where is the harm that until such time as we cannot operate (due to the start-up of the internet transmissions) in Block 27, we continue to use gear we already have? Part 15 says WE will be the ones to suffer interference, not anyone else... So why not have at it for as long as we can?
  12. Good point to watch out on the voltages! Lithium AA batteries push out at least 1.7 in some cases, I had a couple in a Sound Devices MM-1 a few days ago, even after being in use for hours, they were STILL registering 1.6 volts. Your mileage may vary, but I wouldn't want to try using more than 3 lithiums to power that little thing (or anything else that wants 5v like USB)
  13. In the air and on the way.... I somehow managed to get a "free trial" of the $13 inflight internet, my first win of this Vegas trip! I'm looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow night.
  14. Respectfully, I disagree with part of this. I have seen plenty of people with really expensive gear at their disposal (both camera and audio) capture... Less than stellar results. At the same time, if you have someone who truly understands their gear, amazing things can be captured with more affordable stuff. I'm not leaning on something like a Zoom for the quality of the mics or their preamps... But I do use my Zoom as the recorder on small jobs that are looking to save money. I haven't had any complaints when I go line level into the Zoom, quite the opposite. The answer back is usually that it is some of the best field audio they have ever heard. Yea, I know if they are nickle-and-diming, they probably haven't heard truly professional field audio that much before, and certainly are ignoring the post costs of bad field sound. But we all have to work with what we have in our bags. Better to be the best with what you can afford, right? An infinite number of monkeys with macbooks would eventually re-write all of Shakespeare's work... But it wouldn't be easy to edit. But one Shakespeare with nothing but a pen and paper did it already.
  15. JimMansen: I like that idea! Are the Lectro Battery Eliminators universal to anything that feeds on 9v normally? Second Q: For camera receiver locations, where are you normally tapping power from? I'll admit, I'm not up on every design of camera, but do they have some form of standardized power tap?
  16. I thought about the Senheiser packs, and yes battery life is another problem... But for the timecode signal, I think that the compander in the wireless is a bigger issue. A wireless TC distribution system is exactly the idea that I had, using one transmitter and multiple receivers. The trick will be using a system that doesn't alter the audio signal of the TC. Battery life also can be worked with, I've used some older wireless systems (very cheap now thankfully) that don't have a lot of features, but do have INSANE battery life - Like 10 hours on alkaline 9 volts. I can't imagine what they would do on the lithiums or rechargables. The nice thing is that these don't have companders either. The fidelity isn't great, but they should (hopefully) work. Hence why testing is needed. I wouldn't mind sending a scratch feed from my 442 (mono) on one of those, and the TC on the other channel for double protection of sync. Then, if they can't see the slate screen b/c of the brightness... You still have TC.
  17. I'm not surprised that the brightness wouldn't match a Denecke. Older LED-type displays are a lot more powerful at a limited function range than a full-on LCD display. Syncing timecode over wifi... I'd be concerned about latency of the signal. I'm working some theories about this, and as soon as I get my hands on an ipad I plan to start some small tests of stability of the signal. I think there might be a way to jam it over audio wireless from a master somewhere else, and that would eliminate the drift problem.
  18. If anyone IS rushing out to get the new one, message me if you want to sell the original for a reasonable price. I'm looking at it for just that Movie*Slate app, I don't care about the 3g (Tmobile tethering on my iphone) and 16gb or up is fine. Basically... I have some theories I want to test about that timecode generator and syncing it wirelessly (both audio wireless or wifi) and this would be a good experiment bed for it. I think the app is decent, but not perfect. BUT there might be a way to get it a lot closer to perfect relatively easily. As for the memory in the new ones... Don't count on a huge bump. Ram is CHEAP, yet Lord Steve (or the sweater) decided to NOT jump the iphone's memory in a big way with the i4, or the 3GS when they could have. How about even the 3g? Same memory as the original. Sad. Lord Steve thinks that thinner is better, not more functional, or we would also have an SD card slot in the thing.
  19. I love the support and the speed through Tapatalk, but there is one problem that I hope you can look into when you have a minute: that dang captcha on the private message screen. In Tapatalk, it doesnt exist, but I get a notification pop-up that says the letters do not match what was(nt) displayed. Love the functionality and the lack of Cheep Reebonk shoe ads here tho! --Jim Hulse
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