codyman

That's crazy. Did you successfully argue with them about it I hope?

Where did you encounter this? Does sound like some sort of crap that above the line would try to pull though...

I generally bring everything with me from the states. It's nice to shoot somewhere where there is a rental house just in case of an emergency issue with gear, but I would hate to rely on showing up in a foreign country expecting gear to be ready and/or what you expected. Quality and care of rental gear can vary greatly depending on country.

Thanks, Glen. Hooked up a standard 1/8" cable to a 1/4" adapter and I was in business just like that! Love this MM-1!

Trying to think of an easy/cheap talkback solution to my boom op. He's on wireless boom via an MM-1 coupled to an SMQV but I'd like to wirelessly be able to communicate with him. Since his headphones are already hooked up to the MM-1 and it provides an auxiliary TRS input, is there a way to maybe wire a standard set Motorola walkie's earphone output to that TRS input? I know on the side of the walkie, there's a 3.5mm and 2.5mm? jack (not sure which one is the output vs mic input). Any thoughts on this?

See if you can at least get your hands on a Sound Devices 633. I just used mine in Rwanda for a month and it didn't skip a beat no matter the weather or conditions.

Does anyone know if this setup accepts line level into the transmitter and then can output line level out of the receiver? I'm thinking this might be a cheap talkback solution to my boom op who is using an MM-1 and thus can listen in on a separate line feed.

Well it is just a timecode box but for <$500 USD it's proven to be a highly accurate, well built little device. I can't tell you how many people I know including camera department folks have bought one upon seeing how great mine all are.

True words indeed! I emailed him at damn near midnight according to his timezone and he still replied less than an hour later with a solution that fixed it in about 5 seconds! For future reference, if you need to "reset" the unit for any reason, his words of advice were, "Try to do SW reset. Turn SBOX-1 off,remove batteries,put them back and hold !! all three !! buttons together for 5s. Screen should be black in this 5s. After that it will start normally with resetted SW. It should help!"

So I randomly am getting an issue with Betso box. It won't show any generated timecode and a lot of the menus say "Dummy" for the fields you can select. Anyone know about this issue? I tried contacting Betso support via their website but I haven't had any replies (sent a message 5+ days ago). Anyone know of a direct email I could use to contact them?

Yikes. Talk about a horrible experience. We are definitely lucky here in America though, especially with how much power the American passport has. When I was filming in Africa, I started talking to one of our local PA's who was studying film at a local school. He had been invited to go to London to be on a feature during his summer break and how crazy it was for him to be able to get the permission to travel into that country was INSANE. Every time I go to visit my friends/family in the UK, I just have to jump on a direct flight to Heathrow and jet laggedly answer the always unwelcoming UK border officer a few questions. Hell, even to get into his African nation, all I had to do was travel to his country and fill out a form + pay $30 (both upon arrival).

If the call is say 8am, I invoice OT generally for anything over 8pm-ish. That being said, if I am taillights at 8:15pm I usually let it slide but if it's 9,10pm and it's now hours after supposed wrap time, I charge OT, ESPECIALLY if there is a forced call the next day.

Rwanda (a non Carnet country) were clearly just baffled by all of our equipment... they looked at it all, and then would look at our itemized equipment list, then back at the equipment, repeat, repeat, repeat. About 20 minutes later the poor guy just gave up and just let us into the country.

That's unfortunate. My experiences here have been mostly positive, but I'm assuming there's a few "bad eggs" on here that have nothing to add to otherwise productive conversation than just being a nuisance. That's the Internet for you though (unfortunately)!

I've been using an MM-1 / SMQV combo for years, sounds great!

I stopped by IBC today and took a look at it. Solid build quality like always and pretty slick...

I've been using two myself for over a year now. I've had lockits and Denecke boxes before but I've never been happier than with my Betso boxes! NiMH batteries last days in them and they hold so solid that I don't even bother rejamming at lunch. Can't beat the price either!

Yikes! Never fun... I'll be on holiday in the UK (including a wedding in Staffordshire of all places...) the beginning of September if you need any parts etc from Los Angeles. P.S. The 6x SMQA's + VR Field I purchased from you a while back has been holding up great!

What delivery service did you send them with? Just curious because although I haven't had any issues with any of the usual main carriers, my father who works in electronics has faced problems shipping internationally from time to time and now he swears by DHL so I've been using them too. They seem to clear customs really quickly too!

I use Google Calendar and would be lost without it. My girlfriend can see what days I'm working so we can plan personal events accordingly...

For $999, I'm thinking this might be a no brainer buy for just process trailer / "bag drop" things. I could put this into my bag with my 2x SRb's + IFB, sit in the rig's cab and monitor / change settings on the fly while reducing the range of wireless...

I've been using one on my cart for ~3 years now... it's been a solid unit. Limiters have been "fine"... wouldn't say as good as my SD's limiters but they seem to do the trick and have saved me plenty of times. Pre's have been really clean to me (I've actually even used the unit to record music before and it turned out great). It does like to suck some juice power wise. I currently run the HS-P82 with a Lectrosonics Venue and with a 180wh battery, I sometimes get a day out of it if I shut everything down between major setup changes, although it seems that an hour or two before the end of the day, I do sometimes have to swap the battery out. The only warranty issue I've had was that on the unit, one of the "pop out" gain knobs decided to pop out and not be able to go back in (despite it still working 100% fine still). It was more of a cosmetic issue than anything but thankfully Teac/Tascam is right here in Los Angeles so I dropped the unit off and they fixed it with a quick turn around time. One word of caution, make sure to make sure you don't run out of battery with the unit when you're recording because if the battery dies mid take, you will lose that take. Also, the timecode clock in the unit has been so-so to me, so I usually keep a lock it locked to it to make sure it doesn't drift. Other than those two qualms, it's been a solid unit and it's infinitely more affordable to have a HS-P82 + fader pack than any similar offerings from SD/Zax!

If a client asks you to use their own gear because they want to penny pinch the living hell out of you, tell them that if you use their gear, and something goes wrong, you are not responsible for any lost / no sound. That should scare them enough into letting you use your own gear.

With how small and affordable it is, seems like a great backup recorder for my cart / can rent it out to people if someone is looking for a basic recorder.

It's amazing how all these new boards have USB to multitrack off of. I would have killed for that feature years ago in terms of recordingrecording small concerts vs a cluster you know what of isolated splitters and cables running everywhere.