Flint

Thanks all ... and thanks Brian —Houston local! I have a bunch of 21s & 22s so that should work out. I will also have a look at TVfool. Cheers my audio brothers!

Hi all, I have a shoot coming up in Houston in a couple of weeks and I'm wondering what the RF world is like down there. What Lectro blocks work well there? Or should I say —which are problematic? Thanks in advance for your help.

I have a shoot coming up in Australia (East Coast) and I'm wondering if there are any Lectro blocks that have known interference problems. My hope is to use blocks 25 & 26 as I own many in that range. Any help would be great. Thanks all.

Hey Chris, I've not had much experience the Field VRs as I was never happy with their size, but I do have a bag with multiple 411a's that I often use with the dipole antennas. If you use a splitter the result is about 3db of signal degradation per splitter. I have found that the range is slightly increased using the dipoles with the best results being achieved by placing the antennas as high as possible (usually out of the bag) —not much use if you need to move around. As for shark fins I have 2 sets that I use with my rack mount Venues and they have quite good range. The powered 650 antennas in particular are very good and have substantial range. So if you need range out of your system, and you can mount the antennas and have power to supply the 650's then that is the way to go, but the whole point of a bag system is to be mobile, so I'm not sure if there is much point in using the fins unless you absolutely need the range and can forego the mobility. Hope that helps.

Jon is correct ... but then many people have worked on Mark's shows ... I do know Jeremy has held the top post on Survivor for many seasons now ... as for Pirates ... that ship sank ... sorry Jim ... not your fault. F.

I was thinking of bringing a CMIT on a recent Nat Geo thing I did in Africa, but a chap I know who has one said I should reconsider as he has had moisture issues... so I ended up bringing my trusty MKH70 ... that mic will never let you down. I did bring my CMC6 with a 41 capsule as well, but I only brought it out when we shot on a train ... so it was fine —but I'm not sure I would use it in the jungle. Regardless the CMIT, as are all the Schoeps, nice mics. F.

I agree with Jeff, buy the used Lectros if you have jobs that will pay them off ... there does seem to be deals lurking out there. I've seen new looking 411s on eBay with a TX for $2000 —200 series even cheaper. As for Zaxcom I own them as well ... love the TRX900 as a hop. JEFF QUESTION ... have you had any problems with timecode using the TRX. Along with my clockits on the cameras, I've jammed mine with my Ambient master clock and checked the TRX code on the BWFs after importing into an Avid system (to test code accuracy). The timecode on the imported camera tapes was perfect, but the code on the TRX files (not the unit itself - it appeared fine on the TRX display) was miles off ... not even close, not talking drift ... the code left the building. I know there has been some issues with the firmware (spent many hours back and forth with Howy on that one) ... wondering if you've had any issues. Thanks —love the forum.

What brand/model are your camera RX's? Where are the video TXs mounted relative to your RXs? What distance are you operating from? What are the RF spectrum scans showing? I assume you have tried a number of freqs to rule out intermod problems. You said you don't know what brand/model of video TXs they are using ... might be good to know. Then you can look into known issues (if any).

I would also suggest using wireless camera hops for the eng guys ... reality on the end of a wire is not a great idea .... as well as wireless monitors for the eng mixers to look at who's in frame ... but as you say —it's all about what the budget will allow ... the bigger the better ... and every situation is different.

I am using 1 PreSonus Firestudio and 2 Digimax FS units. I have the Firestudio talking to my 17" MacBook Pro via FW800 and the 2 Digimax's lightpiped to the Firestudio. This way core audio sees the 3 essentially as 1 device which avoids clocking issues. I'm using an Allen & Heath i/o mixer with 3 Lectro venues and a couple of 500 gig drives ... along with a few other bells & whistles. It's turned out to be rock solid ... something I tested before starting the show ... Project Runway Canada. Beside running Boom Recorder for lengthy periods of time my biggest concern was RF ... My Venues have 18 VRT's in them plus I have multiple cameras run & gunning with Zaxcom camera hops ... Ambient lockits and my trusty 501 keeping everything timed together. I do a pre-fader mix of all the iso tracks and a stereo mix for dailies and a 2 mix that runs through my comp/limiter ... as well as eng mixers running around recording 2 tracks to the cameras to help with the edit. Alot to keep track of ... but reality shows are getting bigger everytime I turn around. I'm new to the forum ... so I thought I'd chime in from time to time cause I've been reading the postings on a regular basis, and since we all like to talk shop I thought it was about time I dropped in a comment or two. Love the forum ... nice work Jeff.

At the moment I'm using Boom Recorder w. 3 PreSonus interfaces on a large-ish reality show ... 19+ trks 15 hrs a day ... flawless audio ... perfect timecode/word sync thanks to my Ambient 501 ... I too don't care about the lack of mirror in Boom as I'm writing 100+ gigs per day —so burning to dvd is not an option ... and if post doesn't mind importing that amount of data —good for them I say ... I'm begining to think the Deva's days may be numbered ... mind you on smaller jobs it is a solid platform ... but in today's mega reality show world, computer recording is the way to go ... bytes for thought.