WhyOne

Purchased a new 788T-SSD at the beginning of this season, and the EXT burner has been the only glitchy piece in the chain. In addition to "I/O ERROR", or just plain burping the DVD out in the middle of a take, I also experience "SLOW" often - even when recording only three or four tracks. All new gear. After new drives, cables - still happening. I agree with Mr. Perkins - wart powering the drive as opposed to bus powering dropped the frequency of glitches to about one third. On the upside of things, I also record to the internal CF, and it is the CF that is used for dailies (just buy a firewire 800 CF drive for $65 and give it to post - they will start loving the CF delivery in no time - fast, dependable, and fast). On my show the DVDs are used only for archiving - at the end of each episode I dump the entire episode from the internal SSD to an external hard drive (supplied by post) and that is all audio post uses. Next phase is to lose the DVD burner altogether, as the cost of a 64G external SSD is equal to the twenty DVDs used each episode, still using the CF drive for dailies while building the episode on both the internal and external SSDs, passing off the external SSD to post at the end of the episode. The external SSD becomes the archival format after it is used by post. One episode, one SSD . The SSD is only aged when rewriting; no rewriting and the drive should last way over fifty years at the current predictions. When this phases becomes reality - NO MOVING PARTS IN THE ENTIRE AUDIO WORKFLOW. Yes!!!

My two cents: For system interconnect I use the Mogami Star-Quad, its served shield is 100% coverage. The same served shield will eventually open up after repeated use, so I use it for interconnect that is stable. For anything leaving the cart I use the Canare Star Quad - 95% braided shield - as long as it is wrapped and stored properly, i agree with the others: it will last for years. Neutrik connectors when possible, yet their design is now licensed to many manufacturers abroad and in the states (otherwise all this stuff is foreign made). Belden Star Quad is also excellent. Note on Neutrik - avoid the BXX, use the old standard BX - many reported problems with the BXX connectors becoming noisy with use. For antennae cable I use RG-8X exclusively. Last but not least, if you are a member of IATSE Local 695, we have an EXCELLENT soldering class almost every Wednesday that is free to members.

Adam, By all means, please talk to Scott Bernard at the Local. That being said, as far as I know there only three ways: 1) Work thirty days, in the position you wish to enter as, on a union show. This is Federal law. 2) Prove 100 days with Contract Services (against letters from employers) with the pay stubs that match the days listed by the employers, in the position you wish to enter as... And 3) HELP ORGANIZE THESE INDIES. Call the Local and report every show you work on. Call the West Coast Office of the IA and ask the IA to come down and get cards signed. Talk to your co-workers about signing. If you are on a show that turns, you will be ASKED to join the Local immediately, no pay stubs required. Jay Patterson, CAS

Additional notes on battery gear: Chargetek RITC-1120: 120VAC 6amps AC max draw, delivers up to 20 amps DC, on-board micro-processor controls charge current for lead-acid batteries. The thing is potted for marine use, only time I've seen one blow was a 240VAC event. Made in the USA. Batteries: AGMs. Best I've found are from EastPenn, called "MK"s. 33AH in the old PowerSonic 20AH size, and many larger - much larger! Made in the USA. Both of these lines are carried by www.batterystuff.com, usually with free shipping on the batts

Never give up...

For the group... The power demands for cart based production keep growing, yet power is one thing I hate to worry about. I think that Ron's group and Glen's group have created stunningly fine products for the distribution of large DC current on a cart, but as some of you may be aware of, Mike Riner at WB beat them to it several years ago with a poly-fused distribution system that has been in use for several years now. His system has none of the bells and whistles of the PSC or Remote systems, but it works like a charm and got the UPSs of the set. Mike also found the coolest power supply/charger out there. Now that I'm off the WB lot, with my own stuff again, I designed a cart powering system that is so over-kill that I just don't worry about power. Based on the Charge-Tek RTIC-1120 Marine Grade 12VDC Charger (and Phil P.- it IS clean enough to run digital gear without additional filtering!), I am using the Remote Audio Hot Strip for distro, and floating on an 80AH AGM battery. Heavy? Yes. Can you say 5 hours running a Cooper 208 (with all inputs on), a loaded Venue, two IFBs and two 195s, two LCD monitors, a 788T-SSD, DVD-RAM burner, two 160W inverters driving a Shark, and an 85W Apple power supply? I can!

Hey Senator! Long time... Are you still using your 1st run 106? Still have mine (serial #2!), but use my 208 these days... Sorry group for being off topic Jay Patterson, CAS

In 2002, with the advent of Lectro's 205Ds, I felt that the wireless links were strong enough to support a cable-free sound department in the arena of episodic television. Toward that end, I switched to the Mod Magliner to hold the additional gear and a mast. Backstage EQ was happy to fab an arm, 24" long (the same dimension as the Magliner width) with a baby receiver welded underneath. the receiver was offset from center, so that mounted on a legless c-stand u-bolted to the nose of the cart, when the stand was compressed for travel, the arm had the same 24" profile as the cart, and therefore protected during truck travel. Five holes for expansion. I have worked with the arm in many configurations since, but it was one of the best investments... The current mast is a mambo with a c-stand inserted as the smallest element, allowing me to elevate over 16' when necessary. The arm currently holds four PSC batwings, and two quarter wave whips. The outer two antenna are the diversity pair for a Venue system, looping out to two Lectro 195s (used by the boom folk for talk-back). They are a little over a wavelength apart at 500MHz. The inner pair feed two UHF TV receivers (A cam and B cam), and the two quarter wave whips are two Lectro IFB transmitting antennas. Six runs of RG-8X cable snake 20' to the box, where all of the wireless hardware lives. With careful tuning, the transmitting antennas do not interfere with the receiving antennas. This system has worked through the progression of 4 205s in a one rack distro unit, through a 411 sixpack, to the current Venue WBL. The two IFB transmitters and the two 195 receivers live in a one unit DC distro panel (purchased from Lectro). The cool thing about the arm, is that with a baby receicer on it, it can mount on all grip gear - from a mambo outside of the tent for rain, from a grip arm on an insert car, to extending out of an eleventh story window to receive from the rooftop. Last week, using SMVs at 100mw, and the mast at full extension, I was able to play a scene on a golf course over one hundred yards away. When I can figure out how to attach pix I will (Sorry - new-poster!) Jay Patterson, CAS

Using both the SMQVs and the SMVs, I agree with David W. It is not so much about the extended range, but in weird locations (such as prisons and factories loaded with steel) the extra power definitely cuts down on multi-path drop-outs. I tend to use them more for wireless booms, however, as talent has become use to the small packs. Jay Patterson, CAS

21 has KCET (28) and KFTR (29) and anything you use close to them will be affected. 22 has KTLA (31) and KDOC (32), but they are at the high end of 22. I find more clear areas in 22 than 21. I can usually use three freqs in each. Hope that is helpful! Jay Patterson, CAS

I CAN'T WAIT to record in the field with no moving parts! I am currently using a 788T-SSD, turning in one CF and one DVD-RAM to post. They don't even use the DVD (except for the very occasional file that won't open), but are saving the DVD for "archival" purposes. The CFs are returned to me the next day. I can save over five episodes on the internal SSD. At the end of an episode, Post sends me a robust hard-drive, and I transfer the entire episode. Post now has the entire episode on one drive till the dub. They love it. We are moving away from the DVD - it will be replaced by a duplicate CF (recorded on an outboard Lexar FW800 - $55) so that the chance of a media error drops to almost zero. Telecine loves this - if a file won't open, they pull one card and use the 2nd, and continue with the session. BTW - using the SD speed test, the Lexar performs significantly better than the SD internal CF drive! DVDBGone...

I am using three channels on 21 and three on 22, half the time at Radford and half downtown, and I've never seen a scan image as bad as the photo. My worst experiences downtown (LA) have been close to dense microwave traffic where I've seen dense activity across both channels, and its back to hardwire. I believe it is important to note that intra-system coordination is paramount. Open shields on IFB transmitters can cause havoc; cameras on adjacent channels can cause heavy IM and system grounding issues may play a heavy role. When the spectrum seems really bad I start turning off devices in my system, looking for improvement. Often self-generated RF is the problem. I use a single mast (a mambo with a c-stand inserted as the last element) that can elevate to almost twenty feet, with four batwings and two 1/4 wave whips - all on the same arm - which gives me diversity for a venue, individual antennae for two tv receivers, and two IFB transmitters. All are connected using RG-8X (20'). It takes several hours of fine tuning to make the system work without creating self-interference, yet it does work very well. The most horrendous problems I have had this season have been in the vicinity of police and emergency transmitters that were creating loads of spurious emissions, probably due to poor system tuning, that the transmitting parties had no knowledge of. Cyclone fences may contribute to the traffic.

Just a word on the competition... I have been using VMWare Fusion on my MBPro to run Windows XP Pro for the Hearts game and the Venue display (in that order!), and find the software to be very reliable and easy to use. Loaded the LecNet software and drivers from the disk, and it works very well, all the time. One of the nicest aspects of the program is the easy interface for choosing what I/O devices are on which side of the machine (Mac side/Windows side), and the ease of switching I/O back and forth. VMWare updates when necessary, decent support.