Zaxcom 900 with the Stereo Adapter & IFB 100

[Ron Scelza]

Dear All,

Nothing like a challenge…  I probably would have said "NO" to this project unless I had the opportunity to work along with Wayne Brissette and learn something.  This was a TV Pilot shooting  "That Video Stuff"... 

That stuff" is not at the top of my operational knowledge…  "Wayne's brain and work ethic were stretched to the max on this three camera, double system, eight wireless, two man crew, HD video shoot, With audio playback! 

We opted to send a wireless feed to the cameras as a guide track using the Zaxcom Stereo Adaptor with the Zaxcom 900's from the Deva V and a Denecke Loc box for frame accurate TC jamming.. It all added up to a problem free experience...  (Saving my sound report administration)...

We also had a Zaxcom IFB100 on board for use as a remote audio monitor of the cameras and TC reference….  Given, this ambitious project!  We have yet to have the time to hang the Zaxcom IFB100 on a camera and it check out... We were able to do an isolated test and determined that the IFB100 will be an invaluable tool when used with the Zaxcom Stereo Adapter for this type of venue.

The quality of the guide track sound was as good as it can be once processed threw the Panasonic HDX 900. The best was the freedom the wireless gave us to do other things. Like not having to run cables to the camera and the incredible dynamic range of the Zaxcom 900's (lots of loud and soft)…  The field strength of the Zaxcom 900 with the Stereo adapter coupled to a shark fin --"Infinite.

I'm pleased to say...  It all worked very well and without incident...

Sincerely

Ron Scelza C.A.S.

[wbrisett]

Nothing like a challenge…  I probably would have said "NO" to this project unless I had the opportunity to work along with Wayne Brissette and learn something. 

hmmm... I think it was I that did most of learning.

Actually this project was hampered initially by our lack of understanding of the IFB100 and how it worked. What we wanted is to keep the video cameras in-sync with the Deva by constantly providing time code from the Deva to the Camera. However, that's not how it the IFB100 works, it works reverse of that. You take the camera's time code and feed it into the Deva. Because of how we had to work, this was not something that was going to work with us. However, I can see this setup working perfectly in other situations.

And I will agree with Ron, I think this particular shoot pushed both of us to our limits (in many ways)... In all honestly, it's rare that people who respect each other as much as we do get the opportunity to work together, I feel very lucky that I was able to work with Ron and learn from him. I'm not sure he learned anything from me, I think I did all the learning.

Wayne

[rich]

if you look in the instruction pdf for the 900 system. there is a little 5 pin lemo on the receiver that i was told in the future will allow you to receive timecode (and video sync if i remember correctly) from the trx900 which in turn can be sycned from the ifb100. so i imagine that once (maybe if) this add on becomes available, then this will allow you to sync the cameras to the deva's timecode.

[wbrisett]

if you look in the instruction pdf for the 900 system. there is a little 5 pin lemo on the receiver that i was told in the future will allow you to receive timecode

Both Ron and I had our TRX900 units shipped to Zaxcom prior to this shoot as we had older 900 MHz IFB units, and needed them updated to the 2.4 GHz IFB. None of  our units have this timecode output either, so this must be something new. I'll have to find out about this connector. I did end up speaking with Glenn one morning and discussing the issues with him. He is the person who told me what we were trying to do with the IFB and time code was backwards, thus why we couldn't get it to work. We did get the wireless hop to work fine (although one of their cameras had some serious sound input issues), and it was great not having to run cable everywhere.

Wayne