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What delay device is best?


Izen Ears

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Yow that's alotta delay!  No small delay I know of will do that much--3 sec is at the limit of most cheap old Ebay studio boxes, if they can do that!   The Sescoms worked really well for me for delays up to 300ms, even when I was having to chase the delay value around due to different network latencies for different participants in a multiscreen show with "live" action.  The DIT monitor rig really 3 seconds of latency?

 

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1 hour ago, Philip Perkins said:

Yow that's alotta delay!  No small delay I know of will do that much--3 sec is at the limit of most cheap old Ebay studio boxes, if they can do that!   The Sescoms worked really well for me for delays up to 300ms, even when I was having to chase the delay value around due to different network latencies for different participants in a multiscreen show with "live" action.  The DIT monitor rig really 3 seconds of latency?

 

I'm honestly not sure. I couldn't see it for myself but the AD, who thought I was causing the problem, said it was "a lot". I know that doesn't mean much. I'm guessing it probably is just a few frames. No one could tell me if they thought it was more than a second or not. I'll try to see for myself and maybe pick up the Sescom or AV toolbox.

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Can you feed the coms from the Qtake? This will ensure that sound is synced to the picture delay. 
The only time this will be problematic, is if the director is close enough to set to hear the difference in the bleed through their cans +the delayed feed. This would be a problem with the added delay approach as well though

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As Patrick and Wyatt say, try to extract the embedded audio from the video signal. A simple camera hop solution should be implemented so there's always audio within the video line. There may be a headphone jack on the computer that acts as a monitor (or use the Apple Lightning-adaptor in case of an Ipad). No matter how much video processing time there is it will be in sync and you're out of responsibility.

 

The problem is the delayed video, not your audio.

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16 hours ago, Wyatt Tuzo said:

Can you feed the coms from the Qtake? This will ensure that sound is synced to the picture delay. 
The only time this will be problematic, is if the director is close enough to set to hear the difference in the bleed through their cans +the delayed feed. This would be a problem with the added delay approach as well though

I'm down for this except the VTR guy doesn't have any analog audio outs...his cart is like all SDI. But as Mungo mentions below, maybe the headphone jack out of his computer is a viable option.

 

13 hours ago, Patrick Farrell said:

The video guy should feed the monitors live from his switcher so there’s no delay needed. Then when they ask for playback he switches to the Qtake output. 
 

Also are you feeding audio to his cart and getting a return?

I agree but for whatever reason (I'll ask), his system introduces delay even when in "live" mode. I think because it's so stripped down, he doesn't have all the routing abilities to give them a direct return (bypassing his software). I am feeding him a line but he is unable to give me a return as of now.

 

8 hours ago, Mungo said:

As Patrick and Wyatt say, try to extract the embedded audio from the video signal. A simple camera hop solution should be implemented so there's always audio within the video line. There may be a headphone jack on the computer that acts as a monitor (or use the Apple Lightning-adaptor in case of an Ipad). No matter how much video processing time there is it will be in sync and you're out of responsibility.

 

The problem is the delayed video, not your audio.

The camera hop solution is not a bad idea as long as I can get a return from him to feed the comteks. I'll see if that's possible and if camera department is open to having a hop (not something I really feel like doing but might be the easiest solution right now). You're all right, it's not really my problem and I don't want to spend extra money to fix it.

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He's got some 2 input Focusrite interface (which should be all he needs audio-wise). I didn't really look into his cart to be honest. He now tells me he's getting a Black Magic SDI to analog audio converter which I'm hoping will do the trick. Once we solve that, we'll have to address people being too close to set who experience the live sound and then the delayed sound.

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1 hour ago, BAB414 said:

He's got some 2 input Focusrite interface (which should be all he needs audio-wise). I didn't really look into his cart to be honest. He now tells me he's getting a Black Magic SDI to analog audio converter which I'm hoping will do the trick. Once we solve that, we'll have to address people being too close to set who experience the live sound and then the delayed sound.

If he has a 2 input focusrite, he likely also has outputs on it. Use this to feed your return

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I went searching for a delay box for a series of live vr shows to get us up to 2 secs, and I never found a suitable small unit.  I ended up always stacking delays, sometimes combining an fx bus and output delay on my console.  I am still looking for a good solution for my regular sound cart which relies on Zaxcom recorders instead of my SQ5 console.


  I use a dbx with my console system,  but it's rack mount and ac powered which doesn't fit well with my primary sound cart.

 

Is the Behringer shark still made?  When I search for it I come up with a lot of product listings show "No longer available".

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20 hours ago, Wyatt Tuzo said:

If he has a 2 input focusrite, he likely also has outputs on it. Use this to feed your return

Good call. Yes he does. He didn't seem to be aware of that or how an interface works. It's quite the interesting job.

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Just for fun I started to code a delay. (Well, that's done, now making an interface...)
Any source in / any device out, adjustable delay as long as you want.
It' quite easy to make, just store chunks of sound in a buffer, and read from that buffer. Only drawback, if you change the delay, it will skip parts of sound without any dissolve, in chunks of 1/100 of a second.
No clue how that will sound yet.

And yes, you need a computer with sound card, but it hardly will take resources, since it does not do anything except eating a tiny bit of memory to store the sound.

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If this thread is revisited in another 5 years, I've made a small simple (lossless, what goes in goes out) audio delay that can delay up to 10 seconds, in steps of 10 msecs.

(Using any soundcard present.)
It's free, and even brings it's own VU / Peak meters.

Mac only at the moment, but I'll make a Win version when my Win box is powered up again.

 

Download AudioDelay here

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On 6/12/2021 at 12:38 AM, Bouke said:

If this thread is revisited in another 5 years, I've made a small simple (lossless, what goes in goes out) audio delay that can delay up to 10 seconds, in steps of 10 msecs.

(Using any soundcard present.)
It's free, and even brings it's own VU / Peak meters.

Mac only at the moment, but I'll make a Win version when my Win box is powered up again.

 

Download AudioDelay here

Thanks--another indispensable tool from Bouke!

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15 hours ago, Wandering Ear said:

That's great Bouke! 

Any chance of a linux compatible version?  I'm thinking throw this on a raspberry pi with a single channel interface and you have a small hw delay box powered by DC power.

Thanks

 

It should be possible, and perhaps a good time to finally build a Linux box and toy around.
What is the screen resolution you want to use? Touchscreen?

First things first, did any of you test it already? (The latest version, I forgot to put an 'about' in the menu, but if you see the option 16/24 bits, it's current.)
If it does not sound good, what's the point?
(Do test with / without the meters turn on, the meters work in between the chunks, in theory, that could introduce ticks every 10 msec.)

 

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9 hours ago, Bouke said:

 

It should be possible, and perhaps a good time to finally build a Linux box and toy around.
What is the screen resolution you want to use? Touchscreen?

First things first, did any of you test it already? (The latest version, I forgot to put an 'about' in the menu, but if you see the option 16/24 bits, it's current.)
If it does not sound good, what's the point?
(Do test with / without the meters turn on, the meters work in between the chunks, in theory, that could introduce ticks every 10 msec.)

 

For me, this would be a set and forget device, so I might not even use a screen.  I would probably just VNC in to make changes.  That being said, a small touch screen could be a nice addition, or planning on just using my phone as the interface (via vnc).   Either way it would be low resolution, like 640x480.

Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is no help but after six years on that show, I’m on another one where there is a 170ms lag on the director’s monitors.  How do I know it’s 170ms?  Because I easily popped the Kramer delay box in the cart and put it on the Comtek out, and it was 170ms!  I am super stoked to be able to solve the issue without buying anything else.  We just installed the thing yesterday. That Kramer goes up to 5.4 seconds. And it’s awesomely simple and works great!  Heh heh, I have two of these so if needed I could daisy chain them and get 10.8 seconds of delay...

 

Dan

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Since the original post we have added the URX50 and URX100. Each monitor receiver has independent delay settings associated with independent channel settings. In this way a monitor receiver can be set for one channel with delay for monitor viewing and a different channel for live viewing with no delay. It can also be remote controlled. In my opinion delay devices are terrible because no one delay is right for everyone listening and viewing. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
3 hours ago, Izen Ears said:

And to update my deal - the director ended up not liking it because he was often in the room and found it distracting.  Because he could hear their voices in real time...  So after a single take, we took off the delay haha!

That is my experience pretty much too, unless the peeps are in a distant room that can't hear the set directly at all.  But I still end up setting the whole the up anyhow just in case.

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