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Deity Connect.


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Another entrant to the budget wireless world:

 

070.19021.png

 

From the website:

 

Quote

Finally A Professional Grade 2.4Ghz Wireless System

 

Taking a cue from industry professional wireless companies we wanted Deity Connect to have the same reliable signal and audio quality. For this we started off with a list of requirements we knew we had to include:

 

  • Dual Channel Receiver with Top-Down Ergonomics
  • 24bit/48Khz Uncompressed Audio
  • SMA Antenna Ports
  • USB-C QuickCharge
  • OLED Daylight Display Screens
  • Input Gain Control at the TX
  • Adjustable Output Levels
  • Dual Outputs
  • Transmitter with a Low Cut, Limiter, and High Freq Boost
  • >10Hr Battery Life; Charges in 1Hr

 

[…]

 

The RF power output is 100mw / 50mw / 25mw / 10mw/ or AUTO.

 

[…]

 

The Deity Connect ecosystem uses a proprietary protocol that was engineered with several mechanisms to ensure a strong audio link while at the same time co-existing peacefully with other 2.4Ghz devices using the same frequency band. […] The first mechanism is adaptive frequency hopping, automatically hopping before RF interference even happens. […] The second mechanism used to prevent RF Interruption is called Listen-Before-Talk.

 

Price and release date have not been announced, as far as I can tell.

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This is quite interesting and it seems as if they have done a lot of good things in terms of utilizing frequency hoping but I will reserve judgement and/or enthusiasm until such time as someone has been able to put this thing through the paces. No matter how cleverly they have designed their transmission system, they are not able to break the laws of physics  ---  there are several properties of any transmission at 2.4 Ghz that make it less than suitable for talent body-worn transmitters in typical production sound situations. I would love to be proven wrong on this but my only personal experience with 2.4 Ghz wireless was a few years ago with a handheld mic and receiver set from Line 6. It proved to be totally unsuitable when used in any situation where there was any obstacles or a lack of line of sight to the receiver.

 

Hopefully someone is going to get their hands on one of these sets and see what it an do.

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Obviously jury's still out about all the features / sound of it all.  That being said, all these trickled down high tech / pretty darn good pieces of kit definitely make myself envious for those just starting out as you could have an 8 track timecode recorder, boom and 4+ lavs for very very cheap.  A little different than my used 416 and stereo Fostex I started out with only 10ish years ago!

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21 hours ago, codyman said:

Obviously jury's still out about all the features / sound of it all.  That being said, all these trickled down high tech / pretty darn good pieces of kit definitely make myself envious for those just starting out as you could have an 8 track timecode recorder, boom and 4+ lavs for very very cheap.  A little different than my used 416 and stereo Fostex I started out with only 10ish years ago!

Yeah, but the flip side is that there is WAY more competition @ the newb level than there was in the old days, since the barriers to entry are so low.

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1 hour ago, Daniel Ignacio said:

Hoping internal batteries on both the transmitters and receivers are user replaceable.

 

In one of the videos I saw Andrew mentioned that they are not user replaceable. Instead he mentioned that they have Quick charge with a USB-C connector that fully charges the unit in one hour.

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I concur with Jose, I think the internal rechargeable battery is replaceable in the typical sense ---- I'm sure it is removable possibly with some dismantling when at end-of-life it needs to be replaced. For our sort of production sound work on feature movies or television, I would be concerned about the battery run time (which is stated to be 10 hours). 10 hours sounds like a long time but I'm not sure how you work that into the usual schedule most sound teams do now: putting wireless on the actors in the morning, change batteries at lunch (or sooner in some instances) and that will get you through the day. With the Deity, you would have to pull the transmitters off the actors at lunch, put them on charge and hope that your lunch period is enough time to recharge. They are so inexpensive, maybe you just have more transmitters and swap out the whole pack just as you would normally be replacing the batteries.

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On 9/15/2018 at 5:15 AM, Rustic River said:

I wish another company would make wireless mics that can interact with Sony's electronic hot shoe mounts on their cameras the way the UWP-D11 systems do. If a company like Deity could pull that off, it would be extremely intriguing.


It probably is proprietary? That Sony won't let work with anybody else 
Just at a guess

1 hour ago, Jose Frias said:

 

In one of the videos I saw Andrew mentioned that they are not user replaceable. Instead he mentioned that they have Quick charge with a USB-C connector that fully charges the unit in one hour.

They are apparently kinda "user replaceable" if you have a bit of smarts and an electronics background, then you can. But even so, that would only be after years of use, when the battery life span has ran down, would you want to replace it. 

27 minutes ago, Jeff Wexler said:

10 hours sounds like a long time but I'm not sure how you work that into the usual schedule most sound teams do now: putting wireless on the actors in the morning, change batteries at lunch (or sooner in some instances) and that will get you through the day.

 

Remember 10+ hours is the worst case scenario! 
And usually battery life will be even longer thanks to being able to operate at a lower wattage. 

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24 minutes ago, Jeff Wexler said:

I concur with Jose, I think the internal rechargeable battery is replaceable in the typical sense ---- I'm sure it is removable possibly with some dismantling when at end-of-life it needs to be replaced. For our sort of production sound work on feature movies or television, I would be concerned about the battery run time (which is stated to be 10 hours). 10 hours sounds like a long time but I'm not sure how you work that into the usual schedule most sound teams do now: putting wireless on the actors in the morning, change batteries at lunch (or sooner in some instances) and that will get you through the day. With the Deity, you would have to pull the transmitters off the actors at lunch, put them on charge and hope that your lunch period is enough time to recharge. They are so inexpensive, maybe you just have more transmitters and swap out the whole pack just as you would normally be replacing the batteries.

The 10 hours is based on 100 mw RF power. Let's say you use 50 mw, it's should be close to 18 hours. Now there is a neat feature; it also has an auto RF mode. So it constantly is analysing the need for power; is it a couple feet away, it switches to 10mw for example, does the actor walks away, it goes to 25/50 etc. So let's say you are really concerned, you could potentially switch the TX to 10mw everytime there is a light change or long down time, so the run time could easily be around 20h or even more per charge if you follow a certain system for that.

That said, the firmware isn't final and there is plenty room for improvement so maybe even more is possible (sleep mode, no transmission on mute thus really low usage, etc). The internal battery will be relatively easily serviceable, screw the case open, disconnect the lead of the  battery and pop a new one in. 

 

Disclosure; I was invited to work on the Deity booth at the IBC, so I have first hand experience with these prototypes. When the show I over I will write a full 'preview' on all the capabilities and limitations from what I have experienced.

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"We started development in June and now have prototypes here at IBC."

And I think they plan to release these things in six or so months. 

 

So perhaps there's time for some design changes. Like, keep the rechargable battery but put it behind a door so we can replace it if needed. Would the extra cost result in enough extra sales? No idea.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Philip Perkins said:

Sorry--no quick-replace battery=no sale.   The # of battery hours quoted is for a new unit under ideal circumstances.   What if there is no time for a recharge or recharge just gets forgotten in a zombatic turnaround, or a shoot-fly-shoot situation?  

No: the numbers quoted are under the WORST circumstances. And from the conservative kind. Here at the booth the run from about 9:00 till over 18:00 every day without charging or some kind of lunch turn down, and the battery meter still give a couple of bars at the end of the day. We have set them to 100mw. Like I said, because of the auto RF function it will be highly unlikely you will have them continuously blasting 100mw for 10 hours a day. So a real world conservative 15 hours usage will not be unlikely to get.

As for the shit hits the storm, we can't charge, we forgot it or whatever reason, I get that, that's personally I guess, and I see the obligations. Other way around; the charging is done with a quick charge chip; 1 hour to completely recharge it. So let's say you forgot it; 10 minutes of charging gives you a couple of hours of usage. If I would use these things in a bag situation, I can imagine having some leads in my bag, and everytime they got put back in the bag, the get some charging time from the battery/distro in the bag. I do this already with my tentacle syncs and phones I have to use for the various control apps for the various devices.  

Personally I think internal batteries are something we get scared of because we are not used to have a workflow around them because we are not used to it, but it's something to overcome. And if all the specs and promises got worked out of this system, it wouldn't be a deal-breaker I would say.

2 minutes ago, Jim Feeley said:

"We started development in June and now have prototypes here at IBC."

And I think they plan to release these things in six or so months. 

 

So perhaps there's time for some design changes. Like, keep the rechargable battery but put it behind a door so we can replace it if needed. Would the extra cost result in enough extra sales? No idea.

 

 

It's a common comment, also here at IBC, the lack of battery swapping. The official word (by Andrew and the engineer of the devices) is that it is a compromise; making something swappable needs real estate. You have some sort of hinge/door/lock mechanism and that needs room. You get the room by making the device bigger, or the battery smaller (thus less capacity). But indeed all feedback is being noted and taken into consideration. 

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It's an interesting product from Deity in 2.4 GHz wireless game.

I found it a little big (transmitter dimensions) for my work, when the size of G3 is also big for my needs.

Also, I will be interesting to read or hear a test with induction kitchens where G2 / G3 has been failed to me.

Since this is the first generation wireless from Deity; isn't bad overall.

 

Truly, I like the yellow colour; because it has the same colour of my favorite football club (lol).

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On 9/14/2018 at 9:55 AM, Jeff Wexler said:

I would love to be proven wrong on this but my only personal experience with 2.4 Ghz wireless was a few years ago with a handheld mic and receiver set from Line 6. It proved to be totally unsuitable when used in any situation where there was any obstacles or a lack of line of sight to the receiver.

 

I had a similar experience with the Rode phantom power plugon, had hopes for using it on the odd plant, but after testing it it just didn't inspire my confidence, too many uncertainties to deal with in typical job use. Basically nice toys, but I'm also curious (though doubtful) if Deity manage to reverse the laws of physics (and economics) with these yellow boxes.

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100mW in the 2.4GHz range could be asking for interference trouble with wireless video systems. Still, seems like an intriguing idea for camera hop type use at the price. Could be cool to see an IFB receiver as well. Jury's out until there's real world experience, obviously. Also, there hasn't been any info on latency. For example, the Sennheiser AVXs sound good and work well enough, but there's 20ms of delay which can sound pretty messy when used with cabled sources. In a bag, it would probably be easy enough to power them from 5v regulator hooked to a power distribution if necessary.

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19 hours ago, VAS said:

I found it a little big (transmitter dimensions) for my work, when the size of G3 is also big for my needs.

 

 

A G3 receiver is too big for you?! They're pretty small already. 
And remember the Deity is a dual receiver, so you need to compare it to the size of two receivers. 

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