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Deity Connect.


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6 hours ago, Mattias Larsen said:

Thanks for sharing, that is too bad. It seems as Michael Wynne had a similar experience in a post that is now deleted. To be honest a G3 system might also fall short in 7 feets at Nab. But it is worrying with the 2.4 band with everything that is already crammed there on a shoot and hearing these testamonials makes me confident in staying G3/2000 a bit longer. 

There's another factor beyond what Andrew stated, and it seems as though you are thinking this way in general.  The entire convention hall was blasted with so many more 2.4ghz transmissions than you'd ever find in a typical working environment.  The frequency hopping can only do so much if there arent any open frequencies. Sure that's where a system like this might have some difficulties, and lower band systems might not.  But hey, I saw some camera guys with old VHF wireless because they knew that in this environment, they would be rock solid. It isn't going to sound so great though, and it's not going to give you the kind of functionality that the Connect will.  
If we are just talking about a Teradek on a camera, and maybe a handheld controller for some LED panels, those aren't going to eat up even close to the amount of available frequencies that the Connect will be using.  And in this day and age, the prevalence of G Wifi is getting rarer and rarer.  Even if all three of those were operating in your vicinity, its still not going to be a problem for a device which can actively search the whole band for open frequencies.  Again, the range issues at NAB were because there was just so much in the airwaves.  There were people who couldn't even get their 2.4ghz tech to pair in the convention hall.  
There's no tool thats going to cover every single job.  For example, UHF wireless could have their front ends overloaded when near a tv station.  Its all a matter of circumstances.  I mean, no question, there are definitely some concerns about using 2.4ghz tech for talent wireless.  It inherently has problems transmitting through barriers and won't travel long distances as easily as UHF will.  But the way in which the Connect hops across the frequency range is pretty much the best way to tackle the issue, plus there are no end to the powerful third party 2.4ghz antennas on the market which would help improve the performance even more (since Deity is legally limited by the FCC in what they can stock with the device).  Besides, 2.4ghz is necessary to achieve the constant two way communication between the transmitters and the receiver.  
So basically, my tests have shown it to be a ridiculously able kit.  And I say that in general, without even referencing the crazily low price that they are going to be charging for it.  Seriously, they should charge more.   
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Can anyone give us clearly the pros and cons of a 2.4Ghz system vs a more traditional approach?

 

As I see it, the most cost effective solution right now is 2.4Ghz and we have Rode Go/Sennheiser XS = consumer range. Sennheiser AVX prosumer/1 man bands.

Rodelink/Audio Technica ATW and soon the Deity system at the higher end of 2.4Ghz. 

 

Full analog (G3/G4 territory?)

 

Hybrid (Sony UWP at the bottom and the rest at the middle and the high end)

 

Full digital which is Zaxcom?

 

If anyone with more experience in wireless systems can clear these out a bit, it would be really hepful for some of us. Suddenly there are too many options!

 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

Can anyone give us clearly the pros and cons of a 2.4Ghz system vs a more traditional approach?

 

As I see it, the most cost effective solution right now 

 

 

 

Cons:

2.4Ghz is perfect to be absorbed by water. Microwave ovens operate there. 

When you mount a transmitter to a human bag of water (actors), guess what happens to your signal.

 

Pros: 

It is license free and therefore found in consumer/prosumer products.

 

Most cost effective:

It depends...

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19 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

Can anyone give us clearly the pros and cons of a 2.4Ghz system vs a more traditional approach?

 

It is just a frequency. Like VHF vs UHF, they have inherent characteristics. But what matters much more is the details of how a particular system is implemented.

 

8 minutes ago, DanieldH said:

Pros: 

It is license free

And this is true worldwide, making it good choice for those who travel a lot as they know it will be legal wherever they end up.

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31 minutes ago, DanieldH said:

Cons:

2.4Ghz is perfect to be absorbed by water. Microwave ovens operate there. 

When you mount a transmitter to a human bag of water (actors), guess what happens to your signal.

 

Pros: 

It is license free and therefore found in consumer/prosumer products.

 

Most cost effective:

It depends...

"2.4Ghz is perfect to be absorbed by water" - are there useable frequencies which are less perfect. I'm guessing we (location sound people) didn't get the assigned the UHF bands (68/38 etc) because they were perfect (the other way - as in not being absorbed by peoples bodies).  

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Also - as the 2.4 GHz band is free there’s a lot of other equipment running on the same bands. WiFi, Bluetooth, microwave, RC-models etc. So even though all newer equipment is needed to do pre-jump channel collision detection it can get very crowded. 

 

And the higher frequency the more important line of sight between TX & RX gets. Concrete pillars, large metal plates in 55” displays and humans either reflect or absorb the 2.4 very effective. 

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I’d love to see a review of the Duo on a camera next to a Terradek spewing out 2.4 GHz noise. For me the real value of the Deity wireless would be as a camera hop as it is less likely to be effected by body absorption. But if the receiver is likely to be slammed by RF spew from a Terradek then it could be a big issue. Basically every time I use a wireless camera hop there is also a wireless video monitor so you can expect this to be a common setup. 

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On 4/17/2019 at 1:22 AM, Andrew From Deity said:

Hey Eric, I'm not sure who you mean by "he clipped on the mic", we had 6 people working at the booth so I am not sure who gave you the demo. But I know when I gave the demo to people like Glen Trew, Chris Howland, Jeff Wexler, Jose Frias, Jared Elkin, Carlos Meada, and Eric Leek we got a minimum of 25ft and in some test, we got as much as 40ft on the expo floor.  And I encourage you or anyone else on this page to ask any of these sound mixers how their results were when they watched the demo.

 

Hey Andrew! Unfortunately I didn't get a demo of the Deity Connect from your staff. Only thing I got to demo was the 3mm lav. We did listen to it thru the Connect wireless, but my experience resembles that of Eric's. I believe we got about 10 feet of range before we got some hits.

 

Granted, I didn't check any configurations on the wireless (like transmission power output, it could likely have been set to 10mW) nor did I troubleshoot the issues. I just assumed that being in such a heavy RF environment, especially in such proximity with other wireless manufacturers, that those were going to be the results. I do remember Jared Elkin doing interviews for the WAV Report using Deity Connect around the convention floor, so I imagine that the results were more akin with what you described as normal.

 

I did think the wireless (and the 3mm lav) sound fine, especially at that price point, though I still would reserve a more critical opinion for when I can listen to the system in a less noisy environment. Are you going to be at the Gotham Sound Expo on May 4th (in your fave Star Wars cosplay)? I'd love to get the full demo on the wireless, and check out the range in a more realistic environment.

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On 4/17/2019 at 1:22 AM, Andrew From Deity said:

 

 

Hey Eric, I'm not sure who you mean by "he clipped on the mic", we had 6 people working at the booth so I am not sure who gave you the demo. But I know when I gave the demo to people like Glen Trew, Chris Howland, Jeff Wexler, Jose Frias, Jared Elkin, Carlos Meada, and Eric Leek we got a minimum of 25ft and in some test, we got as much as 40ft on the expo floor.  And I encourage you or anyone else on this page to ask any of these sound mixers how their results were when they watched the demo. Glen Trew was playing with our shark fin antenna the whole test and checking out to see how directional it was and how good it was at rejecting the other 4 audio brands that also had 2.4Ghz Omni systems at their booths 10ft away across the aisle.  Jared Elkin did all of his coverage for the whole show floor and only had interference at our booth because we already had a lot of transmitters on (well above common practice.)

 

What you may have experienced was also due to the fact that the test units were open to the public to play with and change the settings. I often found that members of the public had gone and unscrewed the shark fin so the center pin on the SMA connector wasn't making contact. Also, I would find that the system was set to 10mw instead of 100mw. Given both of those setting changes, it is very possible you were getting 7ft off the internal B-ANTs at 10mw. It's also possible that during your test there were more than 4x TX units on because we were showing off 3-4 dual kits at one time at points. Also if the TX you were being shown in your demo has the same User ID as another one in the area that would also affect range as the User ID's all default back to the same name (12345) and this also acts as the encryption key. Without knowing any these variables it's hard to say that what might have given you these results. That said, I know you're in NYC, stop by Gotham Sound and ask for a demo at their shop. When I did the demo with Nick and Peter I was able to walk around the whole place short of putting 2 full metal repair shelves of gear between the TX and the RX. Honestly, stop by Gotham anyway, they are great people there and there's always something new I find on the shelves that I need to buy.

All of these are valid points I guess. My friend and I walked up to the booth to find a sonosax and the wireless in a Ktek bag. So we figured it was setup for the public to test. I would imagine it was still setup from the last demontration. If it’s surprising that we got on the bag without being with a Diety rep, it sounds like you guys were on the ball with quickly connecting with the public and maybe we just were unnoticed in all of the fervor that is NAB. But this also leads me to wonder how far off the settings could have been changed without anyone knowing. Unless someone just walked up, changed, settings, and left ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 

I did not go through each setting, so settings could have been off. I’d be happy to give it another go. Next time I’m at the shop, I’ll see if I can take them for a spin. 

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7 hours ago, Jose Frias said:

Are you going to be at the Gotham Sound Expo on May 4th (in your fave Star Wars cosplay)? I'd love to get the full demo on the wireless, and check out the range in a more realistic environment.

Sadly I can't make it this year. I actually need to figure something out for it because I'd love to get a table for people to get a demo. I need to find someone I can hire for a couple of hours and send them a salesmen sampler kit and a table cloth. Know anyone? I will be in Dallas that week meeting with new dealers and a trade show there.

 

I will say when it comes to comparing different 2.4Ghz systems (pros and cons) it seems there is some miss-information about 2.4Ghz and other systems.

 

1) 2.45Ghz is not the resonate frequency of water. 2.45Ghz was selected due to space on the FCC allotted spectrum and industrial microwaves found in professional kitchens operate at 915mHz.

http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/age16-19/Wave properties/Wave properties/text/Microwave_ovens/index.html

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/169362/why-do-microwave-ovens-use-radiation-with-such-long-wavelength

 

2) Not all 2.4Ghz microphones systems are the same. When it comes to high-frequency waveforms it's all about getting the maximum efficiency for getting the signal out of the antenna and the maximum efficiency at collecting the signal along with handling data drops. Based on what manufactures in the past have given their 2.4Ghz systems vs what they've given their UHF, you'll see that they've crippled their 2.4Ghz systems to create a tier system within their product line up.

 

Azden XD-Pro : SMA dipole whips 4.85mw 

RodeLink Bodypack Tx: dual PCB fractal antenna  10mw

Rodelink XLR TX: PCB Fractal antenna 8mw

Rode Wireless Go:  3.5mw (unknown antenna)

Sennheiser XSW: 8mw dual PCB fractal antenna

Line6 Bodypack TX: 24mw, affixed dipole whip antenna 

Deity Connect: 100mw Dual PCB factual & Dual SMA dipole whips

 

3) Here is a breakdown of the Pros and Cons of 2.4Ghz and some of their protocols

 

Pros- 

Bi-directional communication

(can be) frequency hopping and (can be) automatic frequency coordinating

Future Proof against FCC auctions

Global Traveler

100% digital (can be uncompressed)

Can allow for data re-transmission and buffer

 

Cons-

Smaller waveforms do have a harder time penetrating metal and dense surfaces like exterior walls

Codec decoding can add latency

Requires more wattage to get the same range as a lower wattage UHF system

The frequency can be crowded depending on the environment (but so can single block UHF)

 

It really comes down to what you need your wireless to do. If you're doing a lot of corporate, ENG, HGTV reality or travel documentary work, a 2.4Ghz system might actually fill all your needs. If you're doing a 20 person reality TV show or a multi-million dollar movie, probably not. I'd say personally 90% of the work I've done in my 15yr career could have been done with wireless microphones that only ever needed to transmit no more than 20-30ft away. 

 

 

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I wonder wether the detuning effect caused by the body in the near field has been taking into account. That effect should be maybe a little less for higher frequencies. I remember when I mentioned the 60 GHz band, with a wavelength of 5 mm the body would be in the far field.

 

I guess the detuning effect is worse than absorption? 

 

I remember two years ago I saw some flat magnetic antennas designed to sit on metal enclosures. It was a discreet antenna (so it could be used in vending machines without stupid users breaking them off for fun) and indeed they didn't tune properly if placed on a wooden table (according to my toy VNA). But they worked pretty well when attached to a metal surface.

 

The same manufacturer has a model or two designed to be taped on glass as well.

 

 

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I’m here to find out more about the latency thing. I saw the demo at LSC, but I’m still iffy. I use timecode on shoots relatively often. Some people have said that 19ms of delay is not noticeable enough to create lip flap issues. But then if all sound is just over half a frame late, doesn’t that mean that sync will be closer to correct if you shift the audio one frame earlier? Does this, in effect, mean everything you record is one frame off from timecode? Andrew made the point at the demo that many shoots nowadays use a mix track on hops to sync by audio in premiere or pluraleyes, but timecode is an important upsell for me and a valuable time saver for my clients. I don’t want to buy something that’s going to prevent me from offering that service or make the sync boxes I already own useless.  

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On 4/24/2019 at 1:16 AM, mattmattsn said:

I’m here to find out more about the latency thing. I saw the demo at LSC, but I’m still iffy. I use timecode on shoots relatively often. Some people have said that 19ms of delay is not noticeable enough to create lip flap issues. But then if all sound is just over half a frame late, doesn’t that mean that sync will be closer to correct if you shift the audio one frame earlier? Does this, in effect, mean everything you record is one frame off from timecode? Andrew made the point at the demo that many shoots nowadays use a mix track on hops to sync by audio in premiere or pluraleyes, but timecode is an important upsell for me and a valuable time saver for my clients. I don’t want to buy something that’s going to prevent me from offering that service or make the sync boxes I already own useless.  

TC & Scratch = Belt and Braces. Not that hard a sell to production where a resilient post production workflow will minimise unforeseen costs. Isn't the (19ms) latency just something you deal with using the adjustable input delays available on most modern recorders, because of how the latency will interact with the other audio sources in a mix as opposed to an issue with picture sync, where there may well be an offset made between picture and sound for other reasons like picture latency?

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1 hour ago, daniel said:

TC & Scratch = Belt and Braces. Not that hard a sell to production where a resilient post production workflow will minimise unforeseen costs. Isn't the (19ms) latency just something you deal with using the adjustable input delays available on most modern recorders, because of how the latency will interact with the other audio sources in a mix as opposed to an issue with picture sync, where there may well be an offset made between picture and sound for other reasons like picture latency?

 

To add, I would think that if all channels have latency set, a recorder will be so smart to also set a small offset to the timestamp.
Note: BWF does NOT carry timecode, but a time stamp, where the time is described in samples, not in video frames.

All major NLE's use that, so placing a BWF on the timeline / syncing it with a video clip is sample accurate, and that is obviously way more accurate than a video frame.

If the recorder does not take the delay into account for the timestamp, and you're off by half a frame (19 Msecs) and don't want to sell that to your clients, you could use my BWF toolbox to give your files an offset and be perfectly in sync.

In this case, if you record 48K, you would have to give a (negative) sample offset of 912 (48000 * 19 / 1000) to be dead accurate again.

You have to offload anyways, and this thing can do so, so you're just two mouseclicks away from correcting the timestamp.

(I could make an option to do it while offloading, but the process will take less than a second for a day worth of files, and I really do not like the idea not having an unaltered copy of the files.)

 

I STRONGLY advice against relying on syncing by waveform. (Premiere, Plural Eyes or FCPX)
Sometimes it works miracles, but very often it's a big pain and / or time consuming. Lock the cam to your TC, always!

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Ed Denton said:

Anyone know of any updates regarding the release date of the Deity Connect? It was slated to release 16 April but all the usual suspects still have it as preorder/coming soon.

It is already out there since indeed the 16th. Don't know about the US but in the Netherlands/UK/Germany they are available. Always worth to call your dealer.

 

6 hours ago, Bouke said:

I STRONGLY advice against relying on syncing by waveform

Although indeed TC is the way to go, I did a lot of documentaries since, well, let's say the first DSLR cameras and pluraleyes came out in 2009, and if you do what I did, it was always effortlessly; always send 1 channel if the recorder wirelessly to the camera, so the waveform will always be "identical". I think your advice comes from the practice that a lot of people want to sync it with the camera microphone as one of the two sources. Indeed that will make things worse. So again, a wireless hop of 1 channel (not a mix!) And I can say I have a 100% result (I'm literally talking 1800/2000 hours of footage over the years by the way, my experience is not based on some tests or something).

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1 hour ago, Vincent R. said:

And I can say I have a 100% result (I'm literally talking 1800/2000 hours of footage over the years b

 

with all respect, fuck you. No way (with any proxy sound quality) that the 2009 Plural Eyes could have done this 'effortlessly'.

I don't claim it did not work, but I do claim it will have taken hours of (rendering) work, where a TC match would have been instant, and an LTC match at least 100 times faster.

Let alone that 10 years ago Plural Eyes was brand new and not standard, and only (i believe still today) made sequences, not synced clips so it still needed a LOT of manual attention to prep for editorial.
Note, I AM post, and have a huge T-shirt collection.

 

 

 

 

 

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Bouke, you may not agree with what Vincent has to say, but that is no way to engage in discussion on this forum. Vincent is a well respected member of this forum and it is not appropriate to use such disrespectful language here. This is not Facebook or 4chan. 

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1 hour ago, Chris Woodcock said:

Why would Production pay for a wireless hop when a timecode box is cheaper? 

 


Vincent was referring to 2009, I guess back then a G2 was cheaper to rent than a timecode box? (or at the very least,  less bulky/heavy. Tentacles hadn't came out yet)

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