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Deity Connect.


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1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

If you're buying more than one channel, then per channel costs matter. 

True, but less so if the maximum number of channels is only 4 (vs 8 of some of the other systems).

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

Nobody has done a head to head test of them just yet, so can't answer the first two points yet. (but I strongly expect the Deity to have greater range based on the spec sheet)

True and the test should have more than 1 channel going and ideally be head to head realtime.

 

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

TX size matters far less to consumers than we think, thus the reason why the very bulky RodeLink is so very popular. 

Maybe if the range is better people will keep a RodeLink in a bag but for most of the stuff this gets used for it's not about range.

 

Deity's concept, packaging and features are all much more pro than the others even though it's fixed on a frequency band which limits Connect to 4 channels amongst other things. Hopefully the sound quality makes cheaply supplementing a UHF system with up to 4 extra  channels viable.

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5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

TX size matters far less to consumers than we think, thus the reason why the very bulky RodeLink is so very popular. 

 

They are very popular because they are/were the cheapest ones that really work. You had to go Boyu, or some exotic name/product to find a cheaper wireless system, and AVX was easily double the price, or more.

 

The Go and XS will doninate that market now.

 

Most Youtubers, solo low budget cameramen, kids, usually have 1 person talking in front of their cameras.

 

In anyway, this is a race to the bottom, I am not that interested right now.

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13 hours ago, daniel said:

True, but less so if the maximum number of channels is only 4 (vs 8 of some of the other systems).

I thought you can use a max of four receivers? But the receivers are dual channel, thus a total of 8x TX can be used at once. 

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2 hours ago, Mattias Larsen said:

That was earlier before the release, now they are claiming 4 channels if I recall correctly. 

 

Anyways,because 2.4Ghz inside, I don't see the necessity to have 4 channels if any physical barriers (wall, doors, bushes, human bodys) between the Tx and the Rx generate drop outs like early consumers report on Deity FB group… It seems to only working good in direct line of sight, with the Tx in the front pocket...

👿

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Allen Williams did a really thorough video on his Sound Speeds channel.

Maybe this will help answer some of the remaining questions. I’m in agreement with kisaha that it’s stuck between segments. Not reliable enough for pros but maybe more than consumers need.  

 

 

On 5/14/2019 at 7:01 PM, Ed Denton said:

Not trying to be a dick about it, but 

I was taught to resist the impulse to make statements like this, because it’s a pretty clear acknowledgement that you’re about to do what you’re “not trying” to do. 

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8 hours ago, Henchman said:

The Go is completely useless, , as it starts dropping out within a few feet the minute you turn around and lose line of sight.

 

Yeah, I'm not surprise, like many 2.4Ghz devices, they are just good for working without cables but very close and in line of sight of the camera ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/13/2019 at 1:49 PM, Mattias Larsen said:

Thank you for sharing this. Seems like there are some kinks to be sorted out. Wonder if it's Zoom or Deity that is to blame in this particular scenario. I have a friend with a F4 that thought of getting deity to replace his G1/2/3s so I wonder if this can potentially affect him too.

 

And just out of curiosity, Borjam - I would be interested to hear the results from your Mixpre torture. 

 

I tried. I didn't have the digital handheld here (which uses time division digital transmission, which makes it nastier, as LarryF explained). 

 

But I have tried with a 5 W FM handheld a few cm away from the recorder. Just pressing the transmission button (PTT) repeteadly I could hear some interference using an AKG Blue Line (CK93 capsule).

 

However, I switched to a microphone with a good RF rejection (Rode NTG8(*), I read somewhere that it is really well protected)) and it withstood it without any problems. Not even maxing out the gain I could hear any kind of interference. Being a RF biased microphone it might be more susceptible to that. 

 

Of course I tried an iPhone running a speed test to my local network (it was transmitting like 250 Mbps) and nothing came out either.

 

If the MixPre 3 has resisted 5 W with the antenna almost touching the unit, also close to the cable and microphone (the cable  is a 1 m long thin star-quad from Canare) I really doubt that a transmitter such as the Deity Connect receiver can affect it. 

 

But it may depend on the microphone. If the microphone cable somewhat conducted interference to the microphone I am pretty sure that a ferrite core or two should help.

 

I can try with the HF transmitter but of course I won't get so close, if I touch the loop antenna by accident while transmitting I can get a painful shock.  Anyway, 5 W so close to the unit is a real torture ;)

 

 

(*) Nice mic, I am using it to try and record some birds. Although the strong metal tube used for transportation could get me arrested if I tried to board a plane with it.

 

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5 hours ago, Mattias Larsen said:

Thanks for the insight, gives me good faith in the Mixpre :)

 

I'll try the digital HT this evening anyway. Given that it transmits TDM pulses instead of a continuous FM modulated carrier it should be nastier. It's 2.5 W, not 5 W, on the same band as the analog one I tried (440 MHz).

 

 

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On 6/4/2019 at 3:19 AM, Mattias Larsen said:

Thanks for the insight, gives me good faith in the Mixpre :)

 

I forgot, the test was especially evil. I connected the Rode NTG8 to channel 3 while channels 1 and 2 (muted) had unterminated 3 m cables connected. Despite being muted the cables could have conducted interference. Seems that the MixPre is a real "RF bunker". 

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6 hours ago, borjam said:

 

I forgot, the test was especially evil. I connected the Rode NTG8 to channel 3 while channels 1 and 2 (muted) had unterminated 3 m cables connected. Despite being muted the cables could have conducted interference. Seems that the MixPre is a real "RF bunker". 

Wonderful! 

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  • 1 month later...

Hey guys ! This thread is very interesting I can see a lot of information going on.

What is interesting is I don't really see my specific problem. So I'm just asking you guys if anyone has already seen that.

I have the original Zoom F8 (v5.0) with a RNP FMR Audio RNP8380 preamp (for 1 or 2 boom) and I connect 2 to 4 G3 receivers on the Zoom directly. Preamp and Zoom are powered via +12v Big badass battery (Maxoak 50000mAh 185Wh) that can last 2 complete days. It's Li-Po technology and the +12V is absolutely regulated with 2.1 Amps output which is sufficient even with 8 +48V mics.

 

Everything is working fine though. The boom bas never interference (mkh8060 with starquad cable).

Though I could pick up interferences on my zoom f8 when my last phone was very close on the Zoom f8, even on airplane mode. I actually understood it came from the screen dimmer on my phone that was creating that sound on the mixer itself. Now I have a new phone with a cleaner screen, and I put it on my pocket anyway so I don't have problem with it anymore.

 

BUT my BIG problem that I always had is that :

Everytime I press RECORD on the F8, the G3s become crazy especially if the reception was somehow loosy (50m). I hear intermittent violent burst across the full spectrum (more like Brown noise) that last maybe 0.5s and are repeated every 1 sec. That shit is getting recorded though so it's really bad. But when I monitor them before I press RECORD everything is fine.

 

I suspect Zoom to be very RF-loud with their DAC into file writing on SD files but it's very crazy.

 

My G3 receivers are somehow a bit close to the Zoom F8 (attached to my Zoom Bag), most of the time they are facing the talents so they are after the RNP preamp which is absolutely shielded.

I've tried placing them even way more far according to the 20cm cable from Sennheiser and have a bit more improvement but I cannot put them 1m away for practical reasons of course.

I could sent you sample if you want to hear. Anyway then g3 audio is then not usable.

 

Sometimes it's only spoiling one receiver, sometimes both.

Maybe there is some frequency I should be careful of. We don't know what's really inside the Zoom F8. I would love to make so that problem doesn't appear anymore.

 

Please, your inputs are valuable.

 

Benoît Griesbach

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On 7/23/2019 at 10:02 AM, Benoitgriesbach said:

Hey guys ! This thread is very interesting I can see a lot of information going on.

What is interesting is I don't really see my specific problem. So I'm just asking you guys if anyone has already seen that.

I have the original Zoom F8 (v5.0) with a RNP FMR Audio RNP8380 preamp (for 1 or 2 boom) and I connect 2 to 4 G3 receivers on the Zoom directly. Preamp and Zoom are powered via +12v Big badass battery (Maxoak 50000mAh 185Wh) that can last 2 complete days. It's Li-Po technology and the +12V is absolutely regulated with 2.1 Amps output which is sufficient even with 8 +48V mics.

 

Everything is working fine though. The boom bas never interference (mkh8060 with starquad cable).

Though I could pick up interferences on my zoom f8 when my last phone was very close on the Zoom f8, even on airplane mode. I actually understood it came from the screen dimmer on my phone that was creating that sound on the mixer itself. Now I have a new phone with a cleaner screen, and I put it on my pocket anyway so I don't have problem with it anymore.

 

BUT my BIG problem that I always had is that :

Everytime I press RECORD on the F8, the G3s become crazy especially if the reception was somehow loosy (50m). I hear intermittent violent burst across the full spectrum (more like Brown noise) that last maybe 0.5s and are repeated every 1 sec. That shit is getting recorded though so it's really bad. But when I monitor them before I press RECORD everything is fine.

 

I suspect Zoom to be very RF-loud with their DAC into file writing on SD files but it's very crazy.

 

My G3 receivers are somehow a bit close to the Zoom F8 (attached to my Zoom Bag), most of the time they are facing the talents so they are after the RNP preamp which is absolutely shielded.

I've tried placing them even way more far according to the 20cm cable from Sennheiser and have a bit more improvement but I cannot put them 1m away for practical reasons of course.

I could sent you sample if you want to hear. Anyway then g3 audio is then not usable.

 

Sometimes it's only spoiling one receiver, sometimes both.

Maybe there is some frequency I should be careful of. We don't know what's really inside the Zoom F8. I would love to make so that problem doesn't appear anymore.

 

Please, your inputs are valuable.

 

Benoît Griesbach

Hi Benoît,

 

I'm not a F8 or G3 user but...

it sounds like the RFI may be getting into the G3's unbalanced O/P cables so maybe RF chokes on those cables might help.

If you can get your hands on an 'RF explorer' you could try scanning when F8 is in and out of record to see what part of the spectrum is most effected. You could try something similar with G3 frequency scanner, maybe scan with 2 G3s before going into record and the other 2 when in record, compare differences of available freqs/channels. That said, the RFI may not in the part of the spectrum scannable by G3/RFE.

 

good luck.

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On 7/23/2019 at 11:02 AM, Benoitgriesbach said:

BUT my BIG problem that I always had is that :

Everytime I press RECORD on the F8, the G3s become crazy especially if the reception was somehow loosy (50m).

 

can't help with that problem but you might want to put that in one of the Zoom F8 thread (or even create a new one) since it seems to me it has nothing to do with the Deity system discussed here.

 

bests

chris

 

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  • 4 months later...

My Deity connect system arrived yesterday.  I'll be doing an indepth test this weekend. 

I did a quick test last night, that included me walking from my livingroom, down a hall, through a bedroom, and into my garage, with no dropouts.

That's 2 doors, and three walls from receiver to transmitter. Receiver in the bag with the F4.

 

I think this is an amazing setup so far for indie filmmakers, who will be boomin themselves g with the recorder around their neck.

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I also picked up the Deity Connect as I have a Rødelink that actually seems to perform pretty well at distances under 50', even under some challenging circumstances. UHF is definitely better but as we continue to lose more and more spectrum, I am all for trying out alternative solutions. I used the Connect for an event shoot at a local university last week, interior, multiple speakers trading off the two Tx with Rx and camera located about 30' away. This room definitely had wireless routers, two in fact and there were no issues with interference or dropouts. I played with the Connect system around the office beforehand and was able to go to a room about 30' away with three sets of walls between Tx and Rx and even though the antenna signal strength dropped, the sound didn't, it worked fine and didn't degrade at all, which surprised me, I thought it might cut out.

The noise floor is a little high compared to pro UHF systems and the foil sealed buttons are definitely flimsier than on something like a Lectro. But overall, the system seems to offer a lot of bang for the buck. It was simple and painless to update the firmware to the latest 1.33 version. It's very nice being able to control the Tx from the Rx. The shoot was only about 5 hours long and both Tx and Rx showed only about 1/3 of the batteries being consumed. I didn't have a chance yet to try the auto power level for the Tx. The latency is noticeable but at 19ms, didn't seem to be a deal breaker although it could be a bit messier if you are mixing hard wired sources with these? FWIW, the Deity team via Facebook is super responsive, I asked a couple of questions twice and both times they got back to me with answers withing 30 minutes, impressive. 

Deity is going to sell a ton of these to video and event people who aren't sound pros. They are a step up from the Røde systems, especially the Go, they also have a lot of nice user features. Even the case they come in with the laser cut foam cutouts is very nice for a stock case. My .02 so far with them.     

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That sounds all well and good, but that they are reported noisier than G3 would be a deal breaker for me if I was looking for a new system.

 

For event people that don't care about the audio quality and want something cheap, sure - but then you need to compete with for example thomanns own dirtcheap t-bone. It seemed to be an alternative to uwp or g series, but you can't have more noise than them to be a real challenge.

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20 hours ago, Mattias Larsen said:

That sounds all well and good, but that they are reported noisier than G3 would be a deal breaker for me if I was looking for a new system.

 

For event people that don't care about the audio quality and want something cheap, sure - but then you need to compete with for example thomanns own dirtcheap t-bone. It seemed to be an alternative to uwp or g series, but you can't have more noise than them to be a real challenge.


Unfortunately I don't have any Sennheisers laying around to compare them to. I do need to do some noise tests and compare them against the Røde. Will report back what I hear.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I actually get a bit of a kick out of the comments regarding noise floor and products like the Zoom f8 and f4. 

As I know, as a Re-recording mixer that deals with recorded dialog everyday, that the ambient noise these days on especially location shoots, and even "sets" makes the equipment noise floor irrelevant. 

Btw, the Deity lavs sound better than the Oscar Sound Tech at less than half the price. 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
On 12/27/2019 at 9:11 AM, Henchman said:

I actually get a bit of a kick out of the comments regarding noise floor and products like the Zoom f8 and f4. 

As I know, as a Re-recording mixer that deals with recorded dialog everyday, that the ambient noise these days on especially location shoots, and even "sets" makes the equipment noise floor irrelevant. 

Btw, the Deity lavs sound better than the Oscar Sound Tech at less than half the price. 

 

 

We just released some new professional series lavs and a lot of people noticed the self noise of our Deity Connect system to be all but gone when using after market lavs. When using aftermarket microphones (XLR or TRS with our new HD-TX) and gain staging it properly you can now achieve about a -75dB RMS noise floor. And by adding a simple 80-100hz roll off at your recorder you can get that to -79dB RMS.

 

Edited by Andrew From Deity
forgot a sentence
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I don’t much care about noise floor, as long as it’s reasonable, but I do care about sound. It’d be good to get a side by side with Sennheiser evolutions, maybe Sony b3, and something higher end with cos11s or something decent. Without YouTube crapping over the audio. I’m struggling slightly with every audio test of the deitys I’ve found. From a drama perspective. Be good to take average mic and YouTube compression out of the equation.

 

In context, I Run an f8 with either g2s, or micron 700/explorers. The microns don’t want to be touching the f8. Oddly I find g2 300series to 500 series g1s range better than the 100g4. Sony D11 range far better than either, and the microns are pretty bullet proof. Nb the Sony /g4s aren’t mine.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/11/2020 at 3:31 PM, Sosha said:

 I’m struggling slightly with every audio test of the deitys I’ve found. From a drama perspective. 

Why? 

I have no problem with them from a drama perspective. 

 

This is the Stephen King short I just finished. Using the Deity Connect system. 

As well as my Vlog I just started shooting in my garage. 

 

I think the Deity is an amazing product. 

Especially for low/no budget filmmakers.

I'll be shooting a feature once this virus blows over, using the Deity connects. 

 

Password for the short is "Festival" 

 

 

 

https://vimeo.com/376447791/721561e7be

 

https://vimeo.com/400510224

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1 hour ago, Henchman said:

Why? 

I have no problem with them from a drama perspective. 

 

This is the Stephen King short I just finished. Using the Deity Connect system. 

As well as my Vlog I just started shooting in my garage. 

 

I think the Deity is an amazing product. 

Especially for low/no budget filmmakers.

I'll be shooting a feature once this virus blows over, using the Deity connects. 

 

Password for the short is "Festival" 

 

 

 

https://vimeo.com/376447791/721561e7be

 

https://vimeo.com/400510224

I had a demo unit for a few weeks and found them tough to use in a narrative context as well. Range, delay, and interface were my biggest issues.

 

Had to get the cart within line of sight, which is often not possible for many scenes and shots, in order to get somewhat reliable signal (even then it was dicey). The short wavelength inherently has a tougher time going through solid objects so it wasn’t really a surprise.

 

I don’t remember deity’s modulation delay but it is significantly more than other systems. I often struggled with phasing when mixing them with any other microphone. If you’re going to dig straight into the ISOs this isn’t really an issue but it bugged me trying to make a decent mix.

 

And, in my opinion, the biggest issue was interference from other 2.4ghz devices. If I or talent went near camera or village signal would drop significantly, often resulting in a dropout. With all the camera crap now a days that part of the spectrum is very cramped. I also could not use zaxnet anywhere near the Deity RX. Tried changing channels but was always a no-go.

 

Overall, the performance reminded me a lot of what I have experienced with Zaxnet. It can be a great tool for short range applications but  not optimal for the tough RF environments that a narrative set often is. That’s why I love my ERX’s for small bag work where director and clients etc. are close by, but when I go on a cart I use comteks.

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