2-Way Radios walkie talkie?

[Greg_E]

Charles,

That's an interesting concept, but not sure it will really put up with the abuse that your crew will hand it every day. The 1/8 inch headset connection will be a real weak point for real industrial usage, that would require everyone run a BT headset and now battery life and rate of charge will run you into issues during a normal production day. And before you look into things like motorcycle comms that use bluetooth, the skinny on those is that they start to get noisy when you get a bunch of users attached to each other. For the kind of work that you do, I'd think the only real answer is real industry proven wireless comms, even the cheap Clearcom or Telex stuff would be better.

That said, the Unity is interesting and may be something that morphs into a great product. But they need to get the server running on something like a Raspberry PI or Beagle Board so it is small and battery powered for location work. The cloud option is rather interesting and could work well with a bunch of cheap direct from China phones and a decent wifi network with an internet connection to hit the cloud server.

 

[Richard Crowley]

Having used the Unity intercom system, I can report that there are advantages and dis-advantages.

Advantages:
Very flexible routing for use with video, lighting, staging, etc. crews on separate channels.
Uses common IOS devices
Uses WiFi
Includes camera tally light implementation. Automatic connection for BlackMagic ATEM switchers.
Also operates over the internet for communication to remote locations anywhere there is internet.

DisAdvantages:
Requires a dedicated Mac computer
Configuration and setup are quite fiddly. Requires an experienced crew member and advanced troubleshooting ability.
Requires WiFi coverage of the operational area. Not always available, so bring your own WiFi.
WiFi competes with other WiFi that may be present. Including possibly hundreds of audience members.
Claims to operate on Android devices, but we could never get it to work. IOS only.
Uses common IOS devices. Must install and configure on each device.
If you are depending on camera operator's phones (or tablets or iPods) then it depends on THAT person operating camera, bringing their phone properly charged, not having been "updated" to a new version of something that didn't break the Unity app, etc, etc.
If you are providing the devices yourself, they are just as expensive (hardware + software) as conventional and reliable broadcast gear, but also highly attractive targets for theft.
Tally displayed on device screen. Awkward to keep screen within view of camera operator.
No way of interfacing with camera tally lights for conventional use.
Vendor documentation and tech support is inadequate for the considerable complexity of the system.
In our experience, it never stayed operating properly for the entire length of the program without rebooting one or more times.

But the show-stopper IMHO
Several second latency. This is a KILLER for fast moving programs, and extraordinarily confusing for camera operators who are hearing program audio through the air, and then program audio in the intercom delayed by several seconds. This is very disorienting and affected the ability of the camera operators to hear the director.

This is a very innovative product that exploits the advantages of modern digital communication and smart devices.
If they could solve the latency problem, and the configuration and reliability, it might be something worth considering.
But in its present form, I would not recommend it.

 

[David W. Jones]

That's what I was going to suggest.... Something along the lines of a used Clear-Com or RTS would be a cost effective solution over the course of a season. Or as a rental for short term use. With software they are programable from a laptop. In another life I had programed a number of RTS setups as an A-1 on mobile trucks.

 

[CharlesPapert]

Richard, thanks for the info on the latency--several seconds?? that is bizarre. And that is with the wifi connection, not cellular? Seems odd. And yes indeed, a deal killer. Almost none of the other cons you and Greg mentioned were significant issues, but that one will do it.

Our setup and requirements are a bit different than a traditional broadcast environment. Traditional coms are good but not a slamdunk either. Still looking for the right thing.

 

[Greg_E]

Coming from the world of remote sports production, nothing wireless is ever a slam dunk unless you are running high power illegal equipment on channels that you don't have a license to use. ESPN still does a lot of illegal radio work (among others).