FS7: Latest thinking on wireless monitoring

B

bengiles

Well-known member
Be good to get some battle-worn feedback from those that have been and done, bought cheap and twice etc. 

I’m looking for a compact video TX/RX solution simply for the sound op (my wife) to see my shots on an Atomos Shinobi (already bought and using). We shoot sensitive obs doc and she needs to quickly see the edge of frame at a glance without intervention from me.

Must haves:

Reliable and reasonably tough
Lightweight/Compact
Easy to power with mainstream batteries (eg NPF or maybe LP6) Cam has spare DTap outputs for a TX unit.
Zero interference with Sony UWPD radio mic system
HDMI output from receiver
Set and forget - switch on, no faffing.

Don’t need:

Ultra low latency
High frame rates
Military spec tank-proof go-mental-it’s-a-rental build quality - light and compact more important.

Ta,

Ben.
 
my animon mini is excellent at 25p 16:9

but we had some recent 24PFS issues (no signal!) so need to get around that. and test 30p 29.97 and 17:9

cant comment on the lav interferance thing.

ability to buy many receivers might be a long term wise thing.. at high cost.
 
rich greb - blackbird sells some bingles to make it easier to work like a Dtap to tiny 12v.

thinking back..
its a bit of a pain.. I build a box for it (aluminium and heavy) micro HDMI in is scary.

I need to print a 3d plastic box for it really... any takers!

S
 
C5d had a thing touting a transmitter for phones last week.

Im interested in that for anyone how can take lag.. art, sound, clients
 
Ive tried a few but really Teradek is the way to go.. just really reliable and well built. sort of the standard these days ..I have the Bolt 500 but there are newer ones now .. Small HD have teamed up them from last year and do built in receivers in the monitors.. probably the most compact for your misses .. made the mistake of trying to nickel and dime it a few times.. just pay the extra $500 -700 and you will be golden for years.. you just want to switch it on and it to work.. Teradek.. does that .. for not really a fortune in the big picture ..
 
Donny 123 said:
Ive tried a few but really Teradek is the way to go.. just really reliable and well built. sort of the standard these days ..I have the Bolt 500 but there are newer ones now .. Small HD have teamed up them from last year and do built in receivers in the monitors.. probably the most compact for your misses .. made the mistake of trying to nickel and dime it a few times.. just pay the extra $500 -700 and you will be golden for years.. you just want to switch it on and it to work.. Teradek.. does that .. for not really a fortune in the big picture ..
Click to expand...

I have the Switt CWs. I've tested them against the Teradeks, and they beat them for connection speed and reliability. Unfortunately, they've just gone up in price otherwise I'd be recommending them.
 
I’ve been having a mooch this morning. Looks like a Teradek will also broadcast directly to iOS. Using an iphone solution would also then allow me to monitor directly from GH5S, which we’re using more and more.

Field Monitor app (Adam Wilt) mentions compatibility with Teradek Clip, but looks like it’s discontinued. Will look deeper. Thanks for suggestions so far. The Accsoon looks interesting too - but not yet manufactured and will possibly be subject to early adopter pain, I guess.
 
I have an old Teradek Cube(forerunner to the SERV) that worked reasonably well sending straight to an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. But it could be finicky and boot up time was painfully slow(~1-2 mins). The selling point was that you didn’t need a separate receiver and monitor, the producer could just pull out their phone(the app is free) or you could give them an iPad. But I decided to get a real system last year and bought a Teradek Bolt 500 XT. SDI & HDMI in & out and it’s still small and light and I bought the battery plates that the TX and RX mount in the middle of so you just lock them onto the battery plate and put a battery on(pass through power, but RX & TX still require power from a Dtap to Lemo cable). Teradek also just announced a cheaper version, the Teradek Ace(rebranded Paralinx Ace) that is HDMI only that’s $999US for the TX/RX package.
 
I may be in the minority on this Ben - so take this with for what it's worth - and certainly your shooting situations may differ from mine... but I will not be purchasing any wireless system until I know it will work at least 95% of the time (and also feel a bit more confident that here in the US the wireless frequency I buy into doesn't become obsolete in the year after I buy it). In my experiences, and granted, I have not tried every system even mentioned in this thread, they all work great until they don't. And then it's just a PITA.
My most recent example - I rented the TeraDeck Bolt 1000 to use on a 5 day industrial corporate shoot - for client monitor. Lots of set up's, with jib, dolly, etc & to also have nice LUT support with my FS7 (for both live & playback the 1000 allows you to add standard & custom LUTS), I thought it would keep us moving quickly (powering monitor & receiver from one V-brick battery). First 2 days - it worked great. On day 3 - when we moved to 2nd building around lunch, literally across the street from the first - no more signal. And then day 5 onto another building - and no signal again. So I got roughly 50% usage out of my rental - and had to run SDI the other 50%. When I called the rental company to ask - I literally was told that was very common when shooting indoors where there can be wifi interference - and even happens in their warehouse. ??? So I'd rather deal with a long cable I guess than flipping a coin to see if my wireless system will work since nearly all of my shoots involve shooting indoors where there is strong wifi signal.
 
markfpv said:
I may be in the minority on this Ben - so take this with for what it's worth - and certainly your shooting situations may differ from mine... but I will not be purchasing any wireless system until I know it will work at least 95% of the time (and also feel a bit more confident that here in the US the wireless frequency I buy into doesn't become obsolete in the year after I buy it). In my experiences, and granted, I have not tried every system even mentioned in this thread, they all work great until they don't. And then it's just a PITA.
My most recent example - I rented the TeraDeck Bolt 1000 to use on a 5 day industrial corporate shoot - for client monitor. Lots of set up's, with jib, dolly, etc & to also have nice LUT support with my FS7 (for both live & playback the 1000 allows you to add standard & custom LUTS), I thought it would keep us moving quickly (powering monitor & receiver from one V-brick battery). First 2 days - it worked great. On day 3 - when we moved to 2nd building around lunch, literally across the street from the first - no more signal. And then day 5 onto another building - and no signal again. So I got roughly 50% usage out of my rental - and had to run SDI the other 50%. When I called the rental company to ask - I literally was told that was very common when shooting indoors where there can be wifi interference - and even happens in their warehouse. ??? So I'd rather deal with a long cable I guess than flipping a coin to see if my wireless system will work since nearly all of my shoots involve shooting indoors where there is strong wifi signal.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that's just wireless life today. Audio, video, whatever... I was just on a two day shoot for a pilot and this particular episode relied on a lot of wireless audio. We were running 5-6 channels and had to adjust throughout the day. The last day when we fired everything up, we had some trash on some of our channels, so we re-tuned and were good for a little, while, then started to get other stuff pop up as more people got around(football game). So we re-tuned again. It was just something we had to do, hardwired was not an option. Nothing wireless is guaranteed. I used to shoot a lot of RF for network broadcast and even the high-powered, custom built, frequency co-ordinated systems with a small army of technical guys on-site to support it had LOTS of problems. So if you're waiting for a 100% stable and reliable system, you will probably never buy one, because there will probably never be one.

And on the flip side of the Teradek argument, a friend did a shoot for a manufacturer at SEMA in Vegas last year and had a Teradek Bolt 3000 system(not his) on his camera and he said it was rock solid everywhere he went with it.
 
I agree aoubt wireless being a bit sketchy.

In my 'wireless case' under the foam at the bottom of the box I store a long HDMI and a long SDI as a backup solution!
 
The Teradek to IOS solution is one I have seen another soundie using and it worked quite well. He had a simple phone mount in his mixer and a dedicated old iPhone plugged directly in so no battery fussing and displaying an image. He could adjust boom lines and see my framing, it allowed us to work rather seamlessly. He had a small version, I'd seen the cube encoder before but his was definitely Teradek and I'm sure by now all of them are nice and small.
 
Wes. said:
The Teradek to IOS solution is one I have seen another soundie using and it worked quite well. He had a simple phone mount in his mixer and a dedicated old iPhone plugged directly in so no battery fussing and displaying an image. He could adjust boom lines and see my framing, it allowed us to work rather seamlessly. He had a small version, I'd seen the cube encoder before but his was definitely Teradek and I'm sure by now all of them are nice and small.
Click to expand...

Thanks - this is where I'm leaning, after some really useful comments - cheers all.

I had a play with our GH5S wifi this morning, and that will allow a similar functionality with the Field Monitor app.

So we could use a small Teradek on the FS7 and the internal wifi on the GH5S.

And when the wifi is sketchy we can just go back to shouting at each other when she gets in my shot.

Ah, the bliss of working with one's spouse... (actually I love it most of the time :-)

Ben.
 
Wes. said:
The Teradek to IOS solution is one I have seen another soundie using and it worked quite well. He had a simple phone mount in his mixer and a dedicated old iPhone plugged directly in so no battery fussing and displaying an image. He could adjust boom lines and see my framing, it allowed us to work rather seamlessly. He had a small version, I'd seen the cube encoder before but his was definitely Teradek and I'm sure by now all of them are nice and small.
Click to expand...

Yeah, one of my audio guys loved it. He'd just sit his iPhone in the bag so that he could see it. Never had to worry about the boom being in the shot. BUT it being a WiFi system, we did have issues with it with the camera hop(block 26 back then) one time with the transmitter being too close to the receiver on the camera.
 
morgan_moore said:
rich greb - blackbird sells some bingles to make it easier to work like a Dtap to tiny 12v.

thinking back..
its a bit of a pain.. I build a box for it (aluminium and heavy) micro HDMI in is scary.

I need to print a 3d plastic box for it really... any takers!

S
Click to expand...

Sam:

Camera Motion Research sells a good rehouse box for the Connex Mini tx that converts the power and micro-HDMI to barrel plug and full size HDMI respectively:
http://www.camotionllc.com/connex-mini/accent.shtml

For my purposes I wanted the keep the footprint smaller (with the tradeoff of it getting fatter) so I designed one and had it printed.

connexrehousecomplete.jpg
 
CharlesPapert said:
Sam:

Camera Motion Research sells a good rehouse box for the Connex Mini
Click to expand...

Thats all good but doesnt do what I want.

I mainly aim to provide an operator monitor and then pass signal out to 'the crowd'

With a camera like the GH5s or Z6 you are knackered when you use up the HDMI for 'the crowd' as there is no operator monitor option.

Ive therefore got.. these in a (aluminium) box at the moment
Transmitter
HDMI splitter
Ribon cable between the two
Small chip that takes 12v and feeds 5v to the HDMI splitter.

Thats what I need to print a box for.. but even with the tiny ribbon cable it gets very awkward to shape.

THis is where I got to.. Ill develop it sometimesconnex.jpg
 
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