thisisvincent
Member
Thanks for all your suggestions and help. The issue is now resolved after replacing the Sennheiser 3.5mm mini-plug to XLR cable which was faulty
FS5: No audio on Sony PXW FS5 Mark ii using a Sennheiser ewG4 lavalier/lapel mic
- Thread starter thisisvincent
- Start date
Thanks for all your suggestions and help. The issue is now resolved after replacing the Sennheiser 3.5mm mini-plug to XLR cable which was faulty
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
Troubleshooting 101: Check the cable first.
Three pages on this. I'll bet everyone assumed the cable was already ruled out as the culprit and immediately went on to suggest less obvious solutions. Cables are, by far, the number one source of malfunctions and they always need to be ruled out first.
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JPNola
Veteran
Spares, spares, spares.
I realize budget often precludes it, but I try to have spares of everything. I dropped my Fs7 VF early in ownership, it broke, I was screwed the rest of the day’s shoot, I now have 3 working VF’s. Two spares I bought off eBay. I even have a spare VCT plate AND spare wedge-plate for my Sachtler.
I bring a backup tripod on every shoot. And I now bring my A7sii on every shoot as a backup camera should my primary camera fail.
Needless to say, it goes for personal gear as well. Spare raincoat. Spare reading glasses / sunglasses.
This is a bit of a “no duh”. But it is good to remind each other. Many of my spares came about as result of bad experiences where I failed to have spares. These days spares are even more important now that we do data wrangling in the field. Spare card readers, spare usb cables, spare power supply for the laptop. And if you want to go to the extreme in preparation- a spare laptop.
When you buy a wireless, buy spare cables as well. Not later. When you buy a lens, buy a spare lens cap. Or two. Buying an Astra? Awesome. Make sure to buy a backup D-tap power cable and a backup power cable for the AC-adapter.
spare, extra, backup...whatever your name of choice. Just cover your a**.
I realize budget often precludes it, but I try to have spares of everything. I dropped my Fs7 VF early in ownership, it broke, I was screwed the rest of the day’s shoot, I now have 3 working VF’s. Two spares I bought off eBay. I even have a spare VCT plate AND spare wedge-plate for my Sachtler.
I bring a backup tripod on every shoot. And I now bring my A7sii on every shoot as a backup camera should my primary camera fail.
Needless to say, it goes for personal gear as well. Spare raincoat. Spare reading glasses / sunglasses.
This is a bit of a “no duh”. But it is good to remind each other. Many of my spares came about as result of bad experiences where I failed to have spares. These days spares are even more important now that we do data wrangling in the field. Spare card readers, spare usb cables, spare power supply for the laptop. And if you want to go to the extreme in preparation- a spare laptop.
When you buy a wireless, buy spare cables as well. Not later. When you buy a lens, buy a spare lens cap. Or two. Buying an Astra? Awesome. Make sure to buy a backup D-tap power cable and a backup power cable for the AC-adapter.
spare, extra, backup...whatever your name of choice. Just cover your a**.
cyvideo
Veteran
Old car mechanic's saying. "9 0ut of 10 mechanical problems are electrical." Old TV TD's saying "It's usually an Air Gap." You were suffering an "Air Gap" by the sounds of it. Maybe a broken cable in that original mini to XLR cable. Glad you got it sorted.
Totally aside but a story about the moral of having some way out of a dilemma using a "spare," a spare cable even when something goes wrong.
An amazing cable recovery 'rescue' I witnessed was when I was a newbie on a live OB. All in the van heard a "thump" and the vision switcher flashed for a split second and then continued on as its redundant power supply kicked in. Day saved... only to be followed by a second thump about a minute later as the redundant power supply died. All vision output from the switcher went down. The audio was still going out from the audio booth but we had no pictures. The director is starting to lose his cool. One of the old hand CCU ops jumped up from his chair and lept across to the routing switcher. In a flash, he routed the output from one of the cameras to a second output on the router. He then ran a BNC tie-line from that output straight to another switcher input on the uplink TX and switched to that. I'm thinking "Where did he get that cable from so quickly?" The director now had one camera of the game live to air. The commentators were informed of what had happened and continued to call the game off that one camera. In the meantime, one of the techs was replacing one of the switcher power supplies. As everything came back to life about three minutes later the CCU op told the switcher to go to one of the other cameras. As soon as that happened the CCU op calmly switched the TX unit back to the original input and removed the temporary BNC tie-line. He then rolled it up and draped it over his shoulders and went back to his CCU station.
After the game one of the other TD's said "I always wondered why that old dude always had a couple of meters of BNC cable slung around his shoulders." I said, "I have no idea why but lucky for us he had it." Ever after that on OBs I used to keep a couple of cables close to hand in case of having to jury-rig you way out of vision blackout. Never had to but like Linus, it was my security blanket. Been anal about having backups of everything ever since.
Chris Young
cyvideo
Veteran
You are joshing me surely? An Outside Broadcast unit, from an OB Van. I TD'd 25 rounds a year for five years on our NSWRL matches (state rugby league.) A couple of shots of the current NEP OB units being used down here for the NRL (national rugby league):
Chris Young
Jim Feeley
Veteran
IME, it's a term more common in Commonwealth countries than in the US. Kinda like rugby and Marmite/Vegemite. ;-)
I was in a rental house a couple of years ago when some young guys came in and we're picking up gear and were asked if they wanted a back-up BNC ." Nah -we're OK".
I shook my head from the next counter and stuck my 2 cents in, wanting to make an impression for their own good : "Well fellas I guess that's your first experience as failures| ... Take it from an old guy - bring a back up." They probably hated me, but they took the cable and probably never forgot.
I shook my head from the next counter and stuck my 2 cents in, wanting to make an impression for their own good : "Well fellas I guess that's your first experience as failures| ... Take it from an old guy - bring a back up." They probably hated me, but they took the cable and probably never forgot.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
@ Chris
What's a CCU? What's a TD? Just kidding. BTW, TD is the the hardest job in the truck so kudos to you for being a pro at it.
And I hear OB used in the USA all the time. "TV Truck" is more common, but OB is used too.
What's a CCU? What's a TD? Just kidding. BTW, TD is the the hardest job in the truck so kudos to you for being a pro at it.
And I hear OB used in the USA all the time. "TV Truck" is more common, but OB is used too.
cyvideo
Veteran
Yes sorry guys! Didn't realize that 'OB' wasn't a super-used term Stateside. The term OB truck is used here quite often.
Doug. Yes loved the challenges of TD'ing. Trying to match twenty-thirty cameras from different manufactures was one of my personal challenges. Live OBs are always challenging as anything can come undone. But then that's the buzz... when you all get it right especially if you just averted a disaster. Everyone is quietly congratulating everyone afterward. Especially after something like a 12-24 hour endurance race where smooth handover of operators is part of the secret.
One federal election to see who was to govern us for the next four years was almost a disaster. We had everything rehearsed, backed up, redundancy everywhere when I heard with about two minutes to go a calm but measured director in my comms saying "Where the F**k are my pictures?" Everyone is spinning out as we have no images to go to the whole of the country on election night. I knew the problem couldn't be in the TD's section so had to be somewhere else. The vision switcher op is sweeping his eyes all over the big GV 4000 switcher checking M/E and bus assignments trying to sort the problem when I just happened to spot that someone had put the last DSK (downstream keyer) at FTB (fade to black). I nodded at the poor guy who is really starting to feel the pressure as every eye in the truck was now on him. With a nod, I nodded towards the DSK at issue and mouthed the words "DSK". He twigged and looked at where I was nodding my head towards. Saw the FTB engaged punched the button and vision swelled up in the PGM monitors. Ten seconds later we were on air. Used to love it, kept you alive and on your toes.
Chris Young
Doug. Yes loved the challenges of TD'ing. Trying to match twenty-thirty cameras from different manufactures was one of my personal challenges. Live OBs are always challenging as anything can come undone. But then that's the buzz... when you all get it right especially if you just averted a disaster. Everyone is quietly congratulating everyone afterward. Especially after something like a 12-24 hour endurance race where smooth handover of operators is part of the secret.
One federal election to see who was to govern us for the next four years was almost a disaster. We had everything rehearsed, backed up, redundancy everywhere when I heard with about two minutes to go a calm but measured director in my comms saying "Where the F**k are my pictures?" Everyone is spinning out as we have no images to go to the whole of the country on election night. I knew the problem couldn't be in the TD's section so had to be somewhere else. The vision switcher op is sweeping his eyes all over the big GV 4000 switcher checking M/E and bus assignments trying to sort the problem when I just happened to spot that someone had put the last DSK (downstream keyer) at FTB (fade to black). I nodded at the poor guy who is really starting to feel the pressure as every eye in the truck was now on him. With a nod, I nodded towards the DSK at issue and mouthed the words "DSK". He twigged and looked at where I was nodding my head towards. Saw the FTB engaged punched the button and vision swelled up in the PGM monitors. Ten seconds later we were on air. Used to love it, kept you alive and on your toes.
Chris Young
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
I love the high pressure of live television production, especially sports and concerts. One way or another you're going live at the top of the hour and there are no retakes or excuses. Everyone and everything on the crew has to function like a well-oiled machine right out of the gate. In college I took all the film production classes and worked on every production I possibly could. I also took every television production class and worked on every production I could, including sports broadcasts for ESPN, ABC, etc. I learned some important stuff in my film production classes, but in the end I chose to take the television road instead and have never regretted it. There was just too much standing around on a film set waiting for someone else to do something. In TV you are actively engaged and focused 100% of the time. A four hour broadcast can seem like it flies by in about 30 minutes. There's been a lot of shoots that come to and end and I'm like, "But wait, I'm not done!"
paulears
Veteran
The funniest thing with OB work is that people always come up to you and ask questions afterwards - if it's sport, they'll ask about a foul or an injury, and if it's music, they'll ask about strings breaking mic stands falling over, or audience people trying to get on stage, and they just don't understand it when you don't remember any of these things. What gets me with music is where they ask why the band didn't play XXX and you actually cannot remember ANYTHING they played at all. Everyone is so focussed on your own job - even technical cockups are missed, as long as they are not your own! When you remember every little defective moment.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
So true!!
I rarely would be able to tell you the final score of a game, and sometimes not even who won or lost unless I am involved in post-game coverage and can see who is being interviewed.
I rarely would be able to tell you the final score of a game, and sometimes not even who won or lost unless I am involved in post-game coverage and can see who is being interviewed.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
It's also kind of pathetic that I know nothing about some of the sports I'm covering. I hadn't been to a hockey game in over 30 years before I got to the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018. So, me and two UK camera ops got assigned to shoot ENG at alpine skiing in the daytime and a hockey game every night. It came as quite a shock to all three of us the first night when the hockey game wasn't over after two halfs!! There's a third half, and you have to stand around waiting for the damn Zamboni machine to smooth the ice for yet another time. Super boring. We were were dog tired after shooting skiing all day and had a 90 minute drive ahead of us every night, so it was quite disappointing to learn that hockey was even worse than expected. The OB crew was manned by Canadians who shoot NHL at home so they were kind enough to answer all our dumb questions. But I must say that was one of the most boring assignments I ever had. Hours and hours of following a little black speck around on the ice and hoping like hell you don't miss the shot when happend to go into a net. I guess this thread has officially gone off the rails.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
No, I'm pretty sure hockey has three halves. Someone once said, "hey how can we make this game 50% more boring and sell twice as many hot dogs?" And the answer was, add one more halftime. And that is how the the third half was born. I saw a documentary about it.
This has nothing to do with the "third half' - but for those who enjoy hockey and documentaries I'd highly recommend watching "Red Army"
I almost never hear the term OB - though Remote Truck does get mentioned fairly often.
While knowledge of the sport can help in certain instances (particularly when shooting the wider medium or master shots) to be ready for the movement of the ball/puck, the more cameras there are the more likely you are to need to focus on something away from the action. That may be maintaining close coverage on a player who is only involved in the action 10% of the time, or holding a shot of the coach on the sidelines, or waiting in the tunnel for the shot of players heading to the locker room.
But at least more cameras means more jobs for more operators. I personally miss the Broadway shoots I worked on pre-pandemic, even though I seldom walked out with much of a sense of what the play was about. Most of the dialogue I hear is coming from the director calling the shots, and the people talking on stage tend to just interfere with the intercom, so my (open) right ear normally gets an earplug.
I almost never hear the term OB - though Remote Truck does get mentioned fairly often.
While knowledge of the sport can help in certain instances (particularly when shooting the wider medium or master shots) to be ready for the movement of the ball/puck, the more cameras there are the more likely you are to need to focus on something away from the action. That may be maintaining close coverage on a player who is only involved in the action 10% of the time, or holding a shot of the coach on the sidelines, or waiting in the tunnel for the shot of players heading to the locker room.
But at least more cameras means more jobs for more operators. I personally miss the Broadway shoots I worked on pre-pandemic, even though I seldom walked out with much of a sense of what the play was about. Most of the dialogue I hear is coming from the director calling the shots, and the people talking on stage tend to just interfere with the intercom, so my (open) right ear normally gets an earplug.
thirdyearff
Active member
Hmmm...hockey has 3 periods, more if there is overtime...and yup, they resurface before those as well.
Count me as one whos never heard the term OB...we always just referred to them as "trucks"
And since this thread has taken a left turn...
Reading through this takes me back, its been awhile since i thought about ME Banks and downstream keyers! I was never a TD (I need more than one crack at it) but i was an online guy for years...its how i started in the business back in '89. My last year in an online room was around '96, i left the Golf Channel to work the Atlanta games then moved to Boston shortly after and got out of broadcast and back into the post house world. The shop i went to work for had identical rooms to the Golf Channel...all Abekas, A83's, A57's, A72's, A66's, CMX Aegis, Zaxcom boards. Jumped on an AVID a year later, then Smoke, then Flame and never looked back. But those early years were the salad days...kind of miss it...it was fun tap dancing around on a switcher!
Count me as one whos never heard the term OB...we always just referred to them as "trucks"
And since this thread has taken a left turn...
Reading through this takes me back, its been awhile since i thought about ME Banks and downstream keyers! I was never a TD (I need more than one crack at it) but i was an online guy for years...its how i started in the business back in '89. My last year in an online room was around '96, i left the Golf Channel to work the Atlanta games then moved to Boston shortly after and got out of broadcast and back into the post house world. The shop i went to work for had identical rooms to the Golf Channel...all Abekas, A83's, A57's, A72's, A66's, CMX Aegis, Zaxcom boards. Jumped on an AVID a year later, then Smoke, then Flame and never looked back. But those early years were the salad days...kind of miss it...it was fun tap dancing around on a switcher!
cyvideo
Veteran
Hey! Vegemite yes... but not Marmite, that's the Limey stuff. Good but not like good old Vegemite. It has to be eaten correctly... thinly spread.
Chris Young