Where are the wireless mics with recording capabilities?

brettsherman

brettsherman

Well-known member
What I really want is a wireless microphone that has a microSD slot that can record. Seems rather obvious that this would be insanely useful in the field. If you have RF interference you have a backup. You can remotely monitor audio quality, unlike say the Tascam DR-10L. You can use it in cases when you're out of camera inputs, or shooting with a gimbal where you can't stick the receiver on the camera. Why in the world does this product not exist?
 
In the USA, one company has a patent on the technology and thus a monopoly on the market.
So if you have a generous budget to buy a premium brand, go to: https://zaxcom.com/
Or else shop in Europe, Asia, etc. where the technology is recognized as obvious.
 
brettsherman said:
What I really want is a wireless microphone that has a microSD slot that can record. Seems rather obvious that this would be insanely useful in the field. If you have RF interference you have a backup. You can remotely monitor audio quality, unlike say the Tascam DR-10L. You can use it in cases when you're out of camera inputs, or shooting with a gimbal where you can't stick the receiver on the camera. Why in the world does this product not exist?
Click to expand...

Its Tascams DR-10C you want. Loop through to receiver. Only in purchasable in Europe, but you can get around that.
 
FWIW, Zaxcom just filed an infringement suit against Lectro for their new portable "PDR" recorder. I would not be surprised if Zoom, Sony, JuicedLink and others are served.
 
Warning: Thread hijack in process:

Seems Zaxcom is being very aggressive on this issue. Maybe I don't understand what the design is that Zax has patented. Seems like the idea of having a recorder that just happens to be able to pass a signal through; well that just seem like such a basic feature. Adding a couple of wires and an output plug to a recorder just doesn't seem like something that could be patented. Apparently they have been able to patent that design feature and defend it which caused Tascam to exit the US market. Sometime back one of the Vitec companies nearly sued the LED light industry to a halt. They seemed to think that they could own a patent for all LED lighting that was used in video. I'm unsure how that was resolved, but it didn't stop the industry for long; maybe set it back two years. It also created a serious amount of hate towards Vitec.

Grant
 
IMHO, Zaxcom have put themselves in the same category as Vitec and Monster. They have devolved from technology companies into marketing and predatory litigious organizations with likely more lawyers than engineers. They are not on my shopping lists.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is an un-indicted co-conspirator in this mess. They have essentially abdicated any kind of common-sense evaluation of "obvious" and "prior-art".
 
Another hijack:

Patent Law in the US is a joke. An absolute joke.

If society was like it is now, 100 years ago, there would be patents on door knobs turning left and door knobs turning right, you couldn't buy one that turns both ways.

I did read an article a few days ago that was about trying to break the strangle-hold that the patent-trolls have on filing all the "patent-infringement" lawsuits in eastern Texas(which is very friendly to "patent infringement" suites). I would need to go back and find the article and re-read it, but I believe the just was it was approved by the Supreme Court that the cases, now, can/must take place in the state where the alleged "infringer" is located or conducts most of their business. This helps prevent the patent trolls from just filling a suit in a jurisdiction that is more friendly/favorable for them(like Texas).
 
ggrantly said:
This gear exists, all it takes is $$.

Tascam does make a device in the DR10 series that does have a recorder and a passthrough output, but they don't sell that in the US due to patent issues.

Zaxcom does make what you want:

https://www.trewaudio.com/product/zaxcom-zfr400/
Click to expand...

That is not really what I want. I want it all in one unit. But now I know why it doesn't exist...Patent troll Zaxcom. Ridiculous.
 
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brettsherman said:
Not quite. I want it built into the actual transmitter. Why have two pieces of equipment with two sets of batteries when it's clearly possible for one to do it all. I'm also wondering if having it in one unit would keep Zaxcom from being able to troll their patent. Not to mention since Zaxcom doesn't have an actual product that does it, you'd think Sennhesier or Sony would want to get it to market before they do.
Click to expand...

All of Zaxcom's current transmitters also have built-in recording:
https://zaxcom.com/product_categories/transmitters-transceivers/

And here are links to (at least some of) Zaxcom's patents... I think the transmitter-recorder ideas are part of the "virtual wireless multitrack recording system" patents that go back to 2010, though I could be wrong about that.
http://patents.justia.com/assignee/zaxcom-inc
 
Jim Feeley said:
All of Zaxcom's current transmitters also have built-in recording:
https://zaxcom.com/product_categories/transmitters-transceivers/

And here are links to (at least some of) Zaxcom's patents... I think the transmitter-recorder ideas are part of the "virtual wireless multitrack recording system" patents that go back to 2010, though I could be wrong about that.
http://patents.justia.com/assignee/zaxcom-inc
Click to expand...

The concept of simply putting a backup recording function inside the wireless transmitter is neither "remote control" nor "multi-track". So it is not clear how that violates any of their patents. Except, of course that whomever has the larger fleet of lawyers will prevail in court.
 
If you read the patents, you see that there are many parts to the system. At least one of those parts is a transmitter that also records.
 
Patents, like most lawsuits, are good until someone wins in court. Once there is a court decision that is the law from there on out (usually).

Zaxcom may or may not have a good patent, but no one probably thinks there is enough of a market to fight it in court.
 
ggrantly said:
Warning: Thread hijack in process:

Seems Zaxcom is being very aggressive on this issue. Maybe I don't understand what the design is that Zax has patented. Seems like the idea of having a recorder that just happens to be able to pass a signal through; well that just seem like such a basic feature. Adding a couple of wires and an output plug to a recorder just doesn't seem like something that could be patented. Apparently they have been able to patent that design feature and defend it which caused Tascam to exit the US market. Sometime back one of the Vitec companies nearly sued the LED light industry to a halt. They seemed to think that they could own a patent for all LED lighting that was used in video. I'm unsure how that was resolved, but it didn't stop the industry for long; maybe set it back two years. It also created a serious amount of hate towards Vitec.

Grant
Click to expand...

Patent laws in the USA, and IP laws in general, are unfortunately really really screwed up and holding back a lot of human progress.
 
Jim Feeley said:
If you read the patents, you see that there are many parts to the system. At least one of those parts is a transmitter that also records.
Click to expand...

It's absurd that that would be given a patent. The notion of recording locally while transmitting probably dates back to the telegraph. And either I am a phenomenal genius to come up with the same idea, or virtually everyone who has ever used a wireless mic has also had the same thought. Not sure which. :)

There is no technically unique way they are accomplishing it. They should have never been given that patent to begin with. My guess it would not stand any sort of scrutiny. It just depends on whether there is a company that wants to spend the money to fight it.
 
IMO, the proceedings against Tascam were ridiculous, as most of the Zaxcom buyers would not have buy the Tascam anyway. OTOH, Lectro buyers maybe, but Lectro's PDR is just a recorder (with no transmitter). It doesn't even have a thru-put like the Tascam DR-10S had. But it's their right to file an infringement case though, like it or not. The only winners in this are the attorneys for sure.
 
There seems to be a lot of confusion about patents and intellectual property rights.

First as a patent attorney friend explained many years ago "a patent is a license to litigate". You don't get any "protections" you just get the right to sue.

A patent is for hardware, you can not patent an idea or a concept. So if these are actually patent suits they are over some specific hardware feature. In many cases it is not particularly hard to work around a patent if you have the time and money to fight it in court. Only about 10% of US patents with stand a serious challenge.

The fact that they seem to be challenging companies with deep pockets would lead me to thing that there is some physical something that is critical. You can find out since all patents are public documents and some of the patent depositories are searchable on line so anything this recent should be easy to get a copy of.


The troll issue is not new. Japan was/ is famous for it. Un like the US the Japanese would let you file a patent on just about anything, working or not. So it was common practice to file patents on any research they did so that if at some later date someone figured out how to make it work they could file a "prior art" claim and kill the new patent.

All of this is why most things if they say patent pending don't have anything that will really protect their product. They file a patent on something just so they can say patent pending, and the patent application doesn't go public till it's approved so if you can drag out the approval time you have the "protection" of nobody knowing if you have some secret that will kill their rip off product or it's just BS.

If you are old enough to remember DYMO label makers. They had a lock on the market for a number of years protected mostly by their "patent pending" notice. The patent in question turned out to be on the adhesive. Once the patent was approved and everyone saw that nothing about the mechanism was protected the market was swamped by cheap knockoffs.

Copyrights and intellectual property is a different issue. These protect ideas and not "things". A US patent has to be for a "thing" and that "thing" has to actually work. An idea doesn't have to "work" it just has to be new and unique. As a general thing the idea doesn't protect hardware, even hardware that would seem to be derived from the idea. If the idea is the only way you can do the hardware then you have some clout but most hardware is not dependent on a single idea but by the broader topic that the idea relates to so a similar "idea" could be what drives MY hardware, and then I am clear of your "idea".

Anyway patents are pretty robust in the US, providing the patent office can do it's job. Both sides of the political fence have been cutting funding to the patent office for years and they are often not as diligent today as they used to be.

As to door handles, nope. Both are based on mechanisms that predate patents so "prior art" would kill them. Now if the patent office is understaffed and someone just approves the patent then you could maybe get a patent but if would fail the first time it was challenged. Patents are for new mechanisms, not reworked old mechanisms.

To bring this back to the topic.

Zaxcom either has some piece of hardware that is so critical that others are in essence copying it or they have some "idea" that they are claiming ownership of. The first would be a patent issue and the second would be some sort of Intellectual Property issue.

I have a hard time seeing the first as viable so I suspect it's the later.

And they may also just be playing for time. Even if their patent" is pretty much BS someone would need to challenge it to get it thrown out. Until they lose the challenge they have the market to themselves.
 
Noiz2 said:
As to door handles, nope. Both are based on mechanisms that predate patents so "prior art" would kill them. Now if the patent office is understaffed and someone just approves the patent then you could maybe get a patent but if would fail the first time it was challenged. Patents are for new mechanisms, not reworked old mechanisms. And they may also just be playing for time. Even if their patent" is pretty much BS someone would need to challenge it to get it thrown out. Until they lose the challenge they have the market to themselves.
Click to expand...

"Prior art" should kill this claim too. It is tangibly no different than hardwiring a Nagra recorder to a lavalier or shotgun mic and wirelessly transmitting the signal from the Nagra to the camera. That's been done for what 40 years? My guess is the patent officer was buried in a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo about "Mult-track" and passed it along when they should have stripped out any language having to do with recording audio at the transmitter level.
 
Jim Feeley said:
If you read the patents, you see that there are many parts to the system. At least one of those parts is a transmitter that also records.
Click to expand...
All patent applications are written like that (including my own https://patents.google.com/patent/US4983907A)
The lawyers throw in every possible claim down to and including the kitchen sink.
That gets the client maximum bang for their buck. It leaves the interpretation to the lawyers and the courts.
I suspect that most inventors hardly recognize their own invention by the time the lawyers finish writing all the patent claims.
 
Get a voice recorder and plug a lav mic into it. Problem solved. No transmitting, just record right on the subject/talent. Get it off of ebay and save 90%. Watch videos on YouTube for specific models and brands.


Steve
 
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