Which cheap wireless system to buy?

N

naavt

Well-known member
So I'm in the market for a wireless system. I'm not into Lavs (just because I have no use for them right now), but I'm thinking on going TC wireless from camera to dual system recording.

The thing is... If I'm going to spend some cash, I want to spend it wisely and "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" if I ever will need a good Lav on one or other occasion.

I then started to look around and search this forum for info and seems to me that the new? G3 system from Sennheizer gets friendly evaluations from many fellow members on this board, and the chase begun but... I'm becoming more and more confused with all the options on the web.

First things first... I'm in Europe. Browsing the more respected vendors on the web from this side of the Atlantic shows no option for a "G" band so mentioned by many of you. What I can see is a "C" band (that's a NO GO if I understood all your posts right), a "D" band and an "E" band, all over 700mHz.

My first question is... How come I cannot find a G band over here? Are D and E bands outdated as the C band?

Second question. Even if I don't plan to use the Lavs right away, what is the best Mic choice for a G3 kit? Cardiods or Omnis?

Third question. What does "diversity on the camera receiver" means?

Fourth question, and a more broader one, can you wireless experts enlighten me on what's the best G3 system for me? Or any other system I might consider in the same price league?

Thanks in advance
 
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I don't know that the Sennheiser USA website's frequency finder does any good for anywhere else. :)

But Jordan is right in that the rules regarding wireless mics and acceptable frequencies for them are undoubtedly far different in Portugal than they are in the US. I seem to recall that "C" band systems are still OK in Europe, and that the "G" band is only in North America, but I could be very wrong on either of those. "D" and "E" bands were never in the US, as far as I know, so I can't say anything about those. With regards to what works in your area, a local dealer is going to be far more knowledgeable.

Your second and fourth questions are kind of similar, so let me answer them as one. What's best for you depends on what your intentions for the mics are. If you're planning to use them with a camera, you almost certainly want a system with a portable (battery powered) receiver. Unless you're doing a lot of interviews, you probably want a system with an omnidirectional lav. (And you almost certainly want to upgrade the ME2 omni lav that comes with the system to something better as soon as you can afford it.) For interviews, you might consider a system with a plug-in transmitter and a mic such as the ElectroVoice RE50 (if such is available over there :) ); or I believe they may sell a system with both the bodypack and plug-in transmitters if you want both.

Finally, "diversity" means a wireless receiver with two antennas, that can switch between the two depending on which is getting a better signal. Many portable systems are not diversity, including the previous Sennheiser G1 and G2.
 
naavt said:
So I'm in the market for a wireless system. I'm not into Lavs (just because I have no use for them right now), but I'm thinking on going TC wireless from camera to dual system recording.

...
Thanks in advance
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Does your camera have dedicated timecode input and output terminals? I seem to recall from some of your earlier posts that it does not (though I may be confused, that happens a lot these days <grin>). For example, the Canon XL H1S and XH-G1 do have it through their "professional jack-pack" offering genlock in, timecode in, and timecode out terminals while their sister cameras, the XL H1A and XH-A1, do not have any such jacks. The fact that the camera has a timecode generator to mark the video does not in and of itself give you the ability to send that code out to a recorder, be it wireless or hard-wired. You actually have to have a true timecode output jack to connect the transmitter. You have the XH-A1, right? If so, you don't have anything to connect the wireless transmitter to in order to send the timecode. You cannot feed the transmitter from the composite video output and have it work even if the video has embedded timecode.

Did you ever hear anything back from Tascam tech support about syncing the HD-P2 audio sample clock to incoming video blackburst in the absence of timecode?
 
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Hi Steve,

I start this post by thanking you on your endless efforts to solve my TC issues. Once again here you are reminding that something could be wrong with my thoughts concerning this subject and I thank you for that too.

Answering you, I've bought an Horita PTG TC generator/reader which will feed both the camera and the wireless transmiter, thus sending the TC signal to the receiver on the Tascam recorder. I hope to end my endless search for a perfect sync in my dual system that way, though I can not preview how I'm going to do it just because I don't know if the Horita can feed the XH-A1 in real time or just Jam it.

I've tried to Jam the camera and everything is fine but I know that I'm going to have a drift that way on very long shots. Horita support told me that I can keep the generator attached to the camera at all times but I didn't found a way to lock the camera's TC to Horita's generator. I think I have to read the manual once more and give it a try. (Think one of the best ways to see if it works will be generating a TC that my XH-A1 hasn't and read it on the display. Such as 30fps or 24 since my camera is a PAL one and only shoots 1080i and 25F).

And unfortunately NO :( Tascam didn't even bothered to answer my email. Think I'm going to forward it once more to them.

I do appreciate your insight on my wireless TC thoughts though.

Many thanks once again. Cheers
 
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naavt said:
Hi Steve,

I start this post by thanking you on your endless efforts to solve my TC issues. Once again here you are reminding that something could be wrong with my thoughts concerning this subject and I thank you for that too.

Answering you, I've bought an Horita PTG TC generator/reader which will feed both the camera and the wireless transmiter, thus sending the TC signal to the receiver on the Tascam recorder. I hope to end my endless search for a perfect sync in my dual system that way, though I can not preview how I'm going to do it just because I don't know if the Horita can feed the XH-A1 in real time or just Jam it.

I've tried to Jam the camera and everything is fine but I know that I'm going to have a drift that way on very long shots. Horita support told me that I can keep the generator attached to the camera at all times but I didn't found a way to lock the camera's TC to Horita's generator. I think I have to read the manual once more and give it a try. (Think one of the best ways to see if it works will be generating a TC that my XH-A1 hasn't and read it on the display. Such as 30fps or 24 since my camera is a PAL one and only shoots 1080i and 25F).

And unfortunately NO :( Tascam didn't even bothered to answer my email. Think I'm going to forward it once more to them.

I do appreciate your insight on my wireless TC thoughts though.

Many thanks once again. Cheers
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To jam your camera from ANY external TC source, including the Horita unit, you MUST have a dedicated timecode input jack. To slave the camera's clock to an external timebase source, you also must have a genlock input jack (though that's not actually related to timecode or required in order to jam TC per se). The XH-G1 has those required connectors (timecode in, timecode out, genlock in) but the XH-A1 does not. That means it is physically impossible to jam your camera's timecode from an external source.

To use double system with a timecode workflow when your camera does not have timecode i/o connections, you really need to work film-style. The audio recorder has to generate timecode so it acts as the timecode master (HD-P2 won't do that). You jam a smart slate from it and photograph the slate at the start of each take. In post you drop the video into the NLE and slide the timeline to match the numbers visible on the photographed start of take slate. Than when you drop in the BWF audio file, the two will match up.

The other option is to use a timecode generating audio recorder as the master and send code to one of the camera audio channels. Then you use NLE software in post that is able to read the timecode on the video file's audio track and sync the timeline to it, doing pretty much the same thing. AFAIK, that means you're pretty much locked in to using Avid and ProTools, the full (ie, very pricey) versions. I've heard that Final Cut Pro can also do this but that I don't know that to be a fact.

Neither of those workflows will do anything to deal with the issue of drifting off-sync over the course of long takes. In a file-based workflow, timecode ONLY provides a single point position reference. It DOES NOT provide a speed reference. To prevent drift, the camera's master sync clock and the audio recorder's sample clock MUST share a common timebase (and timecode IS NOT a timebase - timecode is derived from the timebase but DOES NOT drive it).
 
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Steve House said:
To jam your camera from ANY external TC source, including the Horita unit, you MUST have a dedicated timecode input jack. To slave the camera's clock to an external timebase source, you also must have a genlock input jack (though that's not actually related to timecode or required in order to jam TC per se). The XH-G1 has those required connectors (timecode in, timecode out, genlock in) but the XH-A1 does not. That means it is physically impossible to jam your camera's timecode from an external source.

To use double system with a timecode workflow when your camera does not have timecode i/o connections, you really need to work film-style. The audio recorder has to generate timecode so it acts as the timecode master (HD-P2 won't do that). You jam a smart slate from it and photograph the slate at the start of each take. In post you drop the video into the NLE and slide the timeline to match the numbers visible on the photographed start of take slate. Than when you drop in the BWF audio file, the two will match up.

The other option is to use a timecode generating audio recorder as the master and send code to one of the camera audio channels. Then you use NLE software in post that is able to read the timecode on the video file's audio track and sync the timeline to it, doing pretty much the same thing. AFAIK, that means you're pretty much locked in to using Avid and ProTools, the full (ie, very pricey) versions. I've heard that Final Cut Pro can also do this but that I don't know that to be a fact.

Neither of those workflows will do anything to deal with the issue of drifting off-sync over the course of long takes. In a file-based workflow, timecode ONLY provides a single point position reference. It DOES NOT provide a speed reference. To prevent drift, the camera's master sync clock and the audio recorder's sample clock MUST share a common timebase (and timecode IS NOT a timebase - timecode is derived from the timebase but DOES NOT drive it).
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Another valuable information, altough a litle frustrating :(

Thanks once again Steve
 
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