William Demeritt

The after after gathering is usually the best. Hasn't been the same without BJ and Brad tag teaming. Hopefully Brad will show up this year to lead the wolf pack! Ha! Any ideas for the after after cinegear gathering?

24 hour gun range?

hi all

 

I would love that the monitor included something like an onboard recorder that captured the video signal itself reaching the monitor with the ability to review shots to keep for insitu and reels.

 

you are saying?

 

thanks for everything I learn from your comments.

 

P. S. sorry for my English

Jorge, rumor has it this will have a bracket for the Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle on the back.

Please take a look and see if a Magliner Sr can roll in and land in the back

My Mag Sr fits in the back of my Honda Element. I had to modify the height of the fore and aft bars as well as the stand to make it fit height-ways, but it fits length ways pretty much perfectly. The mods required a few hours, rotary tool and drill.

Hey James,

I've never really thought of, or even wanted to build a portable power source for my entire cart. I lug enough equipment in and out of my car daily.

That being said, I do usually carry a 25' bright orange stinger (Home Depot type, so electric doesn't mistake it for one of theirs) and a surge protector so I can tap into house or stage power. That way, I have a way to charge my batteries on my cart should it be problematic for the chargers to sit elsewhere. Likewise, that gives my cart power to plug in an AC adapter for a laptop or iPhone charger.

I think Afton Grant sells d-tap to iPhone charging cables, another great way to charge iPhones on set. I personally own a couple lithium ion battery packs that I can use to recharge my iPhone 3-4 times before the pack is dead.

I'd be intrigued to see what you come up with, though!

I'll try to drink enough to represent Ron Baldwin and BJ. Someone please notify the ambulance?

James,

I haven't heard of such an app, but I would imagine it would require a piece of hardware that performs most of the video acquisition on it's own, and an app running on the iPhone to actually record the video stream. Seems like s lot of effort.

Stabilizer Gear Expo on Sunday June 5 in Filmtools parking lot.

De-soberizer Expo at a local pub to follow??

Amimon released a new WHDI chipset late last year, and Hisense recently announced a product based on it. Might be worth investigating. The transmitter is now tiny, and powered from the HDMI port.

 

http://thetechjournal.com/electronics/hisense-whdi-accessories.xhtml

 

Supposed to be the same range, with the latest HDMI standard.

AMIMON advertised the same device a few months ago at CES and last November, it actually powers over that USB mini plug on the side. I think the range of that will be less simply for the lower power, since the AirSync HD ops at 15w. USB is 5v but usually not above 2amps.

When you soldered the pigtails to the antennas was there a place to solder the shield? if not the pigtail would be acting as part of the antenna screwing up the tuning.

 

Sounds like your mod voided the FCC approval for the device so I wouldnt plan on selling them unless you want the FCC breathing down your neck.

 

-Jess

The FCC is definitely a concern but i need clarification on a few things. I found an article from 2004 indicating the FCC seemed to open up the 5ghz band to additional antennas since forbidding aftermarket wifi rubber ducks limit the capabilities for growth. The article needed more research to understand the context, but I wonder if it's safe in the same way routers are sold with u.fl connectors or mmcx connectors and people can buy 5ghz or 2.4ghz antenna to increase range.

However, yea, I'm already thinking my process would require FCC certification, even though I'm not adding to the power output but simply adding antennas.

Fun new development I need to test, but the 1.1 Decimator 2 firmware upgrade (which also adds framelines over HDMI) also adds scaling over HDMI. I installed the control panel and set it to force 1280x720p29.97 over HDMI. I think that may solve my headaches with problem cameras, but we'll see.

If you decide to recell them, contact John Ritter ( siebold35@hotmail.com ). He's recelled some batteries for me and did a fantastic job. I'll use him for my next round of recells.

From what I understand, you can't (or maybe shouldn't) rebuild them with different cell types. I'm OK with being incorrect in my thinking, but the electronics in the shell are probably tweaked to work with specific chemistries and changing the cell type would probably cause problems.

These are absolutely brilliant and hilarious. I remember seeing just the Alexa video before, but the other two are classic as well!

Charles, that would be fantastic! I'd love to test it out with the system.

Thomas,

The external antennas are rather crude on this prototype, but I think my final version will look similar:

Not shown is my power cable, which is simply an AUX power LEMO for my PRO, runs to a 12/24v -> 5v transformer (big grey heatsink), runs out to a simple DC plug.

Basically, they're 4 wifi antennas specifically for 4.9-5.8Ghz range mounted to SMA connectors on pigtails. The pigtails are cut and soldered down to the PCB antennas inside the AirSync HD. I don't own a spectrum analyzer, or I could have verified their actual broadcast output, but when I removed the antennas and did my "walk", the signal didn't carry as long, so I know they're contributing.

Probably by mid-June, I'll have my final proof-of-concept finished and I'll begin showing my presentable version. Depending on the popularity, I may sell my conversion as a service for people who are interested, but that depends on other factors.

I've actively posted in some of the other threads regarding using the Brite-View Air Sync HD as a low cost HD transmitter solution, so I'm here now to post my first round of results of testing with a few videos I shot at Clairmont last week.

For those unaware, Brite-View as well as Asus have been selling a consumer product which allows for streaming 1080p video inside your house, from one box to another. The guts that make this work are parts by an Israeli company called AMIMON, who also happen to supply the parts for the IDX Camwave (and I suspect parts for the Transvideo Titan HD).

Yes, these are consumer products which rely entirely on HDMI input and HDMI output. However, for $220, and with the advertised broadcast capability, I thought they'd be worth considering for our purposes (Steadicam, narrative, etc). If anything, my hopes are that this inspires some clever company to actually address the "low cost" HD transmitter market whose lowest price seems to be $5,400 (Camwave) -$6,000 (Boxx Atom).

FIRST CAVEAT: this system hates any video input that is not 29.97. I spent the first 30 minutes struggling with the transmitter because the F35 was giving me 23.976. Yes, that's a huge problem, and something I'm going to begin researching portable ways to address that problem. With a camera like the RED, that's not a problem, because the HDMI output on camera already does 29.97, so it plays very nicely.

So, here's my rig built with the transmitter:

I built my own power cable with a 12/24v transformer that draws power off my AUX port and converts it to 5v. The transformer handles up to 6amps, which is good since the transmitter requires 3amps. My next task will be to build D-tap power cables.

The signal works this way:

Sony F35 -> HD-SDI -> Decimator 2 -> HDMI Loopthrough -> HDMI cable to -> AirSyncHD transmitter -> TRANSMISSION

...

TRANSMSSION -> AirSyncHD receiver -> HDMI Cable -> Monitor

NOTE: I also tested this, and it worked seamlessly:

TRANSMISSION -> AirSyncHD receiver -> HDMI Cable -> AJA HA5 -> HD-SDI -> Monitor.

The system works just fine with an AJA, so you don't always need an HDMI capable monitor. HDMI inputs are appearing more and more on set, but at least this protects against all scenarios.

ENVIRONMENT: we were testing at Clairmont yesterday, which for all I can tell was a fairly noisy RF polluted environment. They have wifi, LOTS of fluorescents, an elevator, plenty of cell phones and the such. With that in mind, we threw the system to the wolves and it did quite well.

Test 1: 60 feet moving camera with obstructions (several layers of drywall, a staircase, people, etc).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQjDxOVmAFM

Brian Freesh helped record me and my walking path, while a second camera recorded the monitor's live feed from my transmitter. I did the walk a few times, and during none of those trips did the image break up, pixellate or drop out. I removed my external antennas during one walk, and the image did distort.

Test 2: Latency at 12 feet, line of sight

Here, we rigged up the TVLogic monitor with both inputs in a split screen: one line is hard wired off the F35 HD-SDI, and the other is using the wireless transmitter. I used my iPhone 4's stopwatch to create a running clock for comparison. You can try to guess which is the transmitter and which is the hardwired.

Test 3: Latency at 60 feet, line of sight

Same test as the 12 feet, but it's at 60 feet. Same results: no discernible latency. My apologies for the glare.

Other tests performed included me getting into an elevator on the 2nd floor and riding down to the 1st floor. Image held up during the elevator ride, and 15 feet down the hallway before the image was lost. Image was not restored until I got back onto the same floor. (I'm hoping to address this problem with the next modification, where I'll add an antenna to the uplink, so the communication between devices is more robust).

My next phase will include tweaking the receiver unit to include an HDMI -> HD-SDI (most probably an AJA HA5), a single power until for both devices and possibly some more antennas. That being said, I'm still seeing the raw costs not exceeding $2,000 (so far, with the videos you see above, I have spent only $500 including cost of the kit).

My goal is to make this as set friendly as possible: the receiver could be a single box with minimal bells and whistles. The transmitter, while goofy looking now, is just a prototype. I want to rehouse it still into a box as lightweight, but with more internal space for cabling.

I'm also acquainted with ... Will Demeritt ...

I've been trying to sell him on the L'aigle for quite some time now. :D

Did your quick test include running the camera at 25fps? Did it work at 25fps during the test but then fail on set?

What was your other testing methods trying to get it running?

Since I very rarely have to flip the camera over going to low-mode, I can usually swap into low mode in 90s or less. Here's how:

My setup:PRO2 monitor on Sacthler telescopic dual rod monitor arm. I operate normal, monitor about 60% extended on the arms.

Someone says "Next shot is low mode."

1. Attach F-bracket to gimbal arm (I keep it in my back pocket at all times).

2. Extend post to maximum (remember which notch I started at for going back).

3. Extend monitor full distance from post, tilt monitor up so screen is nearly-facing the post, but not flat to the post.

4. Unlock gimbal, slide it up an inch or two, just roughing it in.

5. Slide camera forward maybe 1/2" to 1".

6. Undock sled, flip it over on my arm, finish the camera fore/aft rough adjust. Trim the sled, and adjust the side-side.

7. Check drop time while still on the arm. Adjust gimbal position accordingly.

8. Final adjustments to trim and side-side static balance.

9. Dock.

10. ...

11. PROFIT!

First time I do this, it takes a bit longer than my asserted 90 seconds. However, the subsequent mode changes happen quicker once I've memorized the notch and gimbal positions.

Since most of my jobs are on RED, sometimes I just have the AC's flip the camera battery so I can balance while booting up. I usually finish just about the time Windows95 finishes loading.

I was only mildly interested until you said "drinking heavily". I'm in!

Some other thoughts:

- Two monitors per system in each environment: tethered and transmitter (simultaneously) so we can see latency.

- mounting at camera and mounting at battery options.

- testing for range, image stability, image quality, weight, cost, power consumption, powering options, latency, components replacement cost, customer service experiences.

A stabilizer expo is in the works for this year.

J-Labs has an $8k transmitter they were advertising at NAB 2011.

Maybe Boxx can provide a Meridian and an Atom for comparison?

If I have some future success with my wireless system, I'd love to show off what a few hundred bucks and an overzealous soldering iron can achieve. I know I'm not alone in the "consumer product gone bad" market.

Tom: I ripped off the u.fl connectors on the pcb of the transmitter and soldered down the connection from a cut pigtail in line with the rf signal.

Chris, if you have any questions or ideas please shoot them my way? Ive been working on making my Brite view "set friendly", and today will be it's first real world test.

I've got a power cable, added some new antennas, and even have it ready for an hdsdi field monitor. Power amplifiers and receiver antennas are next on the slate.

A quick picture of the 7" steadicam monitor.

You probably just sold a few dozen more based on your choice of image.

So she thought you were red in the face and sweaty because you were holding the rig, huh? :-)

Just testing the waters to see if anyone in LA area is interested in a trade. I have a FilmTools Magliner Steadicam Sr, but just moved into a new apartment and probably need to downgrade to a Jr.

Basically, if you have a Junior and want to trade up to a Senior, let's talk? Even if you don't have a Steadicam version, we may be able to work things out. If you have the models that have a top shelf and a bottom shelf, let's talk.