Switronix Wireless hd

[Dean Smollar]

initial thoughts -

 

1) the size was slightly annoying. It's extremely light, but bulky in shape like a camwave (only a little bigger). This was a problem when I had to figure out how to mount it; since production didn't rent a RED cradle I couldn't place it at the back of the camera like I wanted, nor could I place it on my battery rack because it was too long to mount on my recorder rack. I had to put it on top of the camera, and it looked silly. Combine that with the IDX brick powering it, and I added an extra 4-5 in. extending upwards on the rig. Wouldn't have been a problem with a little preparation.

 

2) the transmission was solid & accurate enough to shade from IMO. The claimed transmission range is 150 ft (50 m) without obstruction, and I have no reason to doubt that, though I never had to travel further than 100 ft from village. However, we did have a signal breakup when a 12x12 silver bounce was set up between me and village, even though I was only 30 ft away. Also, there was one instance where the receiver and transmitter stopped communicating. However, I just restarted the tx, and it came back up immediately. Those two moments were the only issues I had with the function of the unit.

 

All in all, I was a fan, especially for the $3200 price point.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention the fan. It's not very loud; I couldn't hear it at all when we were working unless I put my ear next to it. However, it is there, and in a sound controlled environment I could see it being slightly noticeable. Not as loud as the RED fan.

[Martin Whittier]

I put together an in depth comparison review of the two systems. Have a look and let me know what you think. Enjoy.

 

http://blog.brumarfilms.com/2012/09/cutting-cord-hd-wireless-comparison.html

[Mikko Wilson]

Martin,

Thanks for your great blog post.

 

 

I was all set to order myself a Camwave 5HD on sale to try for a low-budget live TV gig coming up, figured I'd check out what I might be missing by not waiting and spending the bucks on the 7HD that's coming out soon. Ended up over here and heard about the Recon for the first time. After a couple of hours and reading Martin's blog post above, I figured I'd give it a shot as I've got 30 days to send it back to B&H if it doesn't perform.

 

Only had it since yesterday, so still lots of testing to do.

 

Initial thoughts are that it's pretty decent. Definitely a little bigger than the Camwave, and it doesn't feel super robust. But it works great. I've fed it SD and HD-SDI and pulled both HDMI and SDI out in the respective SD/HD modes and it's worked great. Lag is very very short, I'd estimate less than 2 frames including any lag in the camera and monitor I was using.

 

Range out in the open was almost exactly ay 150' as advertised. On signal loss it pretty much just cut to black after a couple of minor glitches apparently (I wasn't at the monitor). Re-aquiring takes a moment and it does flash a little (kinda neat) on-screen status display as it's searching for signal and when it re-locks (So it's always outputting *something* at the receiver). I haven't had a chance to test inside the large venue yet, but I'm hopeful it'll perform as expected. Around the TV station it had no trouble few a few studio & control room walls during a quick walk-around.

 

One reason I got it was for the unadvertised and (turns out) undocumented Tally feature. I do a lot of live TV with and without Steadicam and tally was an enticing option. When it arrived, the manual made no mention of the tally connectors, so out came the multimeter. I wrote up my findings in a quick n' dirty article here: http://mikkowilson.com/articles/ReconTally/

 

- Mikko

[Osvaldo Silvera SOC]

Excellent write up on the Tally option, Thanks for taking the time.

[Victor Lazaro]

And how would this compare to a Teradek Bolt? Why should I go with a much bigger box that the cigarette pack sized one?

[William Demeritt]

Victor: upon first review, I would say the Switronix might have better transmission/reception based on the fact that it has the external antennas adding to the transmission fidelity.

 

The Bolt most likely has PCB transmission antennas similar to most other AMIMON chipset devices (consumer devices, WHDI devices, even the unmodified Camwave).

 

The Switronix Recon has external antennas, which will help increase the transmission strength and the likelihood of reception at the receiver.

 

Both devices seem to have the same simple feature set: SDI transmission. Switronix might have power amplifiers on the antennas, but I would doubt it. Personally, if I was making the purchasing decision, I'd go with the Bolt. Over the next few months, as they come out and start getting reviews, I might pick one up. Got a few other things to pay for first (Cinetronic upgrade, wedding, lightweight PRO battery base).

[Charles Papert]

And how would this compare to a Teradek Bolt? Why should I go with a much bigger box that the cigarette pack sized one?

 

Because equipment that has been announced but not shipped does not effectively exist. Until there is a production model in the wild, making comparisons is folly. $3K Scarlet, anyone?

[Aaron King]

I do not own a Switronix, but I have used one on three separate occasions and was not impressed. First, it's size is a bit bigger than a CamWave, which is large enough already. Secondly, it's performance wasn't any better than a CamWave and in fact seemed worse. The scenarios I have worked with it range from house interiors, business and wide open exterior locations. Each time the receiver is relatively close by on a stand to make sure of good connection and everyone at the monitor keeps yelling because they have lost picture.

 

For something that is very new to the market, I would expect it to have improvements over what has been available for the past few years. Instead, it got bigger and has less range quality. That is a major step backwards.

 

I am hoping that products like the Paralinx and the Bolt prove to perform better and move ahead in technology and reliability, because transmitters like the Boxx just aren't in my price range.

[Thomas English]

Let face it, the Paralinx and Bolt will NOT be better. I agree with most of the critism of the Switronix except that its not as good as the Wevi. I own a Recon and use it all the time except when the production already have a wevi. I then use the production Wevi simply because I can't be bothered to get the Recon out and take responsibility for it all day. The Switronix under all circumstances is better than a Wevi signal wise. I've proved this time and time again.

 

They both break up if too close to the receiver

 

Neither work if you place the Receiver on the back of the 17inch monitor with loads of metal screening them.

 

Both need a little thought about the nature of radio signals with regards to receiver placement.

 

They are both running on exactly the same chipset just wired up to different standards. IDX apparently made some big mistakes on the wiring standards of the Wevi which they went to some lengths to correct with newer serial numbers and apparently the CW7 will be a considerable improvement and could turn out to be the best unit when released.

 

Currently if you are just considering signal quality the RECON is bundles better than the wevi CW5.

[Victor Lazaro]

I don't mean to troll, but Abel Cine just released this: http://blog.abelcine.com/2012/11/09/at-the-bench-abelcine-wireless-video-solution/

[William Demeritt]

Victor: that's a step backwards in my opinion. They're using WiHD consumer transmitter/receiver packages that work in the 60Ghz frequency range, so they'll ALWAYS have a shorter transmission length due to atmospheric absorption (oxygen eats up radio signals at 60Ghz). Then they're adding Atomos H2S and S2H devices like we were doing before with the AirSyncHD and Paralinx Arrow owners use (or Decimator, etc).

 

Thomas: any transmitter based on the AMIMON chips (pretty much anything WHDI or anything advertising HD transmission in the 5Ghz range) has a "too close" limitation of 6 feet. The transmission distance must be at least 6 feet in order for the signal to lock.

 

Further, just putting some thoughts out there, the AMIMON chips that first made it into the CW-5 were an earlier revision of the transmitter/chipset, so they had a built-in limitation of distance. I believe AMIMON released the newer chips in April 2009 with the AMN 2120 transmitter and AMN 2220 receiver. The new chipset had more capability at better distance, and I think IDX probably silently started deploying those chips since they were a ready swap.

 

NAB 2012 is a bit of a haze (thanks to me drinking with Eric Fletcher and Jim Bartell), but I stopped by the IDX booth to discuss the CW-7 with their rep. In my brief encounter, I don't recall any new specs of features that extended beyond what the CW-5 already had to offer. Some new video format handling capabilities belong to IDX, but their "DFS" (dynamic frequency selection) is a spec of the AMIMON chips. I got the feeling they're just formally advertising the AMN 2120 transmitter and AMN 2220 receiver chips in the CW-7 when they never did in the CW-5. The only other advertised feature was "better performance outdoors" because the earlier CW-5 performed better with reflective surfaces but not line of sight problems (big empty room was it's perfect setting, but not too big).

 

If the Paralinx Arrow had delivered HD-SDI earlier, I would have completely put my stock into them. However, Teradek claims to have an HD-SDI transmitter of a tiny size on the way. If they deliver, and the transmission range is what they advertise, I'll probably buy one and call it a day. Like Thomas, I want to keep a small transmitter on hand to help get me out of trouble when they want to tether, etc. If they have a transmitter, let's use their transmitter, and I don't want to have to troubleshoot it (although I always seem to).

[Mark Schlicher]

From what I've read on other forums, the Teradek Bolt has basically built-in the cross-converters to an HDMI TX/RX that is probably very similar to the Paralinx Arrow. FWIW, it's apparently not a native HD-SDI transmission. It also promises the same range as the Arrow, I believe.

 

Having worked with a Paralinx Arrow for a little while, the convenience of built-in cross-conversion to SDI and professional 14.4V power supply and connectors would be very appealing, to avoid the tangle of extra cables, voltage regulator, and converter boxes. That said, the Arrow is inexpensive and works as advertised.

[William Demeritt]

From what I've read on other forums, the Teradek Bolt has basically built-in the cross-converters to an HDMI TX/RX that is probably very similar to the Paralinx Arrow. FWIW, it's apparently not a native HD-SDI transmission. It also promises the same range as the Arrow, I believe.

 

HDMI is just the plug the technology uses to get a signal into it, and since the HDMI plugs carry a standard signal, I think that's what the transmitter was built on. The AMIMON transmitter/receiver capabilities are what's exploited in pretty much every 5Ghz latency free uncompressed wireless HD transmitter on the market, because they did it right and well. However, I'm inclined to think there's more than just format conversion going on. The Arrow transmitter lives in a plastic case, but the Bolt is T6061 aluminum. If it uses PCB antennas, then I'd think the aluminum chassis would attenuate the signal and they'd need to counteract that affect somehow.

 

Further, the Bolt has LEMO power input accepting 5-18V power while the Arrow is only 5V regulated power. The Bolt also has external link strength indicators, something the Arrow only has on screen at the receiver. Most importantly, the Bolt has already implemented the multicast capability which the Paralinx has said was "down the road".

 

Of course, the Arrow is actually for sale today, whereas the Bolt....... of course, I'm less inclined to designate it as vaporware since Teradek is a company already delivering the gear they announce.

 

Also, the Arrow is inexpensive, but the SDI conversion, at it's cheapest, will cost you about the same as a Teradek Bolt... once it comes out, of course.

[Twojay Dhillon]

I was beyond stoked for the Bolt. Upon seeing "it" at Creatasphere, I was quite disappointed. I, along with another Op, tested both the frame delay and its range. The delay was absolutely NOT 1-1.5 frames. Whether this delay (eyeballed at ~ 3 frames) is attributable to the Canon c300/500 that it was mated to is beyond my rudimentary knowledge of those particular cameras.

 

The range was laughable, at best. The other Op took the camera rig out of the pop-up and walked maybe 15 yards away from the receiver and it cut out before he managed to duck behind the boat. Reconnection time was very long. On the order of 30-40 seconds.

 

Further, the advertised discount that was to be granted to folks that pre-ordered has vaporized. Now, instead of a discount, you get a full-featured Bolt for the price of the non-full-featured-Bolt (just below $2k). The difference between the full-featured Bolt and the non-full-featured Bolt, once these things finally pop their heads out of the birthing canal, is merely loop-though on the Tx and Rx. Bait & switch much?

 

I was highly unimpressed with the build quality of the Switronix (still am...), but now that the other "options" are apparent, I'll take a cheaply-housed unit that actually does what it claims (impresively so) over vapour.

[Victor Lazaro]

I was beyond stoked for the Bolt. Upon seeing "it" at Creatasphere, I was quite disappointed. I, along with another Op, tested both the frame delay and its range. The delay was absolutely NOT 1-1.5 frames. Whether this delay (eyeballed at ~ 3 frames) is attributable to the Canon c300/500 that it was mated to is beyond my rudimentary knowledge of those particular cameras.

 

The range was laughable, at best. The other Op took the camera rig out of the pop-up and walked maybe 15 yards away from the receiver and it cut out before he managed to duck behind the boat. Reconnection time was very long. On the order of 30-40 seconds.

 

Further, the advertised discount that was to be granted to folks that pre-ordered has vaporized. Now, instead of a discount, you get a full-featured Bolt for the price of the non-full-featured-Bolt (just below $2k). The difference between the full-featured Bolt and the non-full-featured Bolt, once these things finally pop their heads out of the birthing canal, is merely loop-though on the Tx and Rx. Bait & switch much?

 

I was highly unimpressed with the build quality of the Switronix (still am...), but now that the other "options" are apparent, I'll take a cheaply-housed unit that actually does what it claims (impresively so) over vapour.

 

Also, I had so many bad experiences with the Teradeck Cube, (The connection was so bad super long delays cought up by speeding the image for about 30 secs... that the director preffered running behind me and looking at the tiny monitor on top of the RED. )

I guess a Paralynx as a cheap thing for now, until something good and reliable comes up might be my way.