Teradek Bolt

[Mike Gailing]

Twojay: which light? The bottom light only turns on when your battery is extremely low - its red.

 

William: Thanks for the info. Ill keep you posted as I learn more about the power issue.

[Charles Papert]

Yeah, getting a little bored reading about all the shipping and billing drama. Would love to hear some stories about how this unit actually works in the field. How does it compare to the $18,000 Boxx Meridien which is, in my opinion, by far the best HD transmitter in our industry today.

 

I said it before and I'll say it again: there is only one way to truly test transmitters against each other and that is in legit and thorough head-to-head testing in a myriad of environments. This was the goal with the original concept of the Great Transmitter Debacle and things have only gotten more interesting in the last year or so since we haven't been able to get it going (Ron B. is always off in NYC earning the requisite funds to keep Jumbo's open). It is going to take a whole stack of anecdotes to be able to determine the performance of a given unit like the Bolt: Twojay gets good results 45' feet away through two walls, the next person loses signal line of sight from half that, who knows. It's RF baby.

 

Shipping and billing issues are not sexy, but for me at least I want to know what kind of customer service to expect when dealing with a new company. Most people who owned Moduluses (Moduli?) went through the pain of multiple-month servicing at some point.

 

So far, it's been a bumpy ride (the unit that Will describes is mine) but that's the joy of early adopting.

[Osvaldo Silvera SOC]

Just buy a Visilink system. Works right everytime. Over 120K for the whole system, but hey, it's only money.

[Twojay Dhillon]

Twojay: which light? The bottom light only turns on when your battery is extremely low - its red.

 

William: Thanks for the info. Ill keep you posted as I learn more about the power issue.

 

Oh, right. I should have totally got that from the inlcuded "literature".

[flemming laybourn]

having been through the whole range of systems: Modulus, Marell, camewave,cube and finally the latest version of the 'boxx' system

I can honestly say that once you have presented the 'boxx' to different clients, there is no going back... zero delay, no ( and I mean no) drop outs.. cementwall, up and down staircases... no drop out.. ( not sure about the radiationlevel.. but I have all the children I need ;-)

I got a cube, tested it and now its on permanent vacation in a pelicase.

I know that the 'boxx' is expensive.. but so is going through 3-4 different low end systems, everytime hoping that this one will be the one.. I have not tested the Bolt, but from the few reviews so far.. my feeling is that this will be another transition-system...

 

[Daniel Stilling DFF]

I have always been a bit of a wireless nut.

I have owned most wireless systems ever in existence. I now own a Paralinx Arrow, a Teradek Cube, a Bolt and 2 consumer grade HDMI transmitters.

The biggest variable between all these systems is power handling and video connection types. Surprisingly the wireless connection is quite similar. (With the Cube being the only exception)

The Cube has its uses. When used in conjunction with a receiver, to a village monitor, it's not the best choice.

But when used simply with an iPad, it has become a big hit with some of my clients.

The other wireless systems, once working and attached to a monitor work very similarly, but some of them are very finicky when it comes to powering. Actually all of them, except for the bolt.

I'm still in early stages, so I haven't got a clear picture (pardon the pun) of what works best where. As Charles pointed out, it's a bit more complex than just observing the differences once or twice.

On a side note, I just did a live show, where I was shooting from up on the stage and from bellow, in front of it. I used a Boxx Meridian with the high gain antennas placed on the back of the stage. Every time I went too close to the stage and the wall in front of the stage blocked line of sight, the signal would break up...

[RonBaldwin]

I like how the boxx breaks.up campared to most of the other systems

[Victor Lazaro]

I like how the boxx breaks.up campared to most of the other systems

Can you explain? I beer used the Boxx

[Louis Puli SOC]

"I can honestly say that once you have presented the 'boxx' to different clients, there is no going back... zero delay, no ( and I mean no) drop outs.. cementwall, up and down staircases... no drop out.. ( not sure about the radiationlevel.. but I have all the children I need ;-)"

 

Flemming said it all .I have 2 Boxx Meridians 1st at a rental house which go's out all the time on commercials and ( has paid for itself )and the 2nd one I use .When I get DP's saying when we used the last guy his Tra/Rec was breaking up and the client video had issues BUT with your system it just worked ."I look forward to working with you again " How much money is that worth to you ? I have the standard Meridian Tra/Rec (not with the broadcast controls an extra $18K)

I to like everyone else are looking forward to trying out all these new toys and I hope the new system will be as solid as the Boxx.

just my 2 cents.

[RonBaldwin]

the boxx behaves -- when all is not good, it starts to lose pixels but you can still see a picture and it almost always comes back. Almost all other systems go completely blank when the signal becomes weak and takes a bit of time to come back

[flemming laybourn]

 

Had my boxx upgraded a few months back.. ( the reciever now has 5 antennas ) Before that I could on occations have drop out, but not anymore... just wanted to let you 'boxx users' know if you were not aware of this upgrade.

 

as for the bolt.. I felt like a testpuppet with the cube... it was not so expensive.. but still 1300$ ( I believe..? ) is quite a sum.. and it was a bit like buying a new computergame: its not quite ready.. but the producers need to cash in on their investment... then after a while you download a patch, and now the game starts to work okay... but by that time, they have already started advertising for the sequel...

[Frederic Chamberland]

Finally, the BOLT arrived and I tested the hell out of it against the Paralinx for the last 2 days at my place. Couple of surprises.

First, to add to the boring shipping drama (just for you Nick ...) ; Teradek sent the wrong power cable with my unit, I had purchased an ALEXA (2 pins) to sender cable but they sent a P-tap to sender cable.... They are shipping overnight the good cable this week end.

 

I set up both transmitters on the EPIC: Paralinx thru HDMI and BOLT thru HD-SDI. Then connected both receivers to a small hd monitor and went around the house switching from both inputs.

First observation: Both units performed almost exactly the same way in the same conditions: Picture was perfect when in line of sight , going one floor up, it was still ok until I began having some pixillation on both end of the screen and when I lost connection, both units would loose the signal in the same 5 feet distance, then both would reconnect almost at the same time. Just to make sure one unit was not messing with the other one, I also did the test one at a time (powering off the other one): same results. When on the second floor , I was about 30 feet away from the camera but signal was going thru 1 floor and 1 wall.

Also , I wonder how much different the chipset is inside : both units have the exact same menu and connecting to the receiver is almost identical time wise (a good 7-9 seconds).

I also tried a "little" hack : I took the IR receiver from the paralinx and plugged it in the BOLT and with the Paralinx remote, I was able to open a service menu that has pretty much the same features as the Paralinx .

I was able to rename the unit and it gave me the option to hook to another receiver... I then tried to link the Paralinx sender to the BOLT receiver and vice versa...with no success (this would have opened a pandora box for both manufacturers I guess)...

Build quality is improved with real aluminum casing for the sender while the receiver is ABS/plastic. LEMO connectors for power is fantastic. There is no real manual with the BOLT, just a postcard with description of connectors and lights...Guess it's that easy to use.

Also worth noticing, there is a fan in the BOLT receiver that is not noticeable 5 feet away but could probably be an issue shooting in very quiet locations (fan is only on the receiver so that helps a lot) .

That's it for now, I will have a real situation test monday and will report on wednesday my findings.

For now, if both units continue to behave the same way (which is what I can observe right now) , I'll adopt the BOLT since all I wanted from the beginning was some HD-SDI instead of HDMI and I'm ready to pay the extra +1k just for that. If you are ok with HDMI, save yourself a thousand bucks and go the PARALINX way. I still have some more testing to do so I'll stick to both units for now.

[Victor Lazaro]

Same menu? And you can connect an extra receiver? Isn't teradeck saying that you can only do that at the factory? Plus the same menu? It confirms that the bolt is an arrow with a SDI converter inside.

[Frederic Chamberland]

There are some differences inside the menu : The paralinx gives you the ability to enable long dynamic frequency 2/3 for greater range but is not FCC approved so it's only there to use outside the US. This feature is not available in the BOLT menu. Instead, you have access to a system diagnosis where you can't change any parameters.

As for connecting an extra receiver, I have only one so I can't comment on the fact that I could do it or not. One thing is clear, I'm not suppose to have access to the BOLT setting menus since there is no IR receiver or remote included in the package. But , it was really just 1+1 to use the Paralinx accessories on the Bolt. And it worked.

[Dan Kanes]

Hi Frederic - DFS band 2 and 3 are actually FCC approved - they just might not be in other countries - so we leave them off by default.

 

Best,

 

Dan Kanes

PARALINX