Lightweight receiver for Bolt PRO 2000

[brooksrobinson]

Mike and Andrew,

 

Thanks for getting back to us, and welcome to the forum Andrew. To answer your question, lighter is always better for me, especially if what we are talking about is being held by hand and not being supported by a stand. However, my issue with something other than a gold mount battery is the length of time before you need to swap out the battery. This is especially true on a director's monitor. When the director is holding it, he/she is most likely looking at things besides how much juice is left on the battery behind the monitor, only to throw a fit when he/she doesn't have an image on the monitor because it ran out of power. Despite the weight, I'd be more inclined to stick with a gold mount system on a hand-held directors monitor. It makes sense to me for two reasons: we are powering both the RX and monitor and the extra power is necessary, and I already have gold mount batteries and chargers (most on this forum I suspect have either gold mount or V-lock batteries for their sleds). The less I need to carry various batteries and chargers the better. I'm sure there are many different opinions on the matter and that people will chime in, but thank you so far for looking into it. It would also be a good thing for VTR operators to have in their kit, so I can see there being a more mainstream need than just us steadicam operators.

 

Brooks Robinson

[Victor Lazaro]

Hi Andrew, welcome.

To answer your question, like Brooks said I would choose Gold mount as well, with the confidence that the battery will not fall off and break, plus i have having so many different chargers.

I would love to see a super slim battery with Gold mound, smaller that a Dionic 90 for this kind of use when you know that you are only powering a monitor and receiver, since Anton Bauer is part of Vitec group, hopefully you guys can figure something out.

To solve the issue of the monitor dying on the director, maybe adding an option to have a low battery warning flashing on the monitor or a bright blinking LED on the receiver when the battery is low could be a solution.

[Jess Haas SOC]

Either make it gold mount or just a small receiver with no battery mounting like the original Bolt.

[brooksrobinson]

Jess's comment got me thinking about my previous post and I wanted to clear up what I meant because I think there is room for it to be misinterpreted. With a hand-held directors monitor set-up (which is how I'd use a smaller 2000 RX), I would personally use a gold mount system to power the monitor and RX, but would want the battery to attach to either the monitor or the monitor cage - not the RX. I would want the 2000 RX to be as small and light as possible without a gold mount and without any type of bracket - just the RX. Also, as Victor said, a thinner Anton Bauer battery would be great for this type of application, but not a deal-breaker. Thanks again for looking into it for us Mike and Andrew.

 

Brooks Robinson

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

Gold mount. For all the reasons Brooks says.

 

Welcome to the Forum Andrew. I'm so glad that you guys are taking my/our request seriously! Michael, thank you for being so good to us as well. Congrats on the promotion.

[Andrew Ng]

This feedback is great. I plan on taking these to our engineers on Monday.

So if there's anymore today, I can tack them on.

 

I'm also the one rigging up all our demo/tradeshow gear for Teradek. When I get a chance to work on set, I'll bring these to run them through their paces, make sure they're practical.

 

That being said, I've actually had the opportunity to work with both the DP7 native handles and Wooden Camera cage. I ended up preferring the DP7 handles because it kept the system fairly minimal. The nice thing about it also was being able to mount the receiver vertically, as the AB plate on the SmallHD could be vertical. However, it all felt very unbalanced since everything is stacked to one side.

 

The Wooden Camera cage gets the job done with every other monitor, but from my experience seems to get loose over time.

 

Here's a question, both these accessories are shipped with neck straps... do Director's actually end up using them? In my experience, they haven't, but what do you guys think?

 

Also, if you could put an estimated measurement to it, how far will these director's monitors be from the transmitter on average?

 

Thanks!

[Alan Rencher]

Andrew, if the engineers can make the new receiver with the same footprint as the paralinx arrow receiver, then you can utilize the SmallHD Arrow Dock for the DP-7. That would be the best solution.

[RonBaldwin]

I want a bigger, heavier receiver so the director will just go sit at the village, watch the nice pretty xmission and stay away from me. I even make them use the a/c adaptor and an extension cord so it's like a leash to keep them from escaping the vicinity of the village.

[Jens Piotrowski SOC]

Since Vitec now owns half of the universe including SmallHD, Paralinx and Teradek, I predict a handheld Monitor/Receiver combination in the near future from SmallHD/Teradek.

 

http://www.vitecgroup.com/Aboutus/Worldclassbrands.aspx

 

 

Transvideo is already working on their own version....

[Alan Rencher]

Since Vitec now owns half of the universe including SmallHD, Paralinx and Teradek, I predict a handheld Monitor/Receiver combination in the near future from SmallHD/Teradek.

 

http://www.vitecgroup.com/Aboutus/Worldclassbrands.aspx

 

 

Transvideo is already working on their own version....

 

Boxx showed off an integrated monitor with two receivers built-in at NAB, as well.

[brooksrobinson]

Andrew,

 

I don't want to speak for the others, but in my experience, if the director is holding a monitor, he tends to be pretty close to the camera (transmitter); otherwise he'd be sitting comfortably in a chair looking at a much bigger/better monitor. I don't know what that means in the real world, but I'd think you'd want to be prepared for the camera to go around a corner or two and get a little distance away from the transmitter. My guess would be 150' or maybe a bit longer - anyone else have any ideas on distance needed for a smaller Bolt 2000 RX?

 

Brooks Robinson

[Walter F. Rodriguez]

It needs have the range of the Bolt Pro or Bolt 300. Hopefully as small and light as the Bolt Pro.

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

Agreed. Size, weight, range, and general form factor of the old Bolt Pro or 300. Might also use on an AC monitor for pulling focus since they are closer than village too. Ideally you could by one for director and one for focus puller.

[Andrew Ng]

Thanks to all the input over this past weekend. Please know your voices have been heard by the head of engineering.

I was happy to hear it is in Teradek's best interest to produce something to satisfy this need for our customers, but do keep in mind there are challenges in hardware and FCC restrictions that we will be working to overcome.

 

Will continue to push for a solution.

 

Always feel free to reach out to me and the entire Teradek organization. And make sure to stop by the Teradek booth at Cinegear, I'll be there and would be happy to meet you all in person.

[Andrew Ng]

Hi all,

 

Spoke to our head of engineering today, he's currently speaking with our hardware and chipset designers to confirm compatibility.

So the research is being done to make sure this will work as desired, next step is DESIGN.

 

But nothing concrete yet. Will keep you posted.

 

On another note, how many of you be attending the Stabilizer Gear Expo the Sunday after Cinegear? Considering locking down myself or another Teradek representative to be out there.