sandall

When #1 son was at Uni a few years back the student rooms only had 3-pin 2A sockets (probably to stop them bringing their microwaves). Fortunately, having grown up in very old houses, I already had a collection of plug-tops .

Or make. My tester travels with a full set of 13A - everything-I'm-likely-to-meet adaptor leads.

I haven't come across that myself, but it seems like a very good idea. I "inherited" a Panasonic which does it - excellent for dry hire, where proper shutdown by the customer is but a dream. Don't know how widespread it is, but definitely something to look for.

Back in the day job we found that edit suite breakdowns went away once we started leaving the computers on 24/7, & in general older dimmer racks tend to give far less problems if left on. Some projectors have a battery or capacitor backup for the fan, so if you pull the mains the fan keeps running for a while (an attempt at idiot-proofing?)

Thanks for that, Brian. It's something I'd never even considered. In this case the EPM comes with a 13A-IEC earthed lead, but I wouldn't know about the ATEM.

It's surprising how effective little boxes like that can be. Many years ago all I could rustle up at zero notice for an acoustic band in a school hall was a couple of AKG LSM50 monitors (5" in a sealed box) & a Quad amp. No useful bass, but loud enough to stop conversation at the back of the room.

Just "putting a radio-mic" on someone isn't quite so easy as it used to be, by the time you've sorted out your sanitising & your RA, not to mention how your victim might feel about you getting up close & personal. I would stick with the well-sanitised gooseneck, & (if you can manage it) a wipe between speakers.

As a general rule of thumb, the more mics the greater the chance of feedback, so the lower the volume you can achieve. I don't know the size of your venue, your audience or your loudspeakers, but for say 100 people two loudspeakers should be adequate. Using a decent (preferably gooseneck) mic will help, but your biggest problem will be the people using the mic - usually divided between those who get really close & shout & those who stand well back & whisper.

At £11* a throw I would have thought the Studiospares is a no-brainer for education, especially as they come with a robust-looking clip (though a load of generic rubbery-type clips would solve any breakage issues). I would be very surprised if the difference between brands at the budget end is greater than the difference between individual samples within a brand. 100% or even 200% mark-up & different packaging to promote a "better" product is a very common marketing practice. * £9 without the VAT.

I suspect Sunray's right, or perhaps just a new variation of sending someone for "a long weight" ? Either way, maybe an initiative test.

Probably not consciously. It would take about 1/3 sec after hearing the cue word for an experienced DSM to say "GO"; it will take another 1/3 sec for a really on-the-ball operator to hear "GO" & push a button. Back in the days of 2" VT almost every edit was a check of your reaction time (see something; push a button as fast as you can - "normal" was 8 frames [1/3"], maybe down to 6 frames by lunchtime, up to 10 frames after a couple of pints at lunchtime). When doing shows I used to constantly slide cue markers in the script until the effect came when I wanted it. As you won't have the rehearsal time to do this I would suggest sliding any word cues 1 or 2 words earlier (as a guide, the old 10" VT Run cue was 30 words back, allowing approx 1/3" per word).

Sounds a much better bet - as J8 suggests, almost certain to start a fire if dropped (drop a candle & you just have a smouldering wick). My adoptive grandparents, who I often stayed with during the school holidays, had no electricity, so I got very used to handling oil lamps similar to the linked one, in all shapes & sizes. Always had a candle for bedtime, but never met a shielded one.

Just like Technical Services, Social Services, Children's Services, Venues, Libraries, Building Control, etc, etc, etc......

Does have PFL, but only 2 (front-panel) mic inputs.

Butterfly or big staple - bulldog runs the risk of pages getting lost. If you want to present it in a ring-folder because that looks better then fine, but o/w keep it in a form the op can't easily take apart.

People pay to watch that?

I would suggest always having a stand-alone cue-sheet as well as marking up the script (make a useful bookmark when it's a few pages to the next cue). Also a "Q.n next" note at the bottom of the previous page. As a general rule - too much info & you can select what you need to remember; too little info & you risk your show falling over.

I agree with Tim. Covering sport like rugby ain't easy even with a full OB crew, though wide-screen & hi-def have dramatically changed the coverage; When I worked on MOTD it was mostly mid-shots, but these days it mostly tends to be on a high wide-shot. Your least-worse bet would be a manned camera with a really good zoom as high as you can get on your pavilion.

By their very nature all speakers are more or less directional. Maybe a clearer brief from the gallery as to what they want to achieve?

I would suggest using highlighter pens rather than printing Word highlight colours, & experiment under coloured light. LED coloured lights (especially RGB Pars used for house-lighting) can have unfortunate effects on your nicely colour-coded script . I suspect that blue "workers" could also give interesting results, depending on the light source or the gel used.

It's something I've always used when 1 op is driving both desks, as it seems so logical ("SouND Q.3, Go" is less of a mouthful than "SFX Q.3, Go" for the DSM) - no chance of confusing with "LX", either visually or aurally. If using separate ops I just write "Q.n" in their scripts (& LX & SND in mine). For broadcast it was, & presumably still is, "Grams". I always try to have the cue numbers & details on the same page as the script - eyes up & down is enough, without adding side-to-side, but more importantly, if you drop the folder & the pages scatter you won't be crawling round in the dark hunting for the page with the next cue written on it.

Looks good. Personally I would use "SND" rather than "SFX", reserving "SFX" for any Special Fx, like smoke or pyros.

Another vote for [WAIT 1 and 2 and 3 and] - more precise than counting beats (some ops seem to beat very fast)

Doesn't show on the front-panel, but in any case having to use an Aux for PFL is a real nightmare for live stuff.

Possibly worth looking at 433MHz assistive / private listening systems if the distance would be small