sleah

Indeed. Years ago we had a school lighting system using Betapack2's that worked flawlessly for years with the same setup and cabling, until one show when one dimmer pack started flickering. Stuck a terminator at the end of the chain and all was fine again. It just happened out of the blue. Absolute proof of the saying "it'll work until it doesn't".

I'm sure it was an episode of Trigger Point (Fictional series about police explosives experts) that touched upon this. There was something else like a code or combination of numbers that had to be sent after the call was answered that triggered the device.

From what I've seen, combined power and data (DMX or audio I suppose) cables are insanely expensive. As mentioned, adding antenna is a non starter. You'd be in to the realm of custom made cables, the cost of which doesn't bear thinking about! Options for bundling cables up could as simple as 'leccy tape or cable (zip) ties (but carry plenty of elastoplast for the cuts to hands...) or plastic spiral wrap (can make looms a bit 'stiif' for want of a better description or plastic 'braiding', which I quite like and have used to bundle power and CAT5 data together.

Thanks for the clarification Tim. Useful to know. I occasionally have to 'ad-hoc' cables for an event. Just 2 weeks ago I ran 4 condensers through CAT6 (unscreened) infrastructure split over 2 runs - roughly 50m or more I'd say. I was able to use spare pairs as pin 1 and they worked perfectly. The only buzz I got turned out to be a dodgy XLR I was using as an extension!

It's the Roboscans that need a phase-reverse cable to operate on standard DMX. The Mini Macs use standard DMX cables. Are you certain your phase-reverse cable(s) is wired exactly as per the Roboscan manual? i.e. pins 2&3 swapped. Have you tried just the Roboscans (via reverse cable) from the dongle without the Macs connected? Have you tried the Mini Macs after the Roboscans, with a reverse cable before and after the Roboscans? Are you 100% certain you have addressed the Roboscans correctly for use with DMX? There are various dip switch combinations (some undocumented) used for testing and serviceing which may possibly affect the DMX line. It's worth labouriously going through trying various combinations of one or more of each device connected to the dongle until you either find or eliminate the problem. As suggested, it may the dongle that's the issue...

Has no-one else picked up on this...... The OP believes they have no need for screened cable, however some posters I think they are looking at analogue over CAT cable? In which case, almost all the commercially available boxes with 4 XLR or TRS need screened cable. The descriptions aren't always clear on that. I've managed to use unscreened for a couple of mics using two of the twisted pairs and the spare pairs as ground (Pin 1). Obviously best for balanced lines. That said, I read it that the OP is looking for data transmission rather than analogue, in which case no need for screen in many cases and the products he has found will be fine. I'm not sure of the answer to this - can you run balanced mics down twisted pairs with no screen or Pin 1? How does phantom work in that scenario?

Does the ...cough... cheap basic hdmi splitter trick get round it as they do in 'other' situations?

I have a UI16 that got cheap about 3/4 years ago. Don't use it much. I read about the drop outs so have an external router with the internal wifi disabled - if you leave it enabled but ignore it apparently you can still get problems. I've had no issues but then I'm never more than about 6m away... Sound quality has been perfectly fine for my use. Sometimes just 4 radio mics for kids performing songs and sometimes with a few rifle mics for picking up kids on a small stage. All that said, I'd suggest going with the Behringer due to the number of reported issues with the Soundcraft. As others have said, they are no longer being developed, the last firmware was years ago, it's fair to say they are now obsolete!

I've used a couple. Generally they'll record perfectly fine. The biggest problem I've found is the file splitting. They tend to either leave a complete gap of several frames or split the video within a frame or so, but then there's several frames when the audio is muted, so when you stitch them together - you can guess! If the presentations are only like half an hour or so, then you'll probably be absolutely fine with the no-name Amazon specials, although I'd avoid the very cheapest.

I've some experience of recording audio on separate devices then sync'ing in post, usually for video. Results vary between devices when it comes to synchronisation. One thing I will advise, and this is through bitter experience, is NEVER EVER record direct to mp3 format! The synchronisation drifts like crazy... I mention it because I use a couple of Tascam recorders which have an option of recording to mp3, which may be appealing due to the smaller file size / more capacity on storage. Get a bigger SD card.. I'm not even going to mention audio quality of mp3, because for some applications it is perfectly acceptable, but I'll get flamed for suggesting that! 😉😆

Have they actually tried on of those 'in the flesh', as it were? I bought something similar from Amazon a few months back (to use as intended!) just out of interest. Rather underwhelming even when sat on my kitchen fireplace. I can't help thinking on a stage it would be rather lost, even say four of them. Might be worth getting one to play with, it can always end up in the office with scent in it 🙂

I've zero experience with such screens, but Sunray made me think...... What about a dual display output PC, each feeding half the wall. Put in in extended desktop and find a way of displaying the logo across the extended desktop. Then change to mirror mode for the presentation. A 'dirty' way of getting the logo over both screens would be set it as the wallpaper in 'span' and auto hide the task bar. Then while changing between extended and mirror either freeze or mute the wall (assuming the feature is available). This will obviously only work if the content is only on the PC, the ATEM couldn't really be used in this configuration.

Just a thought... do you have virtualisation (or similar wording) enabled in BIOS? It may be unconnected, but I just wonder if it is enabled does Windoze add some additional drivers behind the scenes that account for the reported missing ones? It's a long shot but worth checking.

Could be a s simple as a faulty 'start' switch. Could you provide a little more info, such as how you would normally start the snow? E.g. is it a wired remote with a larg-ish square switch or maybe a smaller button. Is it radio remote... etc.

Interesting. I've read that article and another where the Theatre accuse the Council of 'bullying' tactics. On the face of the article above, I got the feeling that it was a bunch of airy-fairy luvies who'd had their feelings hurt 'cos someone dared say something negative - the 'If you can't say something nice' brigade. On reading further articles, there's some history with the council. There's certainly blame on the side of the Theatre for not sticking to the letter of the law (naively or otherwise), but one can sure sympathise with their situation. Councils are a law unto themselves, especially as they tend to favour who/what can bring the biggest amount of dosh in their direction.

I agree with Mr Ash. It looks good on paper.... returns policy looks OK if it's proves to be bad. I can't comment on SDI as I've never knowingly clapped eyes on it 'in the flesh' never mind done anything with it! 😂

I've not had chance to try it! The rig I had in mind when I got it turned out I didn't need it... however there will be other times when it'll be put to use. I'll update when I get chance to test it out.

I think it's one of those areas where a workman CAN blame his tools. Or I should say workperson / their ☺️

As a side note.... I'm a bit of an 'old camera' geek myself so have also tinkered with tapeless recording. Many of the cheaper stand-alone capture boxes record at the American 640x480 rather than 728x576. For a VHS capture it's not really noticeable, but it's a chunk smaller for capture direct from a sensible camera. Something to keep in mind if capture resolution is a thing for you. I'm not entirely sure how it works with devices that take composite in but claim to record at 720 or 1080 🤔

This just crossed my mind.... how is connecting to both the 3pin and 5pin outlets of a desk (in effect making it inline rather than one end) different to the normal practice of looping fixtures using the male and female connections? Electrically it's identical (taking termination that may or may not be in the desk out of the equation for a moment). The obvious difference being the desk is generating data where the fixtures are receiving data, but other than that...?

I think driver failure is more about use and storage conditions than age. You can find 50 year old drivers still working as good as the day they were installed, but (my example) store them in a damp garage over winter and they could easily fail within 2 years... Fair play if you have other reasons to upgrade, but as already said, age alone shouldn't come in to it. Same goes for sound engineers 😉😂

Eagle-eye Sunray 😁 Good job I'm a fully one-day-course-in-a-church-hall qualified PAT Monkey, with my own Martindale tester 😆 I'll be opening it up partly for curiosity and also the description said one channel may be dodgy. I'll post a piccy when I get it.

That's the one! Yes, I've already bagged it 😁 For the benefit of anyone interested, it just has one 3 pin input and one 3 pin thru with four 3 pin outs. No obvious polarity switching. No 5 pin, which makes sense as it was built mainly for the old Martin RS485 (but claims DMX compatibility) which I think was only implemented with 3 pin connectors, with the obligatory 2/3 swap.

I'm going to give it a try and see. I've put an offer in anyway for the ebay one, nice to add to my authentic vintage Martin collection. I'm also fortunate enough to have the coveted Martin DMX > 485 converter 😁

Don't 'spose anyone knows if you can use a DMX splitter to split the old Martin RS485 protocol as used with old Roboscans etc, with appropriate 2/3 pin swap? I've discovered Martin made a 'Martin RS485 Optosplitter' (there's on on t'bay at the moment) but wonder if it is just a DMX splitter with the pins swapped?