3 ms·

So there will be a market for Wi-Fi microphones.

by Raphael 11y ago

superuser2 11y ago
Like I said, the big corporate rental houses can buy new inventory. Schools, churches, and nonprofit/educational theater cannot.
stretchwithme 11y ago
Looking at what's on Amazon, this doesn't seem like an expensive problem to resolve. Most people already have all they need for a wifi microphones in their pockets, albeit probably not of the same quality as professional systems. The unfortunate thing is that their is no mechanism for selling the right to use this spectrum for all those who've made investments in such devices. It may be worth millions to discontinue their use of it and it may only be worth thousands to existing users, but no way for high value potential users to compensate the current users. Of course, if spectrum were treated like property or you had to pay to rent what you use, everybody could buy or rent what they need.
- superuser2 11y ago
  I don't know what you're seeing on Amazon, but there is a lot of cheap crap out there that, unfortunately, doesn't work reliably enough or sound good enough to use in a performance setting. Audio Technica 3000-series [1] is about the cheapest thing that's decent (my middle school operated 16). Note the frequency band options. WiFi in particular is not designed for a 100% stable connection with low latency and no jitter, and good luck getting it to do that. You can power-cycle your laptop's WiFi every few hours; you can't lose the lead singer in a musical or the pastor in a church service. There are digital, frequency-agile wireless systems like ULX-D [2] which are a little better at dealing with crowded RF landscapes, but this is still low-middle tier. UHF-R is a tier above that, starting around $2000 per system. The gear for really challenging RF environments is Shure Axient, and you can't even get pricing on that without talking to a high-end certified distributor, but anecdotally the transmitters are about $3,000 and a dual-channel receiver is $7,500. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATW-3131BD-Wireless-Lavalier-System/dp/B003R6V5QM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439674281&sr=8-1&keywords=audio-technica+300 http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATW-3131BD-Wireless-Lav... [2] http://www.amazon.com/Shure-ULXD24-B87A-G50-Handheld/dp/B008BMHAKC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1439674532&sr=8-4&keywords=shure+ulx-d http://www.amazon.com/Shure-ULXD24-B87A-G50-Handheld/dp/B008... [3] http://www.shure.com/americas/products/wireless-systems/uhfr-systems http://www.shure.com/americas/products/wireless-systems/uhfr... It's tempting to think of the problems in fields other than your own as trivial, but please don't fall into that trap. You don't want to hear a play through Skype on iPhones (which is a moot point, because you wouldn't anyway). Reliable RF audio that sounds good is a hard/expensive game and eliminating TV whitespace fucks over people who are playing in the lower/middle tiers.
  - TrevorJ 11y ago
    This is all very true.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    A smart protocol that could share with unlicensed devices would seem to relieve your concerns. It should be possible.
  - stretchwithme 11y ago
    I stand corrected.

So there will be a market for Wi-Fi microphones.

by Raphael 11y ago

So there will be a market for Wi-Fi microphones.

Like I said, the big corporate rental houses can buy new inventory. Schools, churches, and nonprofit/educational theater cannot.

stretchwithme 11y ago

Looking at what's on Amazon, this doesn't seem like an expensive problem to resolve. Most people already have all they need for a wifi microphones in their pockets, albeit probably not of the same quality as professional systems. The unfortunate thing is that their is no mechanism for selling the right to use this spectrum for all those who've made investments in such devices. It may be worth millions to discontinue their use of it and it may only be worth thousands to existing users, but no way for high value potential users to compensate the current users. Of course, if spectrum were treated like property or you had to pay to rent what you use, everybody could buy or rent what they need.

superuser2 11y ago
I don't know what you're seeing on Amazon, but there is a lot of cheap crap out there that, unfortunately, doesn't work reliably enough or sound good enough to use in a performance setting. Audio Technica 3000-series [1] is about the cheapest thing that's decent (my middle school operated 16). Note the frequency band options. WiFi in particular is not designed for a 100% stable connection with low latency and no jitter, and good luck getting it to do that. You can power-cycle your laptop's WiFi every few hours; you can't lose the lead singer in a musical or the pastor in a church service. There are digital, frequency-agile wireless systems like ULX-D [2] which are a little better at dealing with crowded RF landscapes, but this is still low-middle tier. UHF-R is a tier above that, starting around $2000 per system. The gear for really challenging RF environments is Shure Axient, and you can't even get pricing on that without talking to a high-end certified distributor, but anecdotally the transmitters are about $3,000 and a dual-channel receiver is $7,500. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATW-3131BD-Wireless-Lavalier-System/dp/B003R6V5QM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439674281&sr=8-1&keywords=audio-technica+300 http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATW-3131BD-Wireless-Lav... [2] http://www.amazon.com/Shure-ULXD24-B87A-G50-Handheld/dp/B008BMHAKC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1439674532&sr=8-4&keywords=shure+ulx-d http://www.amazon.com/Shure-ULXD24-B87A-G50-Handheld/dp/B008... [3] http://www.shure.com/americas/products/wireless-systems/uhfr-systems http://www.shure.com/americas/products/wireless-systems/uhfr... It's tempting to think of the problems in fields other than your own as trivial, but please don't fall into that trap. You don't want to hear a play through Skype on iPhones (which is a moot point, because you wouldn't anyway). Reliable RF audio that sounds good is a hard/expensive game and eliminating TV whitespace fucks over people who are playing in the lower/middle tiers.
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  This is all very true.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  A smart protocol that could share with unlicensed devices would seem to relieve your concerns. It should be possible.
- stretchwithme 11y ago
  I stand corrected.