We all use them. Everyone has got one. But let's talk the pros and cons of the wide range of SDI video transmitters out there. From the 4k Behemoth of Teradek, to the humble IDX Camwave and the sneaky new players of Vaxis and St Video. What is important? What really matters? What do you prefer and why? Does the DP and DIT really care about 2 points of green if the signal stays strong two miles down the road? Should we make a top 5 transmitter system list and the pros and cons of each and what we should be asking rental companies for moving forward for reliable video signal.
Let the battle begin !!!!
When it comes to focuspulling and the videotransmitters, i have to be honest, i still prefer a cable. But, since we all want to be mobile and remote and have signal at all times, we need 'em.
Whats important for me, NO DELAY. And a good crisp signal. And it should just work.
I dont want to be bothered with video issues during a shootingday. I need plug and play at all times.
Teradek Bolt 500/600
Hollyland
Vaxis
Last feature ive been working witn the servpro from Teradek and the Bolt500 and a sidekick. It works, but not everywhere. There are still receiver issues, even when you are close (or too close) to the camera. The sidekicks seems the most difficult to keep up with the rest. I try to have 3 normal receivers on a shoot. The Serv Pro, we just added to our normal list, works for the rest of the crew, for focuspulling its not even an option.
The Hollyland has a fast start-up time, price wise vs quality its pretty good. I dont like it when a receiver has antennas on it, they break to easily in run and gun mode. They have the option to tap into the system with an app, like the Serv Pro, did not test that.
Vaxis has been on my list for a long time, i had seen it before and now we finally have it here in The Netherlands. Its fast, crisp. Downside, a little bit too big and a lot of antennas.
Curious what you all think!
Long time since I heard somebody saying Camwave. It's a bit like when you remember that nightmare you had years ago...
If you don't want to read the whole text, I highlighted a quick summary in fat letters.
I am basically pretty happy with Teradek. Since the 300 they made huge improvements in matters of stability and have a decent range of products, you just have to choose the right one for the job. Most of the time I go with something between 500 and 1000, the sidekicks are a sweet thing for the focus unit.
The Vaxis is kind of a thing, stability-wise it is not that bad, I was quite surprised. What's also pretty convenient in some situations is how easy you change the channels, and, if there is someone transmitting, you get their signal right away. When I had the Vaxis for the first time - model Storm 3000 - I was dayplayer on C camera which turned out to be a steadicam that is in it's nature doing wild things from time to time. There were also D & E cameras somewhere in between those horses. Whatever, while prepping the shots it was easy to change the channels to see what those guys were doing, a nice discreet way to make sure not to bomb their frame later on.
I am not sure though what else they packed in there besides the video-transmitter to make it so huge. The Vaxis Storm 3000 is a beast, especially the receiver. It feels like you mounted your focus unit to a lambda. And that is also the reason why the Vaxis (at least the storm 3000) will never ever make it to my list, because the benefits do not outweigh the measurements and weight.
What I really do like is the new ARRI video system (see link).
The base is also a Teradek chip, I am not quite sure but I believe it is 2000 (edit: I checked with ARRI, it is 3000). It works great, had it on a show for 70 days and it was not mean to me once. Picture is stable and, compared to Teradek, it's true that it is slightly bigger and heavier, but they built in a button that's called "pairing" and it is a pretty nice button. Because you are not loosing your nerves while fiddling with a needle in a hole without any effect. On that show I had an Alexa65 on a steadicam and a Milf in the Trinity, each of them had their own transmitter and when we changed the camera, I just paired my receiver to the other one, takes less than a minute til you're back in game.
To keep it short: It's like a strong bolt, that can be paired very easily and it doesn't take much power.
Next advantage are the mounting options. ARRI made some nice little things for it, but the best comes from the german company bebop. They released a micro-series for V- and goldmount, which is already a godsent, but also some adapter plates for their micros. ARRI's Wireless Video has out of the box contacts on its side where the micro-plates can be attached. Means you have not only a cable less because the receiver has its own micro-v-mount plate, it is also one brick and you can put it wherever you want. I for instance have it in a pouch on my stand, connected with two arm-long cables, BNC and Power for my monitor. When the DP or I feel like start running, i just take it from there to my beltpouch and I am not in the need of a stand anymore.
In my world there is nothing worse than being chained to your stand, in that moment you don't really need wireless video anymore anyway right? ;-)
ARRI Wireless Video System:
https://www.arri.com/en/camera-systems/pro-camera-accessories/electronic-control-system/wireless-video-system/wireless-video-transmitter/KK.0024404
bebop Micro batteries: https://bebob.de/v-mount/vmicro.html
ARRI ?? really? I honestly thought it was one of the many blunders ARRI have made in the past few years incorporating the wireless systems into the body. So on that principle alone, and probably the cost, I would never look at it.
As for Teradek........... or Teradork, as I say.. :) I find its a Love/Hate relationship. It's like wine. If the first time you taste say WHITE wine and you don't like it. You won't drink white wine ever again..
To me that Teradek... The first time I used it, the old Version 1, I don't even remember the version,... 300 maybe.. I couldn't get 10 ft from the camera. So I hate Teradek....until iI was FORCED to use the new 3000's and besides the Pairing pain in the bum are pretty solid... Now it doesn't have the range as some of the others but it has gotten drastically better and the new 4K, (although it will cost you a kidney) if probably amazing.
Haha, I get what you mean, never had the pleasure with that in-body stuff. Didn't get the idea either why one would combine two things in a steelen brick while knowing that one of them will outdate the other. But that new thing is worth a look at when you get the chance. Not for a car commercial maybe ;) The first Teradek had a fan built in that sounded like a plane taking off, pretty sure nobody dared to bring it on set.
@Ramón Seeliger Looking at the history of Arri cameras I think the built in TX is a natural progression. People said the same about the Plus range with built in FIZ units. Sure it's not perfect for every job but when you want the cleanest build, having the fiz and now transmitter all built in is pretty nice.
Could always upgrade it down the line, like going from yellow to white radio.
Teradek had some less than stellar units (looking at you bolt2000) but their latest stuff is rock solid. It's unlikely that HD transmission is going to get much better. The advancement from here on is going to be in 4k. But I think HD monitoring is going to be the standard for a while yet
Hi Chris,
I love clean builds, but first priority is and will always be to stay flexible. Who wants to swap the whole body because of video issues? The built in TX will expand the space of the body which is not cool in times of mini and, furthermore, say shooting in a car, I can't take it and mount it on the car's roof to get better performance. There are so many factors that they can't outweigh the disadvantage of an extra small box and two cables I hide around the body. Of course my opinion - but the only moment I would take that built in TX would be shooting in a studio, video village right behind me, rental around the corner.
I agree though and believe too that the future big wow's will come in 4k, I don't mind having HD around for some more time.
@Luke Barlow Now that I know that you hate Teradork and ARRI, I am wondering if you will tell us what's your favorites? :-)
Ive tried to post something 3 times and the website keeps crashing...
ANYWAY..... nothing is a perfect system yet. But i own 2 separate ST VIDEO 700's 1:3 with panels. It seems to have the strongest, cleanest signal with minimal color shift for the Ditdude. They also have the best ROI for renting to productions. No the transmitter has a loud fan in hot environments, but a quick tweak putting a switch in to control the fan helps when the sound guys start complaining..
I see, they're too big to fit my needs, but you say you get constant signal "down the road" which means like... 200 Meter? And excuse me not knowing, but what's ROI?
ROI means Return Of Investment. So for the rates that you can rent your gear to production, you will pay the equipment off quicker... SOOO... they are cheaper then the other models. So weighing up COST vs RELIABILITY vs SIZE vs POWER vs ANYTHING ELSE. These have always been a good choice. For people here in Vancouver anyway.
And i guess for distance. When we do Car to Car, or process trailer. I rarely need to move the transmitter from off the camera and i could we well over 100m from the camera.
Has anybody tried the Swift800 pro? The price point is amazing and the possibility to stream to up to 4 iOS devices looks very interesting, but I would like to know how it performs on a real set situation. Cheers!
I would like to get back on my statement. Holyland goes to the very last place.... ive been using it this last few weeks, and especially the app is bad. When its a long take the delay can go up to over a minute. Other departments just run behind in a take which imo is not acceptable on a set. We dont have time to wait for that.... and the range is about 4 meters. Which covid-wise is way too close! And they promise something else.... so 👎 Quality wise also pretty bad, power plug came out after a few uses on both receivers.
Hey Roze, thanks for letting us know!
My first video system (still is) the vaxis storm 1000s. Nd recently acquired a 3000 receiver with an AVS antenna panel.
Not a fan of the built-in V mounts in their new generation receivers, mostly because you can’t really remove them.
My internal antennas aren’t the greatest, and while you’ll have picture from 2 blocks away LOS, the pixelation at lower signal levels makes it pretty hard to pull focus with. So that deep-in-the-woods stuff can get dicey fast.
That said I’ve never seen the vaxis 3000 transmitters crap out yet, so definitely gonna upgrade to those at some point. Much smaller footprint especially with RHCP stubbies, and you have the option to switch in higher gain antennas if need be.
I may have listed a lot of cons so far, but I’m ultimately staying with the Vaxis system. I‘ve only used the long-range teradek a & paralinx a handful of times, and never had a good experience. Recently we had a 3-1 system and one of the receivers just never held a link. It would pair up upon reboot and lose it after a few minutes. Even selecting the best channel with its in-body spectrum analyzer. Our rental house techs couldn’t really figure out the problem either, my guess is their Frequency Hopping doing something odd. (Which in their newest 4K line there‘s an option to turn off frequency-hopping, who knew you’d look forward to that in a system lol.)
Had good experience with STW aside from a HDMI cross-conversion issue that came up once. (Not relevant to most jobs, and it might've actually been a Ghosteye that looked like a STW.)
Vancouver’s commercial world made slingshots pretty popular. No pairing headaches, usual issues can be solved by troubleshooting antennas and placement. Some of these receivers are huge tho. Like almost an iPad mini I think, lol. Their less ideal counterparts from Ghosteye and Hollyland have very similar bodies, nd can often cross-tal, but doesn’t seem as reliable.
Also Luke, I think my friend bought one of your sets, it’s been reliable and great deal! Although I must say, having control over what flavour of video the teradek system outputs seems like a big plus. Not sure if any other system gives you that control. I think some have LUT options, too but never looked into that.