Cine RT and Arri/Cmotion RF Frequency chart arri cineRT cmotion focusbug RF By Philipp Uhl on 4/10/20, 1:54 AM • 265 views Hi All! Like many of you I really enjoy working with the Focusbug CineRT, and one feature that I think is really great, is the "RF-Scan". This is basically a built-in spectrum analyzer, where the CineRT Handunit will measure RF traffic for all the channels the CineRT uses. The CineRT has 8 Channel-"Blocks", each with both an A- and a B-Channel, which are intended for A- and B-Camera on Multicam shoots. On one-camera-shoots, Focusbug recommends to use the 8 "A"-Channels. Now my thought was, if we knew the exact frequencies of each of these 16 measurements the CineRT Handunit makes when performing an RF Scan, we could use this as a more universal spectrum analyzer which could help us choosing which FIZ-channels are best and which to avoid. So I asked Laird at Focusug about this, and he provided me with the RF Specs of each channel. Cmotion already had this information available in the user manual (and the RF frequencies of Arri and Cmotion systems are the same), so I made this little graph showing where each individual channel is located. However, Laird told me that they are working on integrating a "rudimentary scan of a larger RF spectrum" in a future firmware update, so perhaps my graph will be obsolete by then...
I hope this can be helpful to some of you until then!
Kar Wai Ng On 5/12/20, 8:37 PM I'm attaching here a really awesome Wireless Lens Control Map made by Peter Marsden, a DIT from Australia. Great illustration of where each channel of Preston, Arri, CineRT, and Wifi overlaps in the 2.4GHz spectrum.
Philipp Uhl On 5/12/20, 9:56 PM Awesome! Thanks for the addition! :)
Clemens Hönig On 6/12/20, 1:01 PM That is a great map! Thanks for sharing! Aidan Gray On 4/13/20, 11:00 AM Also worth noting that I believe the WCU/Mini only has channels 0- 7 which run straight up and down 0 - 2.410 GHz 1 - 2.415 GHz 2 - 2.43 GHz 3 - 2.435 GHz 4 - 2.5 GHz 5 - 2.55 GHz 6 - 2.7 GHz 7 - 2.75 GHz whereas cPro channels 8-13 run straight up between channels 1-7. There was not much discovery involved, but I was on a shoot where our A-Camera was a WCU on Channel 5 and I was on Channel 12 and both of us kept getting interference issues - it was about then I realised how it all worked 😅
Philipp Uhl On 4/13/20, 12:03 PM Yeah that’s true... But as far as I know that’s a Limitation on the Mini, the WCU-4 with the Mini LF or cForce mini RF should have the same 14 channels that the cPro uses!
Aidan Gray On 4/13/20, 12:05 PM Ah wasn't aware of the latter part of that! Thanks for the info.