NZVN August 2015

AUGUST 2015

Protel Pro Audio Show 2015 For the audio side of Protel, we’re here with ( imagine a very guttural and extended faux French accent ) Ren-e-ee from Protel.

Ed: Sorry René, I’m such a fan of ‘Allo ‘Allo! – I’m sure you get it all the time?

René:

I do, allo allo!

Ed: Now Protel – well known to us as being heavily into the video area, you’re big in audio too. Let’s start with COMSTAR who cover both?

René: Sure.

COMSTAR are an American manufacturer of wireless communication equipment, for film crews, theatres, sports and any scenario where wireless communication is required. Effectively it’s full duplex wireless coms for where you might consider using RTs or the like, but you can get a much more reliable signal and longer range out of one of these COMSTAR units. They are available as single ear or double ear all-in-one headsets with mics or as a beltpack with a range of wired headsets. They transmit using DECT wireless frequencies as opposed to your RF, so they have a secure reliable transmission, not dissimilar to cellphone type technology.

Ed: But you don’t have to worry about picking a frequency?

René: That’s correct, they are all up in the 1.9 GHz range. The headsets are paired with the base station which is in its own right like a little cell tower. Once they are paired, they will then work within the range that’s allocated to them and, once established, away they go.

Ed: And of course, they’re not going to interfere with your standard radio microphones at those higher frequencies that they normally use?

René: That is correct, yes. So the big benefits of the COMSTAR system are that it can be battery powered,

René with COMSTAR headsets.

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so if you’re a film crew running your kit out of a van or a truck, you can put the base station in the truck and you’ll get over six hours out of the battery in the com station itself, and about 10 hours out of the batteries in the headsets. It can also obviously be powered via AC. The range is about 400 yards from the base station …

Ed:

We’ll say 400 metres shall we?

René: 400 metres, yes, the Americans quote yards, and being an American product … but about 400 metres and the effective range is quite dramatic. I’ve done tests with these where I have been a building away from the base station in the bottom of a lift shaft and still had good clear reception on the headset. So they really are very effective.

Ed: We won’t ask what you were doing at the bottom of a lift shaft Rene, that’s your own business …

René: I was testing a COMSTAR system! The other benefit of these is if you have an existing wired system, the base station can be optionally delivered with an analogue interface to the wired system. So it can effectively become the wireless node of your wired system. Really good if you’ve got existing gear and you want to hook into it.

Ed:

And then?

René: Our next item is the Zaxcom product.

Zaxcom are a very innovative company; they produce a range of wireless transmitters, receivers, IFB transmitters, audio mixers and recorders. Some of the key benefits of the Zaxcom gear is that all of their transmitters actually record onto SD cards in the transmitter itself, time stamped audio … so in the unlikely event that you lose communication with the transmitter, you do have time stamped audio on the card which you can retrieve for use in production. Their IFB systems also allows for their mixers and control units to control things like mic gain and settings of the transmitter remotely, as well as deliver confidence audio to receivers for cameramen and people like that.

Again, a very innovative company – a lot of the stuff they do is very much ground breaking and they are

excellent units in use on a lot of productions in New Zealand these days.

Ed:

At the higher end of the market?

René: At all ends of the market that value their signal quality and integrity! The basic transmitter and receiver type functionality and quality of audio is premium.

One of the new Zaxcom devices this year is the ZFR300. This is exactly the same recording system as the beltpack transmitters, but it’s just a recorder, so if you imagine going out without the budget of a sound person, ( which I hope never happens ), you can have a “run and gun” type scenario where everything is being recorded, time stamped, on your talent. Rather than mixing on the fly, you come back to your production studio, pop the SD card, load the audio into your Media Composer or Adobe editing system and away you go.

All you’ve actually purchased at that point in time is one recorder and a microphone.

Ed:

Well you’ve got the flexibility with this system?

René: That’s correct, it gives you lots of flexibility to do that.

Ed: So who’s actually Zaxcom in New Zealand or nearby?

René: This technology was used on all of The Hobbit films, Lord of the Rings; I know that it’s used for Jono & Ben on TV3, Friday nights.

A lot of local productions are using these now and certainly in the film world you’d be hard pressed to find a film set that goes by without Zaxcom these days.

Ed: And is that really just assurance that they know that they’re going to have the best quality and the highest likelihood of it surviving whatever treatment they give to it?

René: That’s partially it. It’s also as I mentioned, Zaxcom are very rich feature wise, so they certainly have the quality element and they have the reassurance of the backup recording, but there are also some real clever attributes to the system that aren’t available elsewhere.

Ed: That’s got to be good. Now from what I see here, Zaxcom don’t make microphones, but you have microphones that fit them nicely?

René: That’s correct. We can recommend mics and sell you mics that are right for whatever job you’re going to do. Just let us know what you are doing and we’ll help you get what you need.

Ed: And that takes me on to Genelec because you told me earlier that Genelec is one of the “brands de jour” of Protel – it’s the only speaker brand you keep in stock, but you can provide other brands if someone so desires and wants to make a comparison?

René: Well, with everything we do at Protel, I always like to say to people that we do everything from the carpet upwards – we cater for all budgets; we cater

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for all types of work and production. So if a Genelec is not the appropriate speaker in a particular instance, either through personal preference or restricted budget, then yes we certainly can recommend and provide other brands as well.

Ed: I hope sound wouldn’t be an issue unless they wanted something really, really expensive?

René: There are applications, certainly in audio production, where you actually need something that sounds really bad, and there’s a certain element of belief, and I adhere to this too, that if you can make something sound really good on a bad speaker, then it’s going to sound fantastic when it gets to a good speaker.

So even in my own studio I have some terrible speakers sitting next to my Genelecs.

Ed:

So you can make that comparison?

René:

That’s correct.

Ed: And in the Genelec range, the littlest one here you say is the latest thing for the video producer?

René: Yes, Genelec go through from very small speakers to very large film monitor speakers for control rooms, but video guys tend to have a requirement more for a small unobtrusive speaker, because they tend to have so many screens around their systems that space becomes a key requirement.

Now one of the things that Genelec have done in recent times is that they have extended their world leading DSP technology down into the smaller speaker ranges, so where previously we could only provide quite large speakers with DSP technology, now we can go right down to our 8020 range, the previous analogue variety of those which we’ve done in many video studios.

Ed:

Can you tell me what “DSP” is?

René: Certainly. Digital Signal Processing in the speaker that provides “on the fly” EQ and room correct processing. Genelec call this Smart Active Monitoring or SAM. So effectively, you calibrate the speaker to a room or a listening environment and that provides an even truer level of monitoring than you had previously.

Over and above that, and possibly of huge benefit for the video guys, is that with the SAM speakers, you can allow for any sync delay directly in the speaker. So if you’re getting a delay from your audio from the likes of Plasma or LCD screens, or even just through the transmission and processing equipment you’re using, you can allow for that delay in the speaker system, meaning sync becomes a very easy thing to manage.

Ed: Wow. That’s clever technology, and that I guess is software that’s in your computer?

René: The process of actually setting up the DSP characteristics is in the computer, but once they’ve been set, they’re then stored in the speaker itself.

Switch them on, switch them off – those settings remain, and you don’t need to have the computer on to control them, they operate just like any speaker would.

Ed:

They’re Ethernet connected are they?

René: They are connected via the standard balanced AES or Analog audio cabling as previously, but what we call the “control network” is connected via Ethernet cabling – it’s not actually an Ethernet network, it just uses Ethernet cabling as a conduit for control.

Ed: So there is an Ethernet cable actually to the speaker as well as the standard audio cables, but you only have to have that on when you’re setting them up?

René: Yes, there are some smarts that you may elect to retain that cable for. Once you’ve set them up, you can remove those cables entirely, but there are some benefits to leaving them in, for example, if you have multiple listening positions, such as an editor working position and you might have a director sitting on a couch behind, you could have two calibrations set up, one for each of them, and swap between the two positions. Having that control cabling still in place allows you to do that in the software just using, for example, F1 F2 between the two different positions.

Ed:

So that’s the cleverness of Genelec?

René: That is the cleverness of Genelec and, in typical Genelec fashion, they lead the DSP world in this sort of functionality. There’s not another brand that can touch the functionality of Genelec’s Smart Active Monitor range.

Ed:

And you hear them at Protel?

René: audition.

Or we can bring them on site for you to

Ed: You can’t get better than that. Now we just had a big chat with Philipp from Lawo and, as I said at the start of that, Lawo came from the audio side and they still continue … we have a very large audio mixer here that, to a non-audio specific person, I just thought was a big mixer like the Avid over there, but Rene, I am quite wrong?

René: This mc2 36 is Lawo’s smallest console and a very recent introduction. The beauty of this console is that it brings the much renowned quality and redundancy features of Lawo’s big broadcast consoles to the “budget end” of the market, allowing smaller productions, theatres and the small OB vans to benefit from this leading technology.

Ed: So this is a direct to broadcast, or direct to presentation console as opposed to the Avid one which is a production studio console?

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the smarts of Lawo’s big consoles that are used worldwide for TV, OBs and sports production.

In particular, this console has incorporated integrated I/O, so all the analogue mic pre’s, line inputs and digital I/O are actually in the console itself.

This is a first for Lawo’s mc2 consoles as the bigger consoles are effectively large routers with DSP and faders!

In spite of this, the mc36 does incorporate all the Lawo routeing technology and it is exactly the same control software that is on the larger broadcast consoles.

Anyone interested in these exciting products should feel free to call or email any time.

René: That is correct, yes. So this is primarily a broadcast console. In this small form, it still brings all

Avid Pro Audio Show 2015 For Protel, we are at the Avid stand with Gil Gowing from Avid in the States.

Ed: Gil, you’ve surprised me by telling me that, since NAB, you’ve actually launched an update to Pro Tools 12?

Gil: It’s a point update, but one of the ideas behind our new plans that we introduced with Pro Tools 12 was subscription and our yearly support plan was to be able to do faster updates, and 12.1 which released at the second week in July is our first foray into that. So within 3 months of introducing Pro Tools 12, we’ve now got this “.1” release which, for regular Pro Tools users, has added some functionality that used to be only available in Pro Tools HD. So things like track input monitoring where you can actually input monitor on a track by track basis. That was a huge thing for guys who are tracking music and doing overdubs and things, being able to put their individual tracks into input, being able to do simple things like “copy to send”, taking what you have on your faders and then choosing whether you want to put the pan up there as well, and copying that to a particular one of the 10 send slots.

That used to be an HD only feature, that’s now available in the regular version of Pro Tools. We’ve upped the track count from 96 to 128 tracks …

We are always happy to talk about the technologies involved.

NZVN

releases – probably in smaller chunks, but in a lot faster timeframe.

Now the other big thing that we’ve done since NAB timeframe is our flagship S6 control surface. We’ve released the final version of the 2.0 software which is probably the biggest update to S6 to date. We’ve added things like spill zones, we’ve got an expand knob which, when you “attention” a track to the centre, will take over one of our knob modules with a particular predetermined function. So this gives you kind of more icon centre section functionality with the S6 that you really didn’t have before. We’ve also got the ability to see automation break point data on the waveforms on our display modules with our M40D systems and then a bunch of other small little features that are just really big things that are going to help the workflow for the guys who are using S6 in both music and postproduction.

Ed: As a computer user in this field, I have a fear of automatic software updates – that you’re right in the

Ed: How do people get by with only 96 tracks?

Gil: You know, I don’t know.

I remember back in the day when I had a 4 track and that was amazing what you could do with that and now we’ve got 128 tracks in just regular Pro Tools and that’s a great thing.

Plus, for the composers, we’ve gone from 64 instrument tracks to 512. So one of the great things about the way we’re now doing things with Pro Tools, is you’re going to see us do a lot more feature Page 6

middle of a large project with some quite complicated features and suddenly you get this little icon saying “a new update is available”?

Gil: Absolutely, I understand that completely. With Pro Tools 12, we did introduce our application manager which does just that. It tells you if there is a software update available. Now we don’t actually automatically update your software; we’re not like OS companies that will just automatically download it and install it without you actually choosing “I want to get this.” You can use the application manager to see what’s there and to choose what you want to install or not. But also, all these installers are tied to your master Avid account and you can go back at any time, see these new installers or any of the older installers that you have tied to your account as well. So if you do choose to update and you’re in the middle of a project and something is not quite right and you need to go back, you can always go back, get that older installer and within minutes be back to where you were.

Ed: Or just wait until you’ve finished your project, then you can do it?

Gil: Absolutely. Then you have the time to spend and make sure everything’s the way it needs to be and work all the little kinks, because obviously, when you’re talking about something like Pro Tools, it’s not just Pro Tools that you update – there might be plugins that you need to update, you might need to update your OS, so

definitely a lot goes into it and we’d definitely not recommend it in the middle of a big project. I would definitely wait until you had some downtime to really be able to make sure that everything went smooth.

Ed: for?

Unless it was that update that you were waiting

Gil: Well there’s always that one, right, and with the new application manager it gives you a good idea of what those new features are so you can kind of choose whether it’s something that you want to go ahead and do or not.

Ed: Because you can always save a copy of your project somewhere else can’t you?

Gil: Well absolutely – you’re not tied to it, you can always do a “save session” copy off to another drive for safety’s sake. And like I said, with these later versions of Pro Tools, from Pro Tools 11 on, it really is easy to keep even multiple copies of Pro Tools in the applications folder – it’s just a matter of going in and renaming, let’s say your current version, putting a version number on it, and when you install the new version, it will install it right alongside it. That way you can go back and forth between the new version, see if you like the new features or if something’s not there you can just double click and always go back to that older version, without even having to reinstall anything.

Ed: A lesson for some of our other software vendors there I think.

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Sennheiser Pro Audio Show 2015 We are at the Sennheiser booth with Daniel Rowe from New Zealand and Chris Smith from Oz as a guest speaker.

Ed: Now Daniel, we know you represent Sennheiser, but how is the industry going to meet you and receive support for their Sennheiser product?

Daniel: For the end user, it would usually be at a show like this, but my dealer base knows me well. I am an account manager and my primary responsibility is to support my dealer base and all aspects of engaging with the Sennheiser brand.

Chris and Daniel from Sennheiser.

Ed: So these are the pro Sennheiser dealers who, if they run into a problem, or a customer wants to know any specific information, they’ve got you to call on?

Daniel: Yes. I’m a point of contact for the dealers in all aspects of their Sennheiser related business.

We’re also there as a level of support for their customer base as well. So that could be technical support or it could be product advice – all manner of things. But we try, where possible, to keep dealers’ relationships with their customers; we are there as an additional layer of support for them.

Daniel: 19 milliseconds is within frame sync, so that is the critical parameter we need to consider. But it’s not discernible in any real terms.

If in-ear monitoring was involved in this situation, then yes it would be more of a problem, but it’s just not relevant to this product group or the market it is aimed at.

Ed: What about the dealers providing evenings and presentations on new product. Do you get involved in that too?

Daniel: Yes that’s something we’re doing more of these days. You know wherever a dealer needs to engage their client base with our products then we’ll absolutely step in and help support them there. It’s a great way to meet the end user where we wouldn’t normally, and to potentially give them a different insight or perspective on products we deal with.

Ed: I imagine that’s pretty relevant at the moment, because there are two very new and very good products that we covered at NAB this year, that are now just available in New Zealand. This is something that you’d like your dealers to let their customers know about?

Daniel: Yes, absolutely. Look we’ve got two very exciting products – both the AVX ENG on-camera kit and the Clip Mic Digital, our iPhone Lavaliere system which is Sennheiser’s recent collaboration with Apogee.

They’re already generating a lot of worldwide interest and our dealers are very enthused about their release.

In fact, Sennheiser ANZ has the second highest dealer driven pre-order number for these systems within the worldwide Sennheiser group, so there is a huge demand for AVX on this side of the world. The trick for all of us is to keep getting the message out to the end user, and just to reiterate, we’re there to help support that process however we can.

Ed: I know my big question about the ENG kit was the latency in the voice and you very clearly showed me a graph how the latency is not an issue?

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Ed: And you’re actually finding a greater spread of interest for this particular product with its DECT frequency range?

Daniel: Yes absolutely, that is one of the reasons.

1.9 DECT band is licence free, future proofed, and is free from digital dividend related frequency issues for a start. Sennheiser recognises that they sit in a number of markets with this product. We’ve been very strong in professional broadcast systems and in ENG News gathering systems, but there’s an ever growing prosumer market as well that is there to be developed further, so products like the AVX and the Clip Mic Digital, straddle that line between the professional systems and the prosumer systems, with guys who are aspiring to a more professional end result in what they do. So with that in mind, they’re very easy systems to use; the video guy has enough on his plate in a given day, as you well know, without worrying about complicated RF UHF setups and audio management.

Daniel: Yes, that’s part of what we do.

Warranty repairs are primarily handled locally but we do get warranty claims coming in from international orders …

Ed: Because you look after the Sennheiser brand, rather than just what’s sold in NZ. So Chris, if somebody has purchased a Sennheiser product overseas or via the internet …?

Chris: We generally find we get a lot of warranty claims coming back which are “no fault found” and they’re generally setup issues. We find those are higher through internet purchases than through the dealer base, because generally, when people are buying off a dealer, their level of interaction with the dealer is higher. Obviously, we go out of our way to inform our dealers on our product and they impart that knowledge to their customers. So if a customer is kind of knowledgeable and knows how to use the product – especially in a UHF microphone style range – then they’re generally 10 steps beyond someone who has just done the internet search and whatever is the cheapest price.

The other problem that we have is people buying from either Asia or US, with frequency bands that just aren’t going to work where they are – and that’s a real issue everywhere these days. AVX systems coming in from the States will absolutely not work in Australia or New Zealand for example, and ANZ versions are not available through US resellers. So again, dealers tend to be much more au fait with what’s happening in the RF landscape locally to where they are.

Ed: You concur Daniel?

Daniel: I do.

Ed: It does depend totally on what you’re doing, but in that rapidly moving situation where you’ve just got to grab a sound bite and you’ve got to be out of there within a few minutes, you know that you just plug this thing in and it works?

Daniel: Yes that’s right. It’s designed to manage its own frequencies, to automatically jump out of the way of any conflicting frequencies; your microphone sensitivity is set automatically as well so that doesn’t need attending to either. It adapts its power output relevant to its proximity between microphone and the tiny plug on receiver, it will turn on and off with phantom power, so you power up your camera and the AVX system turns on or off with it … it really is a truly “plug and play” system with no compromise in audio quality. You turn it on, you start using it, you pack up and go home.

That has huge advantages for professional users as much as the prosumers that it’s primarily designed around.

Ed: So this is a good case of “go and find out from your dealer when Daniel’s going to be doing a presentation, or they’re going to be doing one of their own, and see this mic in action.” The other question that I have also relates to the dealership network, and again – and I push this – the choice between purchasing something through your dealer or over the internet. And there is a price perception there Daniel?

Daniel: Yes, that’s a hot topic for everyone, both the consumer and the dealer. We have always had the viewpoint that purchasing through a dealer is ultimately the best way forward with any level of product, for technical backup and on-going support the whole way through the purchase process, and post-sale too.

Ed: Because part of your job is to handle warranty claims on Sennheiser product?

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NZVN

Sound Techniques Pro Audio Show 2015

to see that what they might have already would integrate with it?

We’re now with Stephen Buckland himself at a rather large booth here at the Pro Audio Show.

Ed: Stephen, you’re a key part of this, you’re one of the drivers of this event, and by the crowds that are coming and going, it’s obviously worth keeping going because there are a lot of smiley people here?

Stephen: Thanks Grant. About a week ago I had my pre-show blues, but today it’s been impressive seeing lots of people that we don’t normally see and also seeing lots that we do.

Ed: We know you from your “audio for video” side, but there is another very large side of your business which is the pure audio for theatre and musicians. So you look after a big range?

Stephen: If they’ve got the receivers, yes it would certainly be worth coming in. In some ways though, to make full use of the SuperSlot and 688 you’re starting from scratch. So if you know what you want to achieve and you know the sort of work you’re going to be doing and you’re starting from scratch or you realise your gear has been superseded, this is a very good place to start and, yes, come and have a look at.

Ed: Now onto radio mics and we’ve just had a chat with Daniel from Sennheiser and the AVX radio mic that works on the DECT platform is obviously something that’s really new to the industry and you’re stocking these Stephen?

Stephen: Yes we do, particularly the ADAM audio speakers – well they take up a fair amount of room just on their own, and are the main thing we sell which is not directly related to film or television work.

Ed: Some of the product that we talked about at NAB, you’ve now got it in stock?

Stephen: Yes we have.

Firstly, the Sound Devices 688 mixer with the addition of the SuperSlot SL-6 which holds three Lectrosonics SRB receivers.

Now your readers will recall the SRB receivers are a two channel receiver and they were originally devised to operate as a link to cameras, but Lectrosonics found that people were using them the other way round, as a two channel receiver with two transmitters just as two standard radio mics.

Lectrosonics and a couple of other companies have combined with Sound Devices to produce a unit which combines the benefits of both. So it’s an exciting example of how technology might advance when in effect five companies talking together produce a product which benefits the end user.

Ed: And that’s something where, because you have a whole range of product from a number of different manufacturers, you can advise and put together packages for customers who have a need that they might not know about themselves?

Stephen: Well that’s right, or we can integrate stuff.

You know you look at this – if you have a mixer with six receivers, you’ve got quite a bulky package. Now I wouldn’t say by any means that it’s light, but it’s a lot lighter than them all being standalone, plus there are no extra cables so it’s very tidy, you don’t have to worry about a cable breaking and trying to track it down, and it works well for its purpose. Plus, beyond all that, if you add the new SuperSlot modification to an SRB receiver you can control that SRB receiver from the mixer. So you don’t have to be fiddling around with two sets of controls on the receiver or the mixer – it’s all integrated into the one platform.

Ed: So again, is this something that people really need to come in and have a look at, have a play with,

Stephen: We’re looking forward to getting some stock because they do seem fit for the purpose, which is something very simple to setup and they seem to work well.

Ed: And visitors have a chance to compare it with the other brands that you have?

Stephen: Yes, that’s how Sound Techniques works.

Generally we like to look at something first of all ourselves, and then let people know we’ve got it, and let you try it out and let us know how it works.

Ed: And product from the Lectrosonics range? are now “in stock” with the L-Series?

Stephen: Ed:

You

About one spare!

And the mini?

Stephen: The Super Slight Micro (SSM) Transmitter is apparently about to become available. Whereas the L -Series could be used generally across the board in most applications – certainly to do with filming, the SSM is designed for where you want a miniature transmitter, hence its name. Such applications might be in theatre where people are on a stage, or your reality shows like I guess The Bachelor and stuff where having a bulky transmitter is not permitted because of the nature of the clothes that people are wearing.

Ed: Or if you haven’t got any clothes, you could hide it in your hair?

Stephen: Well you could hide it in your hair or probably between other parts of your body if you had to. Sorry, I forgot this is a family magazine! Oh dear, can I retrace my steps there … I think you probably could hide it in a G-string if you needed to.

Page 12

Ed:

That small eh?

Stephen: You could probably pad out the G-string in some people’s cases as well.

Ed: Now, we published a very bad photograph taken

by Stephen of the K-TEK … what’s it called …?

Stephen: This is the Gizmo Bag and the Gizmo Bag is a very simple bag. It’s designed to put your bits and pieces of kit in it. It’s padded, sections can be divided, in the lid of it it’s got places to store stuff. It’s singular unique feature is that, once you’ve zipped up, you can turn it over and it’s got a transparent side to it, so you can look in the bag and see where that little widget has gone to, rather than having to open the bag and find your way through it. Also it’s got various parts so it can be attached to other bags.

Ed: I’d be worried that if you had something pointy in there you’d get a hole?

Stephen: A sharp knife perhaps, but the clear side is quite strong vinyl.

Ed:

And it comes with a warranty?

Stephen: misuse.

Ed:

I suppose it does, but it would be against

So don’t put spikey objects in there?

Stephen: Well I don’t think you would put spikey objects in; I think you’d be putting batteries maybe or XLR connectors or bits of cable …

Ed: You could put your lunch in there and you’d know which was the salmon and which was the cheese?

Stephen: It would make for a very designer lunch bag, yes that’s correct.

expensive

Coming to you through the clear Gizmo bag window.

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Diana:

That’s right.

Ed: And Stephen’s modelling the high tech Versa-Flex product?

Stephen: Versa-Flex is a company that makes anything that requires sewing … they make bags for cameras, they make covers for cameras etc, but what I’ve got on here is a Versa-Flex harness, and this is designed to carry a heavy bag full of sound equipment.

It’s an over the shoulder harness, so the weight is taken on your shoulders and your back. You strap it up appropriately across your chest … it’s a way of getting around and on set with the kind of kits of gear that people are expected to carry around these days.

Versa-Flex also makes body belts, but if you have a particular bag that you want made and you can’t find it anywhere, the people at Versa-Flex will actually make it to your design. Given that they’re in the United States obviously you’ve got to communicate the exact specifications, but they can do it.

How to carry your transmitter when you don’t have a pocket of your own.

Ed: And Diana’s modelling a product here from VersaFlex and what’s this Diana?

Diana: This is a transmitter belt. You put your wireless transmitter in here and then you wrap that round the person’s waist, and it’s reversible.

Ed:

Aaaah so if you haven’t got a pocket …?

Diana: And it sticks together so it doesn’t fall out, so it’s perfect for sports, reality shows, all those things where you want to hide your transmitter.

Ed: Oh I see, so one side’s black and the other side’s flesh coloured if you’re rather sickly?

Ed: Right, and again available over the counter at Sound Techniques?

Stephen: There are various sizes – because the first ones we received only suited lumberjacks and the first person who wanted to buy one happened to be this diminutive chap! So there are various sizes available out of the shop.

Ed:

As they should be.

Stephen: And we can fit them for you. We have a team of keen staff with tape measures around their necks and we’ll fit the appropriate one for your NZVN purposes.

Welcome to Tim We’ve come across Tim Riley, the latest addition to Sound Techniques, proudly seated here beside Diana.

Ed:

Tim, you’ve come from the industry?

Tim: Yes. Before Sound Techniques I was working at Edwards Sound in Penrose doing more live sound orientated work.

Ed:

So not actually in front of customers?

Tim: Still in front of customers, but more into setting up in the field and setting up live sound systems, but also the customer side of things doing the hires and a bit of sales.

Ed: So what’s Techniques?

different

at

Sound

Tim: Well the gear really. The location sound is new to me but the theory is the same.

Ed: Have they got you doing everything or are you starting off with things that you know about on the rental side?

Diana with Tim Riley.

Ed:

And Mr Buckland’s looking after you well is he?

Tim: Yes – I’ve taken over a bit of the rental side of things at Sound Techniques.

Tim: He certainly is.

I’m doing a little bit of sales, sort of edging into sales as well, but mostly rentals at this stage.

Tim: I do actually, yeah, yeah – he’s a great businessman and he’s a good guy and he’s very reasonable.

Ed:

And getting to know the products?

Tim: Yes, absolutely, getting my hands dirty with all the products and working out the Lectrosonics gear and the Sound Devices gear and just having a play.

Ed:

Ed:

Do you look upon him as a mentor?

And he knows his product?

Tim: He knows his stuff, absolutely.

Ed:

Page 14

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Rycote Pro Audio Show 2015 On the Sound Techniques stand, I met with Simon Davies from Rycote.

Ed: Simon, I understand that this is your first time in New Zealand and you’re looking all the better for it?

Simon: Yes, it’s very embarrassing to say that it’s the first time, but I’m very happy to be here, so I’m sure I’ll be back in the very near future – specifically in 2017.

Ed: Now you should take these Rycotes to Wellington, because there’s a lot of wind there. Unfortunately, here in Auckland of course, there’s very balmy weather, there’s no wind and so we’ve had to put a fan on to show the difference between your latest Rycote Cyclone and your trusty modular system?

Simon hits a high note with his Cyclone.

Simon: The Cyclone is a system which doesn’t rely on fur, but gives you the same wind performance that you would be expecting using a modular system or one of our older systems with fur. So you get the wind performance and you get the acoustic transparency.

It’s a bit of a compromise between the two, but the new system is all about clean sound when it’s new, but also when it’s old. That’s the most important thing.

Ed: But on your comparison, I don’t see any fur. Is the fur on the inside?

Simon: No there’s no fur at all. What we have is the combination of material, shape and size. The key aspects about it are the design of the material, the openness about it and the shape – the non-parallel sides … all of those contribute to give us the performance. If you put a fur cover on a modular, the Cyclone gives you the same wind protection.

Page 16

Ed: Aaaah, so we’re making a comparison between a Cyclone and a non-furred …?

Simon: Correct. So really to do a straightforward comparison in terms of size and performance here, the modular with the fur would be the same wind performance as a Cyclone without a fur, but acoustically transparency wise, the Cyclone is much better than when you put a fur on a normal windshield.

Ed: This is a windshield that you used to make?

Simon: Yes, and it’s still great and it still performs and we still make them. The parallel sided Rycote will never go away because, for some environments like sports, News and things like that where they get stuck in racks, it’s much more important that they’re parallel sided, they’ll always stay; and a parallel sided, or an extended sphere, is still a very good shape to use with current materials.

With the Cyclone though, the material, the 3D-Tex, you can’t use it in a parallel sided basket because the room tones or the reflective surfaces would make it sound pretty horrible.

The Cyclone works specifically because there’s no parallel sides inside there. But also, very importantly, whenever you put a basket on, whatever the size – whether it’s the size of our mono ones, then the modular, or whether it’s a super-shield like that, you hear it, you hear the actual coupling of the basket … regardless of what you’ve done with the suspension, you’ll hear it. With the Cyclone, one of the key aspects of the top and bottom is a suspension which floats the whole basket. That decouples it acoustically rather than just mechanically, so that makes it a very quiet windshield as well. So for microphones like Schoeps and Sennheiser and MKH-50, which are notorious for being difficult to get handling noise down, this actually helps with the handling noise. It’s nothing to do with the mechanical, it’s acoustic coupling.

Ed: Now Stephen was telling us earlier that, in the days of the fur … which actually has a proper name doesn’t it?

Simon: Yes, the windjammer.

Ed: … you had difficulty introducing this to the market when you came up with it?

Simon: Yes – John Gozzard first came out with it in 1985 and one of the first promotions that Vivienne Dyer ( who happens to be my mother ) tried to do to convince people in Japan to actually buy the fur was to make little Rycote dogs – they were little toys. She ended up getting orders for a couple of hundred of the dogs rather than the windjammers.

Now it’s an industry standard to see a fur cover or a windjammer on top of a microphone windshield, but back in the mid-80s, it used to be a fleece sock or a high wind-cover as we would call it. So this step away from that in the Cyclone, we understand it’s what someone’s expecting to hear – the sound of a fur has a definite sound and a Cyclone is very different. You’ll actually hear wind noise, not the wind hitting the transducer, but actually wind noise going through trees, branches, your mic stand, which some people might not be used to hearing because effectively you lose that when you put a windjammer on.

Ed: So in fact, a windjammer is cutting out that frequency whether that frequency’s come from the wind or from the talent’s voice?

Simon: Any windshield, whether it’s a structure like the Cyclone or the modular, with or without fur, has an impact on the frequency response of a microphone.

The more you put on there, the more layers, the more acoustically non-transparent those layers are, the more of an impact you’re going to have at certain frequencies. What you get with a Cyclone is as clear as possible the actual sound, but with the wind protection the equivalent of a modular with a fur cover on it. It’s a big step for us and we’re going to be showing it for a lot of other things. This is the first biggest size, we’ve got two smaller sizes coming, and then we’ve got stereo, surround and some other products like the ones that would just fit on the front of microphones as well as ENG windshields.

Ed: And the proof of the pudding is in the listening, and I’ve just done a test listening to the Cyclone versus the parallel sided windjammer without the fur and yes, there certainly is a difference. You hear a lot more background noise from the unprotected windjammer than you can from the Cyclone. So to me it’s proved its value.

Ed tries it out.

Simon: What we’re trying to do is put it in people’s hands so they can listen to it themselves. We had an example where we did it – there was a review in the UK where a guy was doing an AB test listening to a modular with a windjammer with a Schoeps CMIT and the Cyclone right next to each other, not any one closer to the other, to the actual talent talking, and the actual mixer, when he was listening to it thought that the Cyclone was about 3 or 4 feet closer to the talent. So it is different and it’s for people to listen to and hear it with their own ears.

Ed:

And they can do that by visiting …?

Simon: Yes, Sound Techniques are going to have lots of demo stock and products to get out there in the field and have a play with. The other big feature about the Cyclone is the access to the microphone.

Conventional shotgun baskets like we’ve made for years, always you either lock it or you undo a couple of screws and then you slide it in and out.

The whole principle behind the Cyclone was to get into there really easily, so you’ll find four latches – two on either side, that once you disengage you just break the magnets and you’re into the microphone within 2 seconds, rather than take the windjammer off, undo 2 knobs, take the endcap off, slide it all out – which can take 15 seconds or more.

This is perfect for documentary guys who want to get in, out, in, out very quickly in terms of getting to the mic. So it’s good. NZVN

Page 17

Old v. New The latest technology is normally better than what went before and the field recording side of our business is no exception. In the early 1980’s, the broadcast level portable recorder choice of many was the Sony BVU-110P. It recorded onto ¾ inch Umatic tape cassettes that had a 20 minute recording time. This was connected to your camera by a 14 pin cable and powered by a 3.5Ah battery.

The BP90 battery and cassette added 2kg to the 9kg, shoulder carried, recorder.

Looking back to when I operated one of these chasing rally cars around the North Island for 4 days, carrying this plus a 3-chip camera and a 10kg tripod, it’s no wonder that I prefer today’s stabilised handycams.

The best way to illustrate the technological progress in recording is by means of a table comparing the BVU110P to an SD card of today.

BVU-110P Recorder 9.4kg with tape

Mass

SD Card

PAL composite

Horizontal Resolution Recording Capacity

260 lines

2160 lines in 4K

20 minutes

Currently up to 512GB giving many hours at the same resolution as U–matic

Around $5,000 and $30 per tape

You had to record at least 7 seconds of preusable material every time you paused the recorder so that the edit player could synchronise with the edit recorder on playback.



High humidity could cause malfunction in the tape transport.



For those without the luxury of an assistant, you had to keep one eye on the audio meters and warning lamps on the recorder while shooting.

0.001kg

Recording System

Cost



Anything the camera supplies

$24 for 64GB

You should see that there is really no positive on the side of the BVU for recording today but, back then, there was nothing more suited to broadcast level field recording.

Now, for those young ones who were not out recording at the time ( that’s anyone younger than Garry French ) there were things to watch out for while recording ...



Any sudden movement of the recorder while slung over your shoulder would cause the tape to move off the recording path resulting in picture distortion and sound loss.



Dust or tape oxide could clog the recording heads, also resulting in picture and/or sound loss.



The tape could become slack and end up wound around one of the many guide rollers inside a U– matic tape path.

The workflow after recording was also extensive.

Not then a case of popping the card into a reader and directly ingesting so that the material could be edited immediately by as many operators as had access to the server, oh no. The tape had to be rewound and stored upright in a cool dry place until it was needed for editing.

Often a VHS or U–matic copy was made with the timecode burnt into the picture so that off-line editing could be performed.

Since on-line ( or mastering ) edit suites were expensive capital items ( not much change out of 250K for a reasonable one ), you made most of your editing decisions in the rough with copies and then used the timecode numbers in an EDL ( edit decision list ) to make your one-and-only master programme tape.

Because of the analogue nature of the technology, any editing or copying, no matter how expensive the format, was always of lesser quality as generations increased. This is why it was vital to get the master “right the first time” because any change meant reediting the master from that point on, or making a copy of before and after and just editing the change.

For the same reasons, special effects and titles were always at the expense of original picture quality. So in the BVU era, chemical film was still the best quality option as a recording and editing format.

Now I do hear some of you chuckling “ ... but the BVU is a tape machine and he professes to like tape.” Well,

Page 18

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there is a huge difference between digitally recording on tape and analogue recording on tape. Digital recording maintains the signal quality while analogue, in this case composite, did not.

I asked Tony Nelson ( who has been around longer than me ) what his experiences with ¾” technology were.

I found this article regarding significant changes in picture and sound recording technology very interesting and quite thought provoking.

What strikes me is, if that's looking back 30 years or so, what's it going to be like in another 30 years in the future – mind boggling stuff. Perhaps the 'Jetsons' fanciful cartoons etc. of the '60s weren't so far-fetched after all.

My recollection of the early days of Lowband and Highband tape technology go back to when I first started at the Auckland University AV Dept. in the early '80s. In those days, most of our gear was JVC due to a close collaboration with Richard Green. Other formats such as one inch and Betacam were way beyond our means so we dreamed of moving from LB to HB thinking this was the panacea to generation loss and the resultant poor resolution and picture quality.

Programs involving accurate representation of skin tone and definition, such as in the many medical projects we did, were always a struggle resulting in disappointing outcomes.

technical detail. As a technician going back to the '60s, it’s sad to say how sterile and boring things have become – or am I just a SOF? We are not surprised by anything today and just accept that Jaycar will have some new toy waiting for us every time we walk in the door. But hey, it’s different but not all bad – drones are my current craze.

Lastly, from David Marshall, an engineer of standing for many analogue years, offers us his perspective on the merits of the Umatic format.

Your description of the BVU110 brings back lots of memories, some good ... and others.

The comparisons you draw all look perfectly reasonable, though in defence of our trusted ¾” format ( that’s 19.05mm for those born after Garry French ) I would like to point out the following:

Unfortunately, our foray into HB was nothing short of a disaster after such high expectations.

The first machines proved very unreliable resulting in battles with the supplier and their eventual replacement with much improved later models.

However, our expectations of much improved picture quality were not delivered and we struggled on for a few years until we received a grant in 1990 to upgrade to Betacam SP which I am happy to say proved a very reliable format producing quality pictures for their day.

I am sorry that this is about all I can recall of out skirmish with HB as it does not bring back happy memories and time has washed away most of the

1. The ¾” cassettes were large but this was done to make them easy to find. Who hasn’t lost an SD card?

2. U-matic cassette cases had large labels, hence had far superior metadata storage capabilities.

No power was required to read it, just legible writing.

3. The limiting shooting duration on U-matic wasn’t a limitation, but instead a major cost saving feature for later post production. Who ever heard of a 1000:1 cutting ratio back in those days?

4. U-matic cases were multipurpose. They could also be used as door stops, or lunch boxes. Try doing that with the SD case.

5. The U-matic tapes had an inbuilt tape condition analyser. Any defects were cleverly illustrated as an onscreen disturbance.

6. Being analogue in design, there were no unpleasant digital bit depth issues to worry about. Images were pleasingly mixed with a random noise floor.

7.

The U-matic tape transports were cleverly designed to provide acoustic feedback of the condition of the tapes being used. Pinch roller induced tape creases could clearly be heard as they moved past the rotating video drum … and 8.

Who can’t say that the marvel of a cassette loading into a large transport, the threading of a tape loop past a fast rotating head drum and then the clunk of a pinch roller hitting the tape isn’t far more impressive than a small bit of plastic being plugged into a slot.

I rest my case.

Cheers, David

Page 20

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Lawo Pro Audio Show 2015 At the Protel stand, we’re going to talk with Philipp Hey from Lawo.

Ed: Philip, Lawo has been around for quite a number of years in the audio business, especially with mixing consoles, but more recently has really developed in delivering video and audio over IP, and has come up with some clever solutions. Before we go into those, from your point of view, what are the challenges of IP in broadcast?

Philipp: The market demands it, that’s the thing. Our customers are very much moving into a position where they have to create a lot of content – much more content than ever before. Another topic is how people consume the content. So this means a lot on portable devices. This is why we hear from our customers the need to move also the live production itself into the IP world.

Ed: I gathered this from your presentation, that it is the consumer, that end that is driving the change. The consumers are very well aware of what’s available over IP, now it’s getting back into that production through to transmission section that you see your products can make a difference?

Philipp: Yes, exactly, because we see there are products on the market – existing products and protocols that allow the production to run on an IP based system.

For example, the data rates that switchers are capable of today, have caught up with the data rates we need, especially for video transmission, and the IT industry is pushing a lot, the development is very fast and the equipment is getting cheaper. The idea now is to make use of this equipment and use non-proprietary solutions and therefore just run our services on this third party equipment’s open platforms.

Ed: You were saying that there are various manufacturers who make switchers, who make peripheral items for broadcast over IP, but with your product, you can bypass their software so that you’re just using the hardware of a variety of manufacturers to actually provide an IP solution?

Philipp: That is true. I mean this is a very, very specific case which is at the moment focusing a lot on the switching of video signals. What is even more important, the IP network itself allows us to build quite efficient setups. That means the rigging times and system layouts can become very simple and this is why a lot of manufacturers came up with the idea to use IP technology.

We see that our main task at the moment is to establish standards that are open, that are non-proprietary, because if we look at other standards on the market, everybody plays his own little game, but the AES has now come up – for the audio for example – with the AES 67 standard, which was the first time that an official institution has defined how audio has to be transmitted over IP networks. This brings us now into the situation where different manufacturers can exchange audio over an IP network. This was not possible before. It’s like a MADI transported into the IP world. This allows us now to exchange media over different manufacturers and at Lawo this is why we are driving so much the RAVENNA standard, which is very similar to AES 67, so it’s fully

Philipp from Lawo.

compatible but it’s a bit more on top of it. More, let’s say streamlined for the broadcast. But this was then the first standard to allow you to exchange and we think it only has a future when it is open. We should not rely on manufacturers and we should not rely on proprietary systems, so this is the first goal we have, and the same happens on the video. There are standards getting defined, like for example the SMPTE 2022 which defines how to transport a video signal over an IP network that everybody can understand and everybody can build a device to receive or transmit pictures or any kind of media on an IP network.

Ed: I guess this is one of the major stumbling blocks that any IP developer will have, is overcoming the broadcast engineer’s belief in a proprietary system where one manufacturer makes a workflow for them. They don’t have to have anyone else get involved, and they know that it works?

Philipp: Yes but it’s not only the workflow. It’s also about the signal itself and this is the problem that we at the moment still have. There are certain players on the market who are not open and we think it’s now time that they at least run it in compatible mode so that they can switch themselves in a mode that would allow exchange formats. When we see a big sports production where there is a stadium and we have OB vans, but there’s also PA people around that and the signals are not compatible. Everybody needs the same signals, why shouldn’t they be like an open source signal that everybody can use.

Ed: Now I think people moving from analogue to digital found that a really easy transition, but the move from digital to IP is going to be a lot more difficult for them … first of all understanding that IP is not the same as digital television?

Philipp: Yes, what means IP? IP just describes a protocol, like an internet protocol.

Ed: With digital, you’re talking about one cable for one signal; whereas with IP, you’re talking about a fibre which can carry multiple signals and at very high data rates now?

Philipp: That’s true and not even signals, also services. So the thing is that today, a simple network cable could carry audio, video and control data. That’s what makes it so complex. In the old days, one cable, one signal. This became digital – there was perhaps more signals on that cable but still it was quite easy to understand when we knew what kind of signal it is, what it contained, even when control data is involved. But we could predict the limitations and we knew what’s going on

Page 22

on that cable; while in an IP network, as I said, it’s very virtual, it’s very abstract and it’s really hard to find out sometimes what is going on and especially which path a packet takes. IP means we divide the signal in small packets that we send out to a network, but we cannot predict the path that they take throughout this network to the receiving end, and this for example, makes the error detection just very, very difficult compared to a linear discrete signal on a specific cable.

Ed: I guess the other big question is latency, because we all know from our own internet experience that latency can be a major issue.

In a traditional broadcast environment, everything has to be timed back to some sort of base signal. How is this managed in an IP situation?

this particular case, we had need for a sport event to transmit video and audio signals back to the main broadcast facility. This is usually achieved via satellite uplinks, quite expensive and also a lot of latency involved.

Here we could use the public network to bring these pictures back to the broadcast plant. To give you an idea, we can bring a production quality high definition signal down to data rates between 50 and 200 megabit. This very much depends on the content and the demands on quality, but this allows you to have up to four camera signals over a one gigabit pipe back to the broadcast centre and actually do the production over there at the graphics, do the switching back in the broadcast plant, rather than on site. So what we have in mind here is something we call remote production – small events that don’t require big production crews or big OB vans. The idea is a small flyaway kit ( a camera hub we call it ) travels on site and we actually remote the cameras and what’s going on locally, while transmitting back the pictures to a main studio where the production actually happens, where the producer sits, all the audio engineers and video engineers are placed.

Ed: But you had a backup plan too didn’t you?

Philipp: Yes we had a backup plan of course so there was for the early tests an uplink available.

Ed: How many times did you have to use the uplink in six months?

Philipp: We didn’t have to use it!

Ed: Well that’s good for the product. I guess the big test is going to come in 2020 for the Tokyo Olympics when they’re going to Philipp gave a presentation to the show attendees. broadcast this in 8K I understand, so how are they going to do that without IP? Philipp: The broadcasters, as you said, have a strong focus on that, so there is the possibility to easily cater for Philipp: That’s a good question. This will require that. The solution is called PTP which is Precision Time very big video routers and a lot of SDI cables, but the Protocol – again an open standard available today. It challenge for us is much nearer – the Olympics in Rio are allows you to distribute a clock signal over a network with coming up and there are quite a number of broadcasters an accuracy of 25 nanoseconds which is more than looking into the possibility of doing this as a remote enough for our production purposes. The idea behind production, even over continents. this, a master clock generates this PTP signal throughout Ed: And the only way to do that is through IP? the network. We need PTP compliance switchers for this Philipp: That’s correct. to forward this clock information throughout the network.

But then in the moment where we generate a packet, Ed: But I think, as you did stress in your presentation, these packets contain a time information, they get an this is not a case of a broadcaster suddenly having to go absolute time stamp and this allows us, on the receiving totally IP; this is a case of, for quite some time, you can side, to put them all in order again, because all the run a hybrid situation? packets have their specific time stamp.

Philipp: Yes exactly. This step will not happen at Depending on the network traffic, the quality of service, once; there is so much gear involved in production; there we may need a certain buffer, but on a well-managed is so much R&D resources necessary that we think this broadcast network, we can talk about real time change will take a lot of time. There might be the first distribution of signals. That is possible. trucks available in 2016 we believe.

Ed: Now you actually have some experience in all of Ed: These are OB trucks? this, because you gave an example from Europe of a Philipp: Yes, talking about OB trucks, where the hub sporting event in one particular country. What was the of the system might be an IP switch instead of a video situation there? router, but this is really a long-term development until all Philipp: Let’s start like this … all that we do with the bits and pieces that are involved would talk natively IP RAVENNA and AES 67 as well for the video, is it’s pure – let’s put it like this. So in the meantime, we will have a IP Layer 3 solutions. The important characteristic is IP high demand on edge devices that convert traditional Layer 3 allows routeing across different networks; it’s baseband into IP. supported by network routers.

So this gives the Ed: Excellent – and to find out more about the Lawo opportunity to run a signal in a wide area network over NZVN product go and talk to the boys at Protel. hundreds of kilometres or even between continents. In Page 24

Fly my Pretties!

Drones are the “topic de jour” for both good and bad reasons so I thought you might like to hear from some of those involved. For this issue, I sought out Aliesha Staples and Craig Patterson at the offices of Staples Productions in Auckland.

Ed: Now Aliesha, you’ve been going for quite some time in the camera support area I believe – and looking around here, I see the logo of MōVI quite prominent.

Did you come into this from video, film or still photography, or how did you get into this section of the industry?

Aliesha: I actually started as an editor for TV and Craig and Aliesha at Staples Productions. then I went overseas working as a camera getting into flying the products. DJI Phantoms are the operator where I started learning about gimbals. A lower end drones; we can teach you all sorts that go year ago, I brought the gimbal technology back to New along with those.

Zealand and started Staples Productions.

Ed: So you’re not only selling them, you’re hiring Ed: With a MōVI rig? them?

Aliesha: Yes. We run the MōVI systems and also the DJI Ronin handheld gimbals. We have crew that operate them and you can also dry hire them as well.

Ed: So this goes from the smaller wedding type ones, right up to ones you would use in a motion picture?

Aliesha: Yes, we have the full range from the smallest to the biggest – from 3kg up to 15kg. We teach people how to use them as well, so you can go through a workshop and learn how to work everything.

Ed:

How do you find the MōVI product specifically?

Aliesha: It’s really good. It’s one of the higher end gimbals that you can buy. You pay a lot more for it, but it’s for the accuracy and the power of it. It also has really good support so it never fails you when you’re on set, which is really important with this type of gear, because it’s very technical.

Ed:

What sort of failures can you get in a gimbal?

Aliesha: It’s more about not knowing how to use it, that’s the main failure that happens. But also, the motors not being able to handle the weight that’s put on it, the batteries not working properly … there’s lots of little parts that can fail and if you don’t know how to fix them or how to work them then it can be quite a problem.

Ed:

What do the motors do?

Aliesha: They’re three axis, brushless gimbals, so all of them have three motors in them no matter what size camera you put on. One motor controls your pan, one controls your tilt and one controls your horizon, and they just work against your body movement to stabilise the camera while you’re doing your shots.

Ed: And from there, you moved into the drone area – correct?

Aliesha: Yes, I’ve teamed up with Craig who’s come on board to provide aerial products. We have the smaller drones right up to one of the bigger drones in the country by the end of August.

We also do workshops on basic operation of drones if you’re just

Aliesha: We don’t sell them. We get them all from Photogear, but we do provide support to Photogear by teaching people how to use the drone products, and helping educate because it’s a big problem we’re finding at the moment – there’s just not enough education on how to safely use one, and how you can use them in New Zealand.

Ed: That’s it, anybody can go out there and buy a drone and fly it because they are currently regarded by most as something of a toy?

Aliesha: They are very easy to get hold of but a lot of people are missing the point of actually investigating what the laws and the rules are behind their operation before they actually go and fly.

Ed: So what are the rules to the uninitiated – and for that we’ll ask Craig?

Craig: Basically, the rules are that you cannot fly over 400 feet; you cannot fly at night; you cannot fly over people and the craft must remain in line of sight of the operator at all times.

Ed:

And a certain distance from any airfield?

Craig: If you are within four kilometres of an aerodrome, you must be “wings” certified, so you must get that certification. If you are not within 4km of an aerodrome, you’re free to fly.

Ed: So that’s even unmanned airfields … what about the farmer’s paddock which he uses to fly the top dressing plane off?

Craig: If it’s an official aerodrome, then you have to get permission to fly in that area and be “wings” certified.

Ed: What do you see as the hazards with people buying a drone and just going out there and having a go themselves?

Craig: Most people crash and burn on the first or second flight. The potential for injury and damage is huge if they don’t know what they are doing. more on page 29

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company is insured … we are insured for personal liability and property. Most people who are out there flying are not insured and so if you’re hiring somebody to do a job at your event and they’re not insured, then you’re going to be liable for the damage, because you’ve hired that person at your event. Something to think about.

Ed: So that’s it, the insurance is not just on the drone and the camera that it’s carrying, but it’s also the third party in case it hits something, somebody.

An unlicensed operator, or an uninsured operator, can cost you a lot of money?

Craig: Yes indeed – you can get into a lot of trouble.

Ed: So how can you be sure that the person that you’re hiring actually has insurance and is CAA certified?

Craig: You’ve got to ask the hard questions.

You’ve got to ask them to provide you with documents to show that they are insured. There are guys out there flying who say they have certification and insurance, but they actually don’t.

Ed:

Haven’t you helped train some of those people?

Craig:

No.

Aliesha: “Train” is a big word. It’s not so much training, we’re not training you, we’re not certifying you, we’re not sending you out with any qualification.

We’re simply showing you what the rules are, so making you aware of them before you fly.

We’re showing you how to do regular maintenance on your drone and how to safely take off and land. It’s a basic intro …

Aliesha with a gimbal rig.

Ed: And what can the consequences of that be – other than injuring people, what can be the financial damage?

Craig: There’s been a few guys who have been charged by the CAA for breaching the rules.

Ed:

And that’s quite a hefty fine?

Craig: Some have been fined $900, but it depends how negligent you are.

Ed: But then if that drone damages a third party, such as into a house, into a person … well into a person I guess is covered by ACC, but if you fly it into somebody’s window?

Craig: That’s one thing that many people don’t think about when they go to operate a drone. Our

Craig: What we do is product familiarisation, so we have particular knowledge of specific brands and specific models of drone. If people come to us wanting to know the particulars about a specific craft and setup, we take them through all the little ins and outs of that particular craft.

It’s product and safety knowledge basically.

Aliesha: …how you look after the batteries, how you update the firmware, how you take props on and off – simple stuff like that. It’s nothing really to do with getting insurance and commercially operating.

It’s nothing to do with that. It’s mainly “how do you look after your craft and here are the rules in New Zealand.”

We go through them with you so that you’re aware of them before you fly.

Ed: Now the sort of people who are naturally good at piloting a drone – are they the kids who have used a PlayStation a lot?

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Aliesha: Not necessarily … did you play PlayStation a lot Craig?

Craig: I can neither confirm nor deny that I played a lot of PlayStation. Yes, they sometimes are … I think what makes a good operator is someone who is safety conscious first and foremost. There’s a lot of stuff that you can do with a drone but those who say “I’ll just give it a go and see what happens – I’ll try and fly through that gap or whatever” – those people are going to get into trouble. You have to put safety first in every situation and risk assessment is a huge part of what we do. If you only think that you can do it, then you might possibly get into trouble. You’ve got to know that you can do it.

Ed: And actually plan out the route that you want the drone to take before you start?

Craig: Yes. Planning and just making things safe; always having …

Ed:

… a shotgun handy in case it gets out of control?

Craig: That’s what the people in the next house have – they’ll try and shoot it down because they see it outside their window.

Ed: Now I understand that you are certified as far as you can be by the CAA, but in fact because of the weight of the drones that you’re using, you don’t actually have to be?

Craig: No. All our operations are logged with the CAA and we can do all our commercial operations under Part 101 of the Rule, but we will be going through the process with CAA to be able to fly under Part 102 of the Rule.

Ed:

And you take this job seriously?

Craig:

Absolutely.

Aliesha: We’re very proactive and make sure we’re on top of all the changes and that we’re aware of everything that’s going on in the industry.

Ed:

Any misconceptions out there?

Craig: There are a lot of misconceptions about what drones can do and how easy they are to fly. Part of that has been caused by news stories on people delivering coffee with drones and things like that.

Ed: Now I’ve always believed there are actually two parts to flying a drone. One is the drone flying, but the second is actually having some camera knowledge as to how to set up a frame, how to move that drone so you get the best camera shot. Is that something where you would say you’ve got both of those skills?

Craig: Yes. I’ve been a cameraman for 20 years and I’ve been flying drones for five. There’s a lot of people buying drones thinking that they can go film stuff but they have no film or TV experience and this is their first drone …

Ed: And cameramen buying drones because they’re a cameraman and they think they can just use their PlayStation skills to fly a drone?

Craig: Absolutely. I’ve dedicated my …

Ed: Life?

Craig: Pretty much … at the moment.

I’m a dedicated drone pilot, that’s what I do. I film and fly.

Ed: That’s a big bandage you’ve got on your hand there – was that caused by an argument with an angry drone?

Craig: This is not due to a drone, this is due to a skateboard, and people over 40 shouldn’t get on skateboards.

Ed: Oh, somebody who lives his life on the edge eh?

Craig: I’m too old for the edge.

Ed: But not too old for drones?

Craig: No, drones are awesome.

I’ve got a technical background, so I’ve always been interested in new technology. For me, drones were just the next step, the new frontier if you like, and a fabulous way to capture images that we just haven’t seen or been able to get before.

Ed: So I guess this is a tricky question and you may or may not answer it – do you see the new regulations actually going far enough?

Craig: That is a good question. I think it’s a good start. The CAA do not have an easy road. They are so behind the 8 ball in terms of trying to keep up with the speed that this part of the industry is growing …

Ed: Because it’s not just New Zealand, we hear reports from the States of drones getting very close to aircraft?

Craig: It’s just gone mad worldwide and if you talk to people in aviation about how many times drones are seen by commercial pilots, it’s freakin’ scary.

Ed: Now tell us about the camera side of it – so you’ve got a range of drones that will carry different sized cameras. I guess most people fly them around with GoPros?

Craig sends his drone on a mission.

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Aliesha: Yes, we can fly everything from a full HD camera up to your REDs, and also the new ALEXA Mini which just arrived in the country on Friday. We just bring in the cameras as requested, so

whatever camera is required by a client, we bring that one in to load on the drone.

Ed: And they look after their own insurance?

Aliesha: We make sure everything is correctly insured before it goes in the air. It’s not worth the risk.

Ed: How do you minimise the risk?

Craig: One way is to attach parachutes to the drone. Currently, there are no other operators in New Zealand using parachutes …

Ed: Apart from you?

Craig: Yes. We’ve started importing them, and we see it as a great way to help the industry be safer.

Ed: Is that something that automatically deploys when the power fails or can you trigger it from the ground?

Craig: There are two ways it deploys. One is when you set up a failsafe in the flight controller, and if that failsafe is triggered, the parachute will deploy and the motors will stop and it will descend gracefully. Or the other way is to deploy the chute manually via the transmitter.

Ed: And you can turn the motors off first I hope?

Craig: Yes, it’s all part of the deployment … it turns the motors off and the chute is deployed outwards from the drone, so there’s no chance of the lines getting caught in the props.

Ed: Well it sounds as though you guys researched this and you know what you’re doing.

have

If you would like to investigate drone operation further, contact Aliesha or Craig at Craig discusses the technology.

www.staplesproductions.co.nz

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