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Author Topic: Don't mix rock'n'roll with digital desks  (Read 45435 times)

Charlotte Evans

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Re: Don't mix rock'n'roll with digital desks
« Reply #90 on: June 15, 2008, 06:36:09 AM »

bruce reiter wrote on Sun, 15 June 2008 05:21

...charlie gave me some great advice, he said :bruce, they will always let you down, plan for that"



Quite.

Take things in your stride. Sometimes this can be a little hard:
I did a typical "line-check" only festival, we were headlining. Got to FOH well before my time slot and saw that the PA co. had changed the board from an agreed Midas 3k to a Digico D5. Why? Because the festival organisers wanted to multitrack the show via DigiTracks so that they could produce a festival album. Well not with my band they wern't, no arrangement had been brokered with our agant/management so that was disabled.
After having given them a bit of a mouthful that a courtesy  phonecall or email might have been appropriate after me signing off the agreed equipment I got busy. Unfortunately I had no previous settings for a Digico on a USB key so I had to start right from scratch; it would have been nice if the PA co. had done a bit of prepping like loading in my channel names to save some time,but no  Sad
As luck would have it there was a torrential downpour during changeover and half the stage got completely soaked due to lack of suitable tarping. By the time the band and crew had made a decision as to whether it was safe to play or not I had a mix dialled in but I wasn't a very happy bunny with it all!
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Henry Cohen

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Re: modular rock'n'roll/digital interface
« Reply #91 on: June 15, 2008, 10:13:30 AM »

John Roberts  {JR} wrote on Thu, 12 June 2008 21:11

What is trivial for fiber and easy for wire, may not be easy lifting for IR or RF links. I only see difficulty (using off the shelf rat shack technology)  for the traffic between I/O and processing. There are already plenty of people sending low bandwidth control info via existing wireless paths.

Curious as to why your RF networking reference is to consumer level RS products and not enterprise/commercial caliber offerings? I presume you don't buy your mics, speakers and amps from them.

There are in fact gigabit RF links out there with relatively low latencies, but as I indicated before, there are compromises: They are only point to point, require lots of RF bandwidth and since they operate in the 11GHz, 30GHz and 60GHz bands, require direct unobstructed line of sight.
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Henry Cohen
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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: modular rock'n'roll/digital interface
« Reply #92 on: June 15, 2008, 10:51:17 AM »

Henry Cohen wrote on Sun, 15 June 2008 09:13


Curious as to why your RF networking reference is to consumer level RS products and not enterprise/commercial caliber offerings? I presume you don't buy your mics, speakers and amps from them.

There are in fact gigabit RF links out there with relatively low latencies, but as I indicated before, there are compromises: They are only point to point, require lots of RF bandwidth and since they operate in the 11GHz, 30GHz and 60GHz bands, require direct unobstructed line of sight.


$$$   Because consumer scale demand drives cost effective technology. We need high production volume to get prices down. You know more than I about how bandwidth gets allocated but again I suspect mass market consumer demand to trump business needs.

I would expect boys and girls wanting HD movies on their cell phones to be more of a driver than Cisco meeting some IT requirement (while they do own Linksys).

There's a reason digital snake technology was around for decades without being embraced. The communication channel needs to robust and not crazy expensive compared to wire.

The beauty of arguing about the future is you can't be right or wrong.

JR
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Henry Cohen

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Re: modular rock'n'roll/digital interface
« Reply #93 on: June 15, 2008, 12:26:23 PM »

John Roberts  {JR} wrote on Sun, 15 June 2008 10:51

$$$   Because consumer scale demand drives cost effective technology. We need high production volume to get prices down. You know more than I about how bandwidth gets allocated but again I suspect mass market consumer demand to trump business needs.

I would expect boys and girls wanting HD movies on their cell phones to be more of a driver than Cisco meeting some IT requirement (while they do own Linksys).

There's a reason digital snake technology was around for decades without being embraced. The communication channel needs to robust and not crazy expensive compared to wire.

Granted, the high volumes needed to bring professional level gear prices down will be driven by the consumer market, but I was making a far more immediate point: We as professionals should not be using consumer level equipment (i.e. access points) in professional applications when enterprise/commercial level gear is readily available at reasonable price points. As for today's esoteric gigabit RF links, no doubt they'll be tomorrow's ho hum (yawn) RS monthly special.
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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: modular rock'n'roll/digital interface
« Reply #94 on: June 15, 2008, 12:40:31 PM »

Henry Cohen wrote on Sun, 15 June 2008 11:26

Granted, the high volumes needed to bring professional level gear prices down will be driven by the consumer market, but I was making a far more immediate point: We as professionals should not be using consumer level equipment (i.e. access points) in professional applications when enterprise/commercial level gear is readily available at reasonable price points. As for today's esoteric gigabit RF links, no doubt they'll be tomorrow's ho hum (yawn) RS monthly special.



I guess I'm still locked into a mass market mentality. The cost to develop specialized ICs is huge so needs to be amortized over large customer bases. Even the modern codecs and high power DSP we are benefiting from were developed for mass markets.

I don't look at a problem as can it be solved, but can it be solved for a price low enough that enough people are willing to pay for, to justify the engineering investment. Quite a different mentality from the show must go on.. no matter what it takes or cost.

There will generally be enough military, space, or high end applications to pioneer technology.  

YMMV

JR




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Mac Kerr

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consumer vs enterprise
« Reply #95 on: June 15, 2008, 12:51:33 PM »

John Roberts  {JR} wrote on Sun, 15 June 2008 12:40

Henry Cohen wrote on Sun, 15 June 2008 11:26

Granted, the high volumes needed to bring professional level gear prices down will be driven by the consumer market, but I was making a far more immediate point: We as professionals should not be using consumer level equipment (i.e. access points) in professional applications when enterprise/commercial level gear is readily available at reasonable price points. As for today's esoteric gigabit RF links, no doubt they'll be tomorrow's ho hum (yawn) RS monthly special.



I guess I'm still locked into a mass market mentality. The cost to develop specialized ICs is huge so needs to be amortized over large customer bases. Even the modern codecs and high power DSP we are benefiting from were developed for mass markets.

I don't look at a problem as can it be solved, but can it be solved for a price low enough that enough people are willing to pay for, to justify the engineering investment. Quite a different mentality from the show must go on.. no matter what it takes or cost.

There will generally be enough military, space, or high end applications to pioneer technology.
I think Henry's point is that most, if not all of the people using WiFi connections in a production environment are using consumer level access points like Linksys or D-Link, when there are more reliable access points available at slightly higher prices. We use pro level sound gear, but consumer level network gear, when there is pro level gear available.

Mac
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Henry Cohen

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Re: consumer vs enterprise
« Reply #96 on: June 15, 2008, 05:35:06 PM »

Mac Kerr wrote on Sun, 15 June 2008 12:51

I think Henry's point is that most, if not all of the people using WiFi connections in a production environment are using consumer level access points like Linksys or D-Link, when there are more reliable access points available at slightly higher prices. We use pro level sound gear, but consumer level network gear, when there is pro level gear available.

Give that man a cheroot.
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Henry Cohen
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Tim Padrick

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Re: consumer vs enterprise
« Reply #97 on: June 16, 2008, 02:11:16 AM »

Henry Cohen wrote on Sun, 15 June 2008 16:35


Give that man a cheroot.


I hate it when you smart guys use these fancy technical terms, and I have to look them up


Smile

Steve Syfuhs

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Re: consumer vs enterprise
« Reply #98 on: June 16, 2008, 03:07:36 AM »

One of the biggest issues I see with the use of WiFi (CE or Commercial) is that of security.  We in IT have made the realization that its really freakin easy (well, not really, but sorta) to change data before it reaches it's intended AP.  As a result, we encrypted the stream... WEP was broken shortly thereafter; then WPA, then WPA-2, etc.  As a result, the basic idea was to change the protocols higher in the stack to prevent authentication and what not, so we now have things like NAC (Network Access Control)/NAP (Network Access Protection) which prevents the offending AP access to resources on the network...

Point being: If we use WiFi to control the systems, any schmuck with a laptop could do some damage, even if encryption was used.  My thinking is that if more and more people hop onto the wireless bandwagon a major change is going to have to take place for security.

Perhaps a modified version of WiFi specfically designed for show control is in order?
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Henry Cohen

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Re: consumer vs enterprise
« Reply #99 on: June 16, 2008, 09:53:28 AM »

Steve Syfuhs wrote on Mon, 16 June 2008 03:07

One of the biggest issues I see with the use of WiFi (CE or Commercial) is that of security.  We in IT have made the realization that its really freakin easy (well, not really, but sorta) to change data before it reaches it's intended AP.  As a result, we encrypted the stream... WEP was broken shortly thereafter; then WPA, then WPA-2, etc.  As a result, the basic idea was to change the protocols higher in the stack to prevent authentication and what not, so we now have things like NAC (Network Access Control)/NAP (Network Access Protection) which prevents the offending AP access to resources on the network...

Point being: If we use WiFi to control the systems, any schmuck with a laptop could do some damage, even if encryption was used.  My thinking is that if more and more people hop onto the wireless bandwagon a major change is going to have to take place for security.

Perhaps a modified version of WiFi specfically designed for show control is in order?

Why is this type of random maliciousness a greater concern than someone putting a pin through  your copper snake or crushing/cutting the fiber as it runs through the audience area? A pin or small pair of wire cutters are a lot smaller, lighter and less expensive to carry around than a laptop . . . and doesn't require a more advanced level of computer and WiFi knowledge.
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