Remote smartphone audio matrixing

Fred

I was looking for a good com system for a while, I wanted to be able to send and matrix audio streams over a local network so I could give intructions to actors and crew live and in sync. It has come up a few times before I think but here is a great solution. The offer a rental system so you dont have to buy the whole package for a show.

http://intracomsystems.com/vcom-wireless-matrix.php

MatthewH

I would be extremely wary of entrusting show critical communications to a wifi network, cell data networks, and consumer level devices. It's a cool idea but dedicated IP based matrix comm solutions are probably a better though more expensive solution

Fred

That was my impression, but this is a well tested enterprise solution. They are running it in film shoots and broadcast centres already- I needed something much simpler than this but they wrote the whole system from the ground up. Yes it does rely on a wifi network but getting super solid wifi infrastructure is not so hard these days, after that it just comes down to the quality of their code. I regularly use wifi inside shows, to and from a variety of devices (I write my own IOS apps and make my own hardware to do so). I use RNXV chips in our hardware- it has tested very well. In terms of running multiple wireless signals inside a theatre it is actually more manageable to get an enterprise class wireless system and write good code to run on it. This way you have only one frequency to take care of (rf solutions such as Xbee really have a lot of downfalls on stage and in areas where there is a lot of wifi traffic and other wireless devices), in these situations if you cant beat em, join em. Managing a variety of different wireless protocols and equipment has been a lot more work for me in the past, I even have 2.4ghz wireless mics that slip seamlessly into our system and I don't have to worry about the show next door, or the LTE frequency in the country I am in at the time.

So far once I got good hardware and set up a good management system wifi has been more reliable (I do not give internet access, just a local network). I do travel with my own access point and carefully scan the spectrum before I choose a channel. This way I have a reserved IP for all devices (most are wired except for those that cannot be) and there are no network administrators to deal with or settings to change. I use ipods and iphones on stage for a variety of reasons and even if I build my own devices doing through a wifi network still seems to be the best way for me so far.

Having said this I am not working in very large venues (say 100 to 800 seats).

I wanted to explain the length I have gone to to get a good wifi system, having said that, I am curious to know what bad experiences you have with WIFI on stage and why so I can look out for them in the future.