Monday, October 15, 2007
League Wants FCC to Prevent Portable Devices on Airwaves Used for Theatre Mikes
Playbill News: "The League of American Theatres and Producers, Inc., the trade association for the Broadway industry, is joining with major sports leagues, television broadcasters and houses of worship to urge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to not allow major tech companies — such as Google and Microsoft — the use of personal wireless devices on frequencies heretofore reserved for wireless microphones."
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5 comments:
I know for a fact that even the space that is reserved for mikes now is way too small. My boss back home has 47 Sennheiser mics that he uses all at the same time. Even with some running at 500 khz and the others running at 600 khz we can't find free space to set the mics at. Imagine setting every mic so that everything is all good in clear frequency land, and then as soon as the house fills you get some nice interference five minuets before curtain.
I'm surprised more people have joined sports complexes, theaters, and churches. Any assembly hall is going to have a problem; every city hall should be worried. Not to mention movie shoots in public. Its hard enough to find an open frequency, I'd hate to be working on a shoot on a street corner and have to re-shoot cuz someones PDA on a passing bus got into the signal.
I had no idea this was even an issue. It's a great idea, though. I just hope the big companies won't take advantage of their deep pockets. There's no way that theatre could compete with these groups in terms of money and lobbying. I wonder if there is a way to block other frequencies in theatres? That would take care of the issue of rude audiences on cell phones as well.
It’s crazy to think that producers may be charged for microphone frequencies in the future. For years and years this has been a non-issue and now that large corporations have found a use for this air space it has become a major point of tension. Those air ways should continue to be free and unused by other equipment; live performance should have squatters’ rights over them. The best solution to this problem would be the FCC telling the large corporations who want to use this air space that they can if they develop the technology to shield devices from one another. That is a fair give and take; the live performance industries can continue operate on the same air space and the larger corporations can use the same space if it is worth the cost of developing the technology.
Interesting. I'd have thought they'd be more concerned about digital TV, which appears to be in the exact frequency footprint used by radio microphones. Seems like ultimately a bigger problem in that it will be constant broadcasts that will totally occupy the spectrum rather than intermittant or occasional broadcasts. But maybe I don't know all the details.
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