CMU School of Drama


Friday, November 08, 2013

Wireless Microphones Under Siege—Again!

svconline.com: To quote Thomas Jefferson, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Having won significant protections from the FCC as a result of the 2010 white spaces proceeding, wireless microphones have become more reliable—and more ubiquitous—than ever. However, wireless microphone users and manufacturers now have reason for new concern.

2 comments:

Akiva said...

The air waves have to be shared because If we don't share them well that no one will be able to use them effectively. It's good that we have the FCC to figure out how we're going to divide up the air space. From what I know it's a major problem that there are so many wireless devices out there these days. We're running out of air space for all of them. So even if we save a little chunk of the spectrum for wireless microphones we're still going to be running in to some major problems at some point in the near future. I think it's great that we're talking about this issue now instead of when its already a big problem in our industry. I hope that we can find a way to get everyone the bandwidth that they need.

Unknown said...

The use of wireless audio devices in entertainment has been threatened by the new band plan for years now, but I can’t believe that entertainment is the only niche industry in the country that is affected by this, and yet it’s the only one we tend to hear about. Even in communities not centered around entertainment or audio, microphones tend to be a common topic with the re allocation of the spectrum.

Perhaps this isn’t such a terrible thing. RF spectrum bandwidth is one of our most limited resources. With the increased demand for wireless communication, the only thing we can really do it try to squeeze more and more data in a narrower space. So why shouldn’t live audio gear be required to narrowband, like the rest of the industry has been?

Practically speaking, wireless microphones that were narrowbanded and fully digitized (a lot of so-called “digital” wireless systems are only partially digital) would perform better, allow for better tuning and control of the packs, and with modern A2D conversion technology, the delay would be less than noticeable to the human ear (less than 25ms, max).

Maybe we shouldn’t see this as a bad thing, and more as a reason to invest time into better digital wireless systems.