Shielding Audio Equipment from Cell Phone Interference

In the words of Gary Guinn (AKG Acoustics), “The past two years have brought a whirlwind of engineering nightmares with Blackberry and other wireless units creating problems in wired and wireless microphones.” http://www.crownaudio.com/kb/entry/163/

Indeed, combining shielded and unshielded wires with wireless phones and other wireless devices can lead to interference and buzz (you can hear samples of the issue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZEMoH2xRfM&t=0m13s, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emxPVUM3y54 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzufTbKiJzw

Solutions have been presented but none are ideal:

Another interesting solution (suggested here):
http://www.neutrik.com/content/products/level03.aspx?id=204_1603252336&catId=CatMSDE_audio
IEEE suggestion (add ferrite cores):
http://www.hottconsultants.com/pdf_files/aes-2007.pdf

Battle of the PDF Tools

This weekend my wife showed me the benefits of using PrimoPDF instead of PDF Creator. While PDF Creator is Open Source, PrimoPDF is commercial but still free. PrimoPDF offers easier controls for the quality of the produced PDF. Both of them, however, tend to leave off bits of complex graphs produced with MS Office. Still, if PrimoPDF’s license allows, it may be a good idea to replace PDF Creator with Primo.

http://www.primopdf.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Power Conditioners

We’ve certainly had our share of brownouts and blackouts. We are currently using APC power (voltage) conditioners. The SVC magazine came in the mail today. I noticed the Belkin PowerConsole PF60 conditioner. Looks good and reasonably priced. Something to keep in mind.

SlingMedia, Slingboxes, Placeshifting

So, Slingmedia (the makers of the Slingbox) discontinued the Slingcatcher some time ago. It is still possible to buy some of these devices, albeit prices vary.

There are alternatives such as Videobrick and Haivision’s Videofurnace, and these scale well with lots of users and channels.

However, if you have a bunch of old Mac Minis or maybe XPe thin clients, these can be used to substitute the Slingcatcher by installing the Slingplayer application.

On the other hand, Dish Network is offering DVRs that are Slingloaded and can be used with the Slingreceiver 300.

Update 6/25: Belkin now sells a reasonably priced Slingbox alternative (@TV), but no receiver.

So… lots of options for placeshifting…