HDX-900 Unislot

[George Griswold]

John,

Sorry to hear about your receiver situation. They should refund your money.

I have a service manual for the HDX-900 an according to the schematics for the slot only ONE channel is wired from the socket. I considered the Lectro with thoughts of wiring the second channel internally, but at the end of the day there is no place to route it to. No firmware solution possible without the wires being there.

The Lectro is a great product and a great concept and even used externally is better than two 401s.

George

George Griswold
http://www.videonow.info
New Orleans, Louisiana

[John Cummings]

Hi George-

There is a big difference between the second channel pins being “not enabled or not used” and the pins being “not wired.”

If “not wired” is indeed the case, obviously no firmware update will fix that.

Yes, you’re right, using the SR mounted outboard will still be somewhat better than hanging a couple of 401’s off the side of the camera, and that’s what I’ll probably do.

I own two cameras (a HDW Sony and an HDX Panasonic) that accept slot receivers. The attraction for me was to have one receiver that I could use with either, for links. What a wonderful concept.

The reality is that the dual channel Lectrosonics SR does not work, as advertised, with either camera.

I say shame on Lectrosonics (and their dealers) for either:

Not adequately testing this product,
and/or failing to disclose the SR’s incompatibilities to customers in the SR product data sheets.

I’m done now.

J Cummings
DP/Chicago
http://www.cameralogic.tv

[Mark Doyle]

I have just returned from my friendly neighborhood broadcast sound house here in Gotham, NYC. I took my hdx900 in for a visit and to introduce it to the letrosonics SR. As I anticipated they did not get along. While the SR powered up fine the HDX would only put channel one audio from the SR onto either channel 1, channel 2 or both channels of the HDX. As expected, channel two from the SR never left the receiver! Aweful.
It seems to me that this is most directly a panasonic problem, in the here and now anyway. From what I’ve heard and what I’ve read the HDX was not wired for a second channel from the unislot even though the pin configuration supports it. Great. So what now? Why would I buy a unislot from lectrosonics unless I plan on using it in a bag or velcroing it to a dvx? Or why would anyone who wants to use dual channel unislot (more than a few people I bet) buy an HDX?
I also understand that the Sony’s PDW530 2/3″ chip XDCam (and others?) ARE in fact wired for two channel unislot functionality but require a firmware update to work with the lectro. Incidentally, Sony will not perform the firmware update as the lectro SR is not a proprietary Sony product. Presumably, Sony will be offering their own dual channel unislot receiver at some point relatively soon and don’t want to yield any market share to Lectro. Understandable…I guess. Again though, the question returns to Panasonic. Will panasonic NEVER offer dual channel unislot receiver operation in the insanely popular HDX900? If so that sounds like a really bad plan for Panasonic. Surely there has to be some way to update or modify current HDX900s to work with the dual channel unislot receiver (aka the lectro SR). Yes I’m sure the HPX cameras will support this, but it’s pretty clear that P2 has a while to go until it surpasses the popularity of tape. Someone please clear this up (panasonic people?)…hopefully before June, when I embark on an around the world show…hopefully with my HDX (if it can support dual channel unislot). I’d much rather keep the HDX instead of switching to another camera, but right tool for the job prevails! What’s the bottom line?

[Douglas Glover]

I just checked out the Lectro website (https://www.lectrosonics.com/hybrid/sr/sr.htm) and it looks like they are offering an external output for the second channel via an external cable. It’s not perfect but if it gets the two receivers off of the back of my camera I will be happier.

[Marc Cleriot]

Well I guess I have finally figured out why I oculd not get the thing to work and was abble to get sound one cnale 1 only andnot on channel 2 only.
Well I got done for the lot.
I bought the famous SR dual receiver speicfially for the HDX900 with two MM400C.
So i shall be wrting bacl to the very nice people at lectrosonic who had made this possible.
I lost many a night in Africa trying to fix this thinking I must be so stupid.
My back luck being that I did not have a cheap internet connection to ask.
But here we go I have now again spent 3 hours here in my office in germany trying every thing possible under the moon.
And that of course with a shoot tomorrow eraly morning no today in less than 6 hours.
Oe should really wait and look in the internet for the trouble others experience before byting this expensive tools of ours.
And think I flew to new york to pick all this up and flew straight back into Chad.
Regards to you all.

Marc Cleriot – Germany