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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Red Control performance

Bill Ravens said:
I think there's a LOT of RF black magic happening here. Now that I've had my Komodo for a while, I've had a chance to try different configurations, hoping to find the most reliable WiFi connection. What I've settled on is a lollipop antenna and my iPad. What I've noticed is that the antenna is HIGHLY directional. What that means is that there are hotspots where reception is repeatable, and there are other spots that are hopeless. The closer to the camera's antenna the iPad is, the worse the reception. This is because of the propagation pattern of the signal, basically a donut with the antenna in the center of the hole. So, if your receiver is too close, it can easily sit in the hole of the donut. Moving it a foot or two away can significantly improve the signal strength. The same seems to apply to the TPLink device, whose antenna is hidden inside the device. So, I have no idea what directon its propagating the signal.
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Thanks Bill. I had no luck with the original antenna when my Android phone was mounted on my gimbal about 35cm from the camera, above the camera. But I will do some testing in different orientations. Unfortunately, it is a bit tricky to test as it the freezes seem to happen quite randomly - it sometimes works well for a few minutes, then the images freezes for a second.
 
Robert, it may help to try this app. I use it on my iPhone to test the signal strength..."WiFi Sweetspots". Yes, when the signal is particularly weak, you'll see a widely fluctuating signal.
 
Bill Ravens said:
Robert, it may help to try this app. I use it on my iPhone to test the signal strength..."WiFi Sweetspots". Yes, when the signal is particularly weak, you'll see a widely fluctuating signal.
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Thanks Bill. I gave it a try. Right next to the camera, or on top of the camera I get around -20dBm. About 1m away I get around -40dBm and as I move further, this decreases more. Normal antenna. I don't think this is a reception or interference issue. I've tried it in the middle of nowhere with no interference, both on top of the camera and about 35cm away, and the results were always unusable.
 
I have had a couple shoots in LA since I set up my TPLink WiFi on my camera and I have to say it has worked well so far. I have gone from having to stand next to the camera, a couple feet away, to around 20-30 feet on the last shoot. Plus when clients want to see the payback of what we shot it streams nicely. For me it has been a good modification that adds almost no weight to the set up.
 
Just thought I'd do a quick observation, re: lollipop antennas. Physics tells us that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Point is, no antenna can creat more signal than what is put into it. But, what a specialty antenna can do is focus the available energy into a more confined pattern than 2Pi. That's what the lollipop does. So, inorder to see a benefit from any focused distributed antenna, the receiver has to be within the cone focused by the antenna, in this case, it's a rather ovalized donut shape. So, if your receiver is in the "donut hole" reception sucks. Like wise if it's above or below the donut, reception sucks.

All that, of course, as you noted, Robert, the receiver antenna has a reception pattern, as well.
 
Thanks Bill. That makes sense.

BTW, I also tested a second Android device (wife's low-end but brand new Huawei) and the freezes occur on that as well (though strangely they don't seem as bad as on my faster phone.

Anyhow, the fact that the iPhone works well has given me hope for wireless video from Komodo to a phone. I'm hoping that the Android code just needs some optimisation, and that we will have usable wireless video in the future.
 
The app works great for me. There may be a dropped frame or stutter here and there, but nothing worthwhile mentioning as something that would really interrupt the shot. I use Komodo almost exclusively on the DJI RS2 with my Iphone 12 Pro Max mounted to the sdie of the gimbal. When I do use the Komodo on sticks I mount the phone right on top of Komodo, in the "DSMC2" monitor position. It just works. Sorry you guys are having so much trouble.
 
Brian Roberts said:
The app works great for me. There may be a dropped frame or stutter here and there, but nothing worthwhile mentioning as something that would really interrupt the shot. I use Komodo almost exclusively on the DJI RS2 with my Iphone 12 Pro Max mounted to the sdie of the gimbal. When I do use the Komodo on sticks I mount the phone right on top of Komodo, in the "DSMC2" monitor position. It just works. Sorry you guys are having so much trouble.
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It depends on what type of work people do. For narrative work where I need to be pitch-perfect on camera timing or get an underwhelming feel for the shot of the actor and their performance due to the stutters and hiccups interfering, it simply cannot work as it does right now.

I think the key thing here is that any company that do innovations just to have something that "works" is not the same as something that is "good". Red control is a good backups system, but since we don't know of any future improvements, and Red is totally silent in here nowadays, it's easy to speculate that it will never be a good monitoring solution in this regard. It's a good thing it exists, it's a good backup, but when it doesn't even work perfectly with the expensive Komodo Link and cable attachment, then we can't expect it to become any better further down the road.

I just hope they develop a proper native monitoring system so we don't have to choose between a poor image with stutters, hiccups, dropouts and a monitoring solution that can damage the SDI board. Camera feels incomplete in its lineup of side-gear. It's like they have everything for a base package... except a good native monitor. I know it can't be driven by onboard BP batteries, but make it use BP batteries itself and it's solved that problem. Then we also don't have to rely on Sony batteries for monitors.
 
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