Temporary relocation of sound booth. Help!

[Silicon_Knight]

My first thought for a temp setup with that number of inputs would be to run a snake direct to the stage. If that's not an option I'd go with your 2nd of patching a snake from the mixing spot to the patchbay or permanent booth and moving the console. I don't know about you, but the list of things I'd rather do before mixing a live show using a laptop is theoretically limitless. If you were to go that route, HDMI has signal degradation after about 15-30'. You'd need some sort of repeater or balun to switch it over to Cat 5 to get your monitor over a 40' run. Same with USB, I think you get 15' out of that if memory serves me.

If you're really set on not moving the console you might want to look into some sort of remote desktop option. If you're doing this on a Windows machine it's pretty straightforward with RDP, but again you're now running a show on a laptop...remotely. If it's over WiFi all bets are off when you're audience shows up and floods the WiFi bandwidth with their phones. Run ethernet to the temp location, setup a laptop and RDP into whatever computer is running Universal Control.

I'm assuming the Presonus doesn't have a digital snake?

Although I agree with a temp setup (e.g. temp mixer with snake b/w old-new booth locations), I'm not sure that the amount of signal degradation of HDMI at 40' would be significant in this application (we are running a show right now with HD projectors at the end of 90' cables, and it seems to work very well - at least for a temporary setup). USB on the other hand, would likely require some assistance at those distances.

 

[josh88]

Although I agree with a temp setup (e.g. temp mixer with snake b/w old-new booth locations), I'm not sure that the amount of signal degradation of HDMI at 40' would be significant in this application (we are running a show right now with HD projectors at the end of 90' cables, and it seems to work very well - at least for a temporary setup). USB on the other hand, would likely require some assistance at those distances.

You're lucky at 90', generally 50' is a rough guideline for range before signal degradation can start to cause problems, we have some 75' runs but generally above 50 we'll switch to sdi and convert both ends as needed. Though the powered hdmi is leading to thinner wire that pushes a little further.

 

[Silicon_Knight]

You're lucky at 90', generally 50' is a rough guideline for range before signal degradation can start to cause problems, we have some 75' runs but generally above 50 we'll switch to sdi and convert both ends as needed. Though the powered hdmi is leading to thinner wire that pushes a little further.

Agreed that the "right" way is via SDI (it's hard to beat coax!), but we have had good luck with baluns in some situations (especially with existing installed STP/UTP cable). I'm still leery of the thin HDMI cables with built-in amplifiers/converters or whatever it is they are doing to push 10Gbps across such thin wires! Apparently, they also have "active USB" cables (presumably with an amplifier/repeater that is built-in).

Come to think of it...these long cables we are using are uni-directional (labeled ends for source/display), so they may very well have a built-in amplifier, etc. as well, even though the cable is very thick (size of a forefinger). They've worked for the last two weekends and we close on Sunday...so I'll keep my fingers crossed!

In any event, aside from SDI for the video, the best solution for this issue would still seem to be a temporary mixer...