Shure Axient Digital Pushes the Limits of RF

http://www.shure.com/axientdigital

Hi! I'm Jenn Liang-Chaboud from Shure. We're here in Soldier Field in downtown Chicago, working with the Axient Digital wireless system. Around the world, the wireless spectrum is getting noisier and more congested. Chicago is no exception, as you can see in this spectrum scan.

Today we are going to show you how Axient Digital can significantly increase your confidence to operate in a variety of applications, and protect against dropouts and other issues, even in a venue of this size. All of the audio you hear is coming from these receivers. We'll use Wireless Workbench to monitor Axient Digital's channel quality meter, which monitors the RF signal-to-noise ratio. For our first challenge, we're going to go to my colleague, Chris Lyons, who is way up in the stands.

Live events today are using more wireless channels than ever, while the amount of available spectrum continues to get smaller. I'm wearing an Axient Digital bodypack set to high density mode, which enables you to use up to 47 active transmitters on just one 6 MHz TV channel. And even though high density mode transmits with a power level of only 2 milliwats, it's still more than enough to cover even a large venue like this. I'm more than 150 yards away, and I'm still being picked up perfectly, even though the bodypack is behind me, without a clear line of sight to the receiver antennas.

Thanks, Chris. So far, we've been using two antennas with true digital diversity. However, many productions have complex stage setups that involve more than one area of the venue. So for our second challenge, we're going to move off the field and into the tunnels of the stadium. Quadversity mode allows you to attach two additional antennas to the quad receiver. We placed two additional antennas at the front of the tunnel. Come follow me.

The Axient Digital receiver intelligently monitors and digitally combines the signal from all four antennas. Quadversity can increase gain and signal stability across a signal zone, or extend the range into multiple zones, just like this concrete tunnel inside the stadium, where I am transmitting clean and clear audio. And now I'm going to send you to Michael Johns, the product manager for Axient Digital.

Operating wireless microphones is all about signal-to-noise ratio. We've designed a digital radio that requires less signal-to-noise in order to operate. As a result, Axient Digital provides signal stability in a way that no other system can. I'm currently transmitting from this handheld at 10 milliwats to our A and B antennas.

For our last challenge, we've identified a noisy frequency and tuned this handheld to transmit directly on top of it. As you can see from the spectrum analyzer, there's a high potential for interference. However, Axient Digital is still receiving my signal perfectly. I am standing on the other side of the stadium, in the middle of downtown Chicago, operating on top of a noisy frequency, and still passing flawless digital audio. Now that's integrity you can hear.