User Reports
Comrex Vector. Playstation or Joystick ?
Author Johnnie Dymock is director of Outside Broadcast Specialist and Equipment Rental Company Wired For Sound, and is based in London. Contact him at telephone +44 20 8880 4840, or e-mail
When Wired For Sound bought its first Vectors, I found myself describing them to customers as resembling a Playstation. Being in the unusual situation of never having seen a Playstation I was of course making a huge assumption, and the two in fact bear no resemblance whatsoever. I later discovered though that the BBC had coined its own bizarre nickname - The Joystick - an equally misleading alias but strangely apt in describing the Vector, a device that looks nothing like any other piece of broadcast equipment on the market.
The Vector certainly looks different, but operationally it's straightforward and it serves a very down to earth function - it transmits high quality audio over a standard telephone line. It's a compact, lightweight (3lbs) mixer with a built-in POTS codec; everything you need to broadcast from virtually anywhere in the world at short notice, except for the microphones, headphones and phone line you connect.
But why the need - isn't ISDN the best option? If you can get it, yes, but there are many instances when ISDN isn't available or is too costly. For last-minute remotes or breaking news coverage it's invariably too late to get ISDN installed, but so long as you're in or close to a building there's likely to be a phone line within reach. In some parts of the world, ISDN simply doesn't exist. The Vector is not just a reliable fallback; with a quality that can subjectively match, or surpass G.722, it is every bit good enough to be a better option than ISDN in many situations.
Wired For Sound uses its Vectors for its own outside broadcast work world-wide, and we also rent the equipment to customers such as the BBC. The BBC were one of our first customers, using 8 Vectors during their Radio 1 Millennium broadcasts from South Africa and Australia, and later for broadcasts from half-way up Mont Blanc.
Wired For Sound has used its Vectors to broadcast complete live shows to the UK and USA, and most regularly for 'radio tours' - when a spokesperson at a remote location is interviewed 'down the line' by a number of radio stations in sequence. Not every station has a Vector, so we link the spokesperson to our studio using the Vectors, then use an ISDN codec to connect onwards from our studio to each station in turn.
The Vector relies on a reasonable phone connection for maximum quality but will still work on relatively poor circuits, adjusting its audio bandwidth according to the maximum baud-rate the phone line will support. Frequently a poor connection can be overcome by re-dialling - the trunk routing is as determining a factor as the phone connection to the local exchange at either end. Century FM recently hired a pair of our Vectors for a week of broadcasts from Tunisia and I went to check out the broadcast location at Hammamet for them in advance. I wasn't very hopeful, as the phone quality was poor on long-distance calls and at first, the Vector would only connect at 12,000 baud. But after re-dialling several times we got a 24,000 baud connection - enough to deliver 15kHz audio in 'music mode', and enough to seriously impress the folks back at Century.
Comrex have a wealth of useful technical tips available on-line detailing how to optimise your connection, but the Vector, unlike a Playstation, is simple enough to be operated by any adult. The only problem you're likely to face with the Vector is when the only phone connection available is via a switchboard. The Vector isn't alone here - ordinary telephone hybrids and analogue computer modems are just as likely to not work, or get trashed, if you don't take precautions. Don't be fooled by a familiar looking phone socket - check that it really is an analogue port (such as an analogue fax line or a modem port). We always carry a cheap telephone handset and connect this first, making sure that there is dial tone, and there isn't any smoke, before we proceed to connect the Vector.
ISDN lines that are derived from digital switchboards can present a problem for ISDN codecs, and if we're not able to test a switchboard ISDN line well in advance of a broadcast we'll normally carry a Vector as well as the ISDN codec for this very reason. Often a switchboard-derived ISDN line will be set up for voice calls only and in this situation, the ISDN codec simply won't work but the Vector, connected via a cheap ISDN terminal adapter, will. Thus the Vector came to our rescue when, at short notice, we engineered interviews with actress Joan Collins from the Hempel Hotel in London. The ISDN codec didn't work, the Vector did. Sufficient reason, in my mind, to own a pair.
In short, there's no longer a reason why your remote broadcast shouldn't happen - because there's no ISDN, because the installation is too costly or, for whatever reason, because it doesn't work on the day.
The Comrex Vector. Easier than a Playstation, more useful than a Joystick. What's yours called?
Home | Products | Support | Where to Buy | Press Room | Company | Contact