This may be too basic a question for this group. But what is the most inexpensive best way for me to set up a little video recording studio in my basement? I always wish my lighting was better for example. I do live interviews too.

I’ll start: For a long time, I thought decimators were the same thing as converters. So, I would often say I needed a decimator when I really just needed a converter. To be fair, it doesn’t help that there’s a brand called Decimator and they make both decimators and converters. So, there’s Decimator decimators and converters and non-Decimator decimators and converters 🤣 For anyone who doesn’t know: The difference is converters just convert from one cable/connector type to another, while decimators are converters that also allow you to scale resolution and frame rate.

Thank you for joining the community! 🙏🏻 Tell us which Categories you’re interested in: - Audio 🎶 - Lighting 💡 - Video 🎥 - Rigging ⛓️‍💥 - Power ⚡️ Then tell us a little about yourself and what brought you here! 🤓

The most important thing to know when you’re calculating power is the power calculation triangles. - The first triangle is comprised of 3 iterations of the following formula: Current = Voltage/Resistance (Amps) (Volts) (Ohms) Voltage = Current x Resistance Resistance = Current x Voltage E.g., Voltage = 120 V, Resistance = 8 Ohms, Current = 120/8 =15 Amps - The second triangle is incredibly important for calculating how much power you need for your show, and is comprised of 3 iterations of the following formula: Wattage = Current x Voltage (Watts) (Amps) (Volts) Current = Wattage/Voltage Voltage = Wattage/Current - Once you’ve finalized your gear list, you can check the power rating of each device on the manufacturers website. - Some devices like speakers have multiple power ratings (e.g., continuous, program, and peak). - Continuous or RMS (root mean squared) is the amount of power a speaker can handle continuously over a long period of time without damage or distortion. - Peak is the maximum power that a speaker can handle in short bursts at any given time (most often on startup, so don’t turn everything on at the same time). - Program represents power levels encountered during a typical music performance with dynamic changes. - Program is often 2x the Continuous/RMS rating. - Peak is often 4x the Continuous/RMS rating. - So which one should you go by? Program is generally considered a safe middle ground assuming you don’t push your speakers too hard. But the safest option is peak because you can’t go past that point without damaging your equipment, so they’re not designed to draw more than that. - E.g., let’s say the Program power rating of a speaker is 1200W and we want to know how many amps it will draw from our 100Amp 120V distro. Current = Wattage/Voltage = 1200/120 = 10 Amps - Now we know that it’s drawing approx. 10 amps. - To maintain a margin of safety, we only use 80% of our total Current supply. - So that means we’ve used 10 out of 80Amps available to us and we have 70Amps left. - We repeat this process for all of our gear and that is how we know what the amperage of our distro needs to be. - Disclaimer: I am not an electrician, nor am I the most knowledgeable person when it comes to power. I’ve done a fair amount of research on this and to the best of my knowledge, these statements are accurate. However, if anyone has more knowledge than me, please let me know how I could improve this post!

Sometimes you’re setting up in a room that’s shaped like a shoebox; very wide but not very deep. This means sound from your speakers is probably slapping off the back wall and creating unintentional reverb that can kill the intelligibility of speech for both listeners and presenters. Not good. So, how do you fix it? You can’t reshape the room, but you can consider changing your speaker placement if that’s an option. Let’s say you’ve got two clusters for mains (4 speakers) and two side fill clusters. That’s 8 speakers total but only 2 zones. Your goal is to be able to decrease the volume enough that sound dissipates before reverberating off the back wall. But here’s the problem: you won’t have even coverage with your current setup. Solution: separate your clusters and spread out your speakers so that you have no dead spaces i.e., more zones. Then decrease each speaker’s output gain until you find the best volume for reaching the listeners in the back without generating too much room reverb. Or better yet, think about the shape of your room beforehand so you have the correct setup in the first place! Summary: Wide, shallow rooms that are prone to excessive room reverb require multiple zones of point-source audio. Side note: you also want to keep your speakers away from walls as much as possible to avoid the boundary effect.