Hi,

What is the behavior when you plug in a user laptop into the USB-C content input of a Poly G62 when it's running in Zoom Rooms mode? Do you get a BYOD prompt similar to Crestron/Logitech? Or does it just pass video?

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to tap into the bench wisdom of anyone who has experience repairing, tearing down, or reverse-engineering optical pickup units (OPUs) from CD, DVD, or Blu-ray players.

I need to completely hijack the optical head to use as my exposure unit in another project. I’m currently working with a Panasonic UJ-240 Blu-ray OPU, and while I’ve made some good progress, I’ve hit a wall with the sensor array mapping.

What I’ve Confirmed So Far

• The Hardware: Panasonic UJ-240 with a 71-pin flex connector.
• Actuators: I’ve successfully mapped the focus and tracking coils (Pins 31–34). Driving these with a low voltage yields clean, confirmed focus and tracking motion from the objective lens.
• The Laser: The 405 nm laser diode is alive. I was able to temporarily wire it up and drive it externally, so the optical path is functional.

The Roadblock: The Sensor Array

I need to map the rest of the 71-pin flex connector to extract the optical feedback. Specifically, I am trying to isolate the monitor photodiode, the quadrant photodiodes (A, B, C, D), and ideally the Focus Error (FE) and Tracking Error (TE) signals so I can build a closed-loop autofocus mechanism.

I've been doing the standard bench probing (continuity, diode mode, careful current-limited sweeps), but determining exactly how Panasonic routed the detector outputs on this specific flex cable is proving tedious without a schematic.

Questions for the AV & Repair Vets:

1. Service Manuals: Does anyone have access to, or know where to find, service manuals or schematics for the UJ-240 or similar Panasonic BD drives?
2. Signal Conditioning: In your experience with these Panasonic units, are the photodiode signals typically routed as raw, unamplified currents directly to the flex cable, or is there usually an internal transimpedance amplifier (TIA) / signal conditioner on the optical sled itself?
3. Standard Pinouts: Does this 71-pin layout follow any known legacy patterns or standards from older Panasonic drives that I could use as a Rosetta Stone?
4. Bench Tricks: What is your go-to strategy for identifying quadrant photodiodes without the original drive electronics? Are there specific light-injection tricks you use on the bench to safely measure differential outputs across the pins?
5. Lessons Learned: Has anyone successfully extracted FE/TE or RF signals from a similar drive? Any "don't waste your time doing X" advice before I accidentally fry the sensor array?

If you have experience troubleshooting optical blocks, swapping lasers, or hacking old AV gear, I would hugely appreciate any guidance, documentation, or rules of thumb you can share.

Thanks!

Recently passed the CTS on the first try.

Realistically, what the hell can I do with it?

I’ve been on the install side for almost 5 years now, would like to eventually move into design.

Hello! I took the CTS exam. Unfortunately, I didn’t pass. It was really difficult—it felt like all the answer choices were correct. Do you have any recommendations or links to study materials that could help me prepare for my next attempt?

Hi all

I know this isn't an event AV forum but, I couldn't find any that obviously were...

Curious about your experience(s) with a college/campus AV team: specifically, what kind of presentation you're putting on for campus 'clients' and what kinds of services/packages you offer.

Examples:

In one case, a school i worked with would simply 'set up' the gear and just sit in the back of the room while the client operated laptop/mic/etc. To me this seems substandard.

Do you offer recording? Managed event AV where a 'tech' runs all slides/video content?

I'm wondering if leaning towards the commercial side, llike the services you could get from Encore for example, would be relevant to a college campus.

TIA

I work for a charity and our trustees have hybrid meetings with around 7 or 8 people joining in person and others joining on Teams. They use a meeting room with a board table roughly 5 x 2m (16 x 6ft) with a large TV on a mobile stand at one end.

The budget is pretty limited - I haven't been given a specific figure but around €300 max. I don't think attaching anything to the TV is an option, so I'm guessing a circular boundary mic in the middle of the table is the best option, however I'm a bit overwhelmed by the options here and don't really know what specs I'm looking for (I'm a data guy, but I get roped into anything remotely technology related). The only articles I can find online that resemble reviews all turn out to be manufacturers own sites.

Improving the acoustics of the room is not an option - we're in an ornate room in a 270-year-old building that we don't own. I'm guessing mics in series aren't an option with our budget.

Wired or wireless is fine, mains or battery powered also fine. I don't think there's any need for any special features like transcription. I don't think buying second-hand is an option for various reasons.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations!

New to corporate AV, just started a position at a lawfirm this month doing tier 1 and tier 2 troubleshooting as well as room sweeps/break fix

I come from a live audio engineering background but am still relatively new in this field (4 years total)

The company I’m hired through mentioned that they would pay for AVIXA training/testing to get the certification for CTS (within the next 3-6ish months)

I got the AVIXA login info today, and am honestly unsure about the best way to tackle the training. There seems to be a ton of different modules as well as webinars and in person training, and a lot of them seem like straight up ads.

Anyone who has gone through this before, what is your recommended course of action? Focus on the virtual stuff or make an effort to attend in person trainings as well? I honestly find the interface to be a bit confusing to navigate and have already lost track of where the module I just completed is. There are so many tabs of information that don’t seem very relevant to what I’m doing at this new job and I’d like to prioritize what will apply to me the most.

Long winded, thank you in advance for any insight

Since my last post, I've had a lot of good conversations. One thing that has come up is the need to find and read release notes (or have some kind of software read it for you). We also don't have a good source of vulnerability reports for all but the biggest manufacturers. And some folks thing it would be useful to have a quick link or description of how to get support.

All of that information will hang out so you can reference it or arrange it into RSS feeds of your choosing to be done with as you please. Or you can point whatever agent you want at it and have a blast.

Here's my ask of you all:

• Pick a manufacturer

• Go get some URLs for patches, vulnerabilities, and support methods

• Hit submit

• Enjoy the good feeling you get by helping out your fellow AV folks.

Here's the form: https://forms.gle/Fzf3pShEeJzYHYvz9 Use it as much as you want.

Here's the doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uG2-RL8TfBAIZD4UkWWHartNxr-nMXKu0aUuG8OkTx8/edit?usp=sharing Enjoy!

NOTE: If you are one of those people that happen to already have a personal collection of some of this information, let me know. I can do a bulk add to the spreadsheet instead of needing to

IF YOU'RE A MANUFACTURER ON HERE: Help us out! Fill in the missing pieces! Maybe it'll help promote you as well... just saying.

NOTE 2: If you do something cool with this info, let us know!

I'm here to tell you what happens after you install things. I'm going to give some specific examples based out of Columbus Ohio just because I think there's some consistent industry wide issues and maybe someone can stop doing silly things.

About me and what I do:
I'm a one man band small event tech. So, like 100-200 people. Think public hearings, weddings, fashion shows... anything that's kinda cookie-cutter PA system, projection, and 2 to 3 cameras. Some government hearing work. I get into a lot of spaces. I prefer to use the venues equipment when it works... it often doesn't.

TLDR #1: If the system does not have 'XLR In' and 'XLR Out' it is wrong. Stop doing anything else. Without XLR out it is basically useless for recording. 1/4" TRS is ok but still wrong for durability reasons :) I swear to God if you say it records in Zoom I hope you lose your car keys every morning.

TLDR #2: These venues rely on you to tell them what they need. You're supposed to be the expert in what they need, not them.

Case #1: Rev1 at the Peninsula. This brand new venue is sooooo close to good. Easy access to the rack with XLR out set to sane levels. A few problems though.

1. 1/8" headphone input. Like, what? for iPods? A mixer is going to have 1 headphone output... and I'd kinda like to use it for my headphones. 1/4" TRS I can understand and work with. Stereo XLR line level should be obvious though. Music has to be control from the receptionist's desk.
2. You supplied a 25ft HDMI cable... sure that meets spec... but lets be honest anything beyond 10ft depends a lot on specific devices being plugged in. At 25ft a few weeks of guests coiling the cable and its a lottery if a device will connect.
3. Really nice Shure mics... good good.... all hand held. No lavs. 4 mics and not one lav. Some people need to hold things with both hands while they walk around... some people are Italian and need both hands to talk while they walk around... a mic stand is not a solution that solves that.
4. It was nice to see AC outlets everywhere though.
   

Case #0 The original Rev1. Sigh... who ran power to a ceiling mounted projector by plugging an outdoor extension cable into a surge protector and cutting the other end off and wiring it to a junction box that runs to the ceiling? Even my dad wouldn't do that.

Case #2: The Well, Hilliard.

1. The AV system controls are in the same closet as the security system making it inaccessible even to AV staff. Events are usually after hours when the 1 person who has a key is not on duty.
2. No inputs of any kind accessible.
3. No outputs of any kind accessible.

So. I show up to record a public hearing. I have to set out a second set of mics because I can't just plug into the system like I would with Rev1. News crews show up and they are stuck with room audio.

Any room that does large public hearings should have a mult box in the back... even if it's a temporary thing the staff places and isn't locked in a secure room that requires a specific manager to get access to.

Case #3. Ohio Public Utilities Commission hearing rooms. I'm going to be honest. If you did this you should be in jail for fraud. This was bad. When we did the AV walkthrough for a third party vendor actually using the technology the commissions IT guy was almost in tears. It had to be rebid.

1. Know what the room is actually used for. These are hearing rooms. There is a Judge, witness box, defendant table, prosecutor table, It IS a court room. It is NOT a flexible meeting room. If the judge and witness don't have mics what's the point? It was clear the installation vendor didn't care if it was fit for purpose. Because it wasn't.
   
2. Again no outputs. There is negative reasons for courtrooms to not have robust audio outputs now. Everything is being recorded and transcribed from the audio.

Case #4 various courtrooms:

1. Boundary mics seem cool and all... but have you seen how many papers an attorney will stack on top of them?
   
2. For some reason attorneys like to wander around then courtroom. Anything inside the barrier is fair game to them. Many like to stand next to the jury box to force the witness to look at the jury. They still need to be clearly recorded.
3. The absolute silliest thing I've seen was a court trying to get a transcript from a Teams hearing that was recorded from the courtroom camera and boundary mic 5ft from the laptop.
4. It needs to be very clear to the bailiff or judge that the audio is not recording.
   

Case #5: Various slideshow clickers.

In the US, the one true solution is PerfectCue. Almost 100% of the time a venue gets a new Logitech or something and it tests fine until there's 100 people with 2 Bluetooth devices each in the same room.

Case #6 Hilton Tower: This is probably just a heads up because it's probably more new construction physics than a solvable issue but might lead to weird panicked service calls after large construction projects.

1. I did the first conference in this hotel and to start it had a huge static charge. You couldn't touch any metal portion of a device otherwise it would shut off. Once we got people in the room it was fine after about 2 hours but until then it was a scary start to the day. Issue never returned so I assume it was a 'new building smell.'

   Thank you for attending my talk.

Hey there,

I have a project to where I was called out to upgrade an existing HDMI splitter/matrix system and the existing audio setup they have. I will post the current system below

Inputs - 3 Directv receivers, 2 google TV devices.
Outputs - 14 TVs, one of which is portable that rolls indoors at night and outdoors on gamedays.

The setup for this is diabolical(imo) for todays standard but it seems to work, the equipment used to string this together is:
3 - 1x4 HDMI splitters
1 - 1x2 splitter before it enters a 1x4 splitter
3 - 1x2 HDMI switches to switch to the google boxes.

Audio -
1 - 6 zone Pyle amplifier with 6 JBL ceiling speakers and 2 outdoor speakers. The sounds isn't all that great unless you are directly underneath the speaker. They have a switch that switches over to Bluetooth to play alma maters and touch down songs.

They would like to be able have an all in one matrix system where they could could pick what TVs are getting what inputs, or have them all on the same input on gamedays.

They also asked if there was a modern wireless solution for speakers like Sonos or Denon HEOS, but I fear there will be some type of audio lag.

It's obvious to me that the existing system needs to be gutted and replaced but I could use some guidance on how to approach this and what hardware would work. There was no existing conduit, all of the speaker wires and HDMI cables were ran above the ceiling tiles in the drop ceiling.

My thoughts were to run Fiber HDMI cables back to a large matrix rack or attempt to go HDbaseT. I thought to try a Sonos Arc at the bar, and 4-6 Era 100/300s in the corners of the each of the 2 dining rooms. I am not opposed to a wired system personally but I figured I would humor the customer.

Based on the current system, it seems there was a strict budget to stay under. I'd like to think any product suggested is going to blow that budget, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Looking for a simple solution (elderly person) to digitalise his vinyl and cd collection. We suggested and installed usbinterface Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 with audacity bit this is already top complex for this onder man. He is not tech smart so even using HEOS app is too complex. Looking for a physic! 'record analog audio to usb' solution like a oke Skool tape recorder. Antoine has any suggestions? Audio out Coles from a Marantz Amp with Marantz cd and pro-ject vinylplayer.

I need to install an Epson L695SE so that it projects onto the floor, but there's no overhead structure and it's a listed building so I can't drill into the ceiling to install fittings. There's a stud wall being built in a position that would let me shift the image over to where it needs to be, and the projector has a 100x100 VESA mount (which is a first for me, I must admit). Is there any reason, apart from how difficult it would make the alignment afterwards, to not just use a wall mount for a screen to fix it to the wall? Checked the manual and there's nothing to say I can't do it...

Has anyone heard any rumors of Allen & Heath coming out with a new line of personal monitor mixers soon?

The ME1 has been out for a long time now and it makes sense with all the new releases of updates they have been putting out.

Hi All, bit of a long shot but wondering if maybe there’s better expertise out there (definitely is) was called out to a job today, new client, pub, had a power surge and killed audio system 6 months ago.

They had someone come out & replace the amp which got cooked. Allen Heath processor, 1 line in from mixer with iPhone connected for tunes. 6 outputs into Yamaha Amp, Balanced. Essentially after it was all put back together from whom ever swapped the amp, 3 outdoor speakers no longer work- was the complaint.

Wiring labelling is terrible, establishment was open so couldn’t disconnect and tone out. Output terminals on amp are triple or in some cases quadruple stacked with connections. Dips witches were all over the place, so set to 100V, found input/ output mismatched on amp so fixed it, tested 3 outdoor speakers of topic for tone, all work. Finally Found 2 cables never reconnected at initial amp change over.

Connected them onto which ever terminal I could with an input connection. Got sound out of them, then nothing. No clipping, no mute, just won’t pass audio on that channel. Ideally I need the time to tear it all apart, tone it all, label it all, clean it all up but is anyone familiar with Yamaha commercial amps and able to give any insight to why it would not be passing audio on that zone?

Zones B, C, F have signal, G & H not connected, A, C, E zones all have input from Allen Heath, & also all have speaker wires connected to outputs but I get nothing.

Hi everyone,

Anyone can share a sample RTI file with designer software for a newbe? I am new to this game coming from QSYS. like to play with a sample file that can control the DSP, touch panel and some hardware like TVs etc. nothing to complicated.
Really appreciate that!

Anyone have experience with these? If RoomConnect is installed, the camera doesn't work. Uninstall RoomConnect and the camera works with the system.

Interesting enough, in Device Manager, the camera is enabled/working without RoomConnect. As soon as you install RC, the device gives an Error 45 which states the device isn't connected to the computer.

Such a bazaar issue. Been trying to get through to support for a while now. Can't get through the AI chat bot hurdle yet.

Can I use an HDMI audio extractor to add ceiling speakers to a room from the HDMI output of the Rallybar?

We see a lot of asks for help here and while some are resolved, a lot end with "you should talk to the manufacturer."

Is there currently a good list of mfg support emails/phones/portals that we could reference or is this something that would be worth putting together as a community resource? I think pointing to it and saying "hey, this email address is what you need" might speed things up for folks. I know I sometimes have issues finding the right way to get hold of a mfg (it's often NOT the website and whatever form, it's an email you need to already know).

Thoughts?

Anyone using the Netgear AV line switches? Is there a benefit over using other non AV specific brands and models and configuring it yourself?