I have been doing karaoke at home for the last several years. I would keep an analog mixer and wireless mic system in a mini rack inside my AV cabinet. I would take out the mini rack at party time, however, it meant cables (HDMI, audio and power) running across the living room floor from the couch to the AV cabinet. They were neatly bundled and wasn't terrible but it was certainly not ideal. I decided I wanted to experiment with a wireless set up.
The two key additions are a wireless HDMI transmitter, receiver and a digital mixer. The mixer and HDMI receiver stay in the AV cabinet with the mic receivers. The HDMI receiver has a headphone jack that allows me to de-embed the audio and send it into the mixer. I can control the mixer remotely with my phone and adjust music, mic levels and mixer effects.
We had two other couples come over Sat for the test run. It worked very well overall but I hit a few snags. The first two were with the HDMI transmitter. The other was a faint high-pitched noise that I suspect is coming from the mic receivers.
The HDMI transmitter is a dongle that plugs into my laptop. It is a power hog that gets noticeably warm in use. The HDMI port doesn't provide enough power to run it so the dongle has a USB power jack that I can plug into a USB port on the laptop. This worked until the PC's battery level dropped to a certain point (I'm guessing it was at around 20-25%). At that point it stopped feeding power to the USB port. This caused the HDMI signal to drop. There may be a battery saving setting in the PC that controls this function. I will have to look for it. Of course, I have a PC charger by the couch and I think if I keep the PC plugged in, I won't have to deal with this again.
The other issue that I had is that the dongle is on a short (~3") relatively inflexible cord so the dongle hangs away from the PC. Wiggling the dongle can cause it to lose the HDMI connection and drop the signal. I am going to build something to secure it better to the PC.
BTW, the Karafun software froze up when the connection dropped. Once I got the connection working again, I had to reboot Karafun after each time. I don't recall Karafun freezing before when connecting to a second monitor but this is not something I do when in the software. Usually the second monitor is hooked up beforehand.
The last issue I have is a high-pitched noise that I detected. I suspect this is coming from the mics. It is only noticeable without music playing but it bothers me nonetheless. I suspect it is a result of my microphone receiver setup. I have an AT System 10 Pro dual channel unit. One of its features is that the RF part of each receiver (about the size of a deck of cards) can be remotely mounted using standard unshielded network cables. I mounted the receivers on the back of the TV screen with the antennae sticking up just above it. I suspect the high pitched noise is from the TV itself and it is being picked up by those unshielded cables. I will test further this week and report back.
The two key additions are a wireless HDMI transmitter, receiver and a digital mixer. The mixer and HDMI receiver stay in the AV cabinet with the mic receivers. The HDMI receiver has a headphone jack that allows me to de-embed the audio and send it into the mixer. I can control the mixer remotely with my phone and adjust music, mic levels and mixer effects.
We had two other couples come over Sat for the test run. It worked very well overall but I hit a few snags. The first two were with the HDMI transmitter. The other was a faint high-pitched noise that I suspect is coming from the mic receivers.
The HDMI transmitter is a dongle that plugs into my laptop. It is a power hog that gets noticeably warm in use. The HDMI port doesn't provide enough power to run it so the dongle has a USB power jack that I can plug into a USB port on the laptop. This worked until the PC's battery level dropped to a certain point (I'm guessing it was at around 20-25%). At that point it stopped feeding power to the USB port. This caused the HDMI signal to drop. There may be a battery saving setting in the PC that controls this function. I will have to look for it. Of course, I have a PC charger by the couch and I think if I keep the PC plugged in, I won't have to deal with this again.
The other issue that I had is that the dongle is on a short (~3") relatively inflexible cord so the dongle hangs away from the PC. Wiggling the dongle can cause it to lose the HDMI connection and drop the signal. I am going to build something to secure it better to the PC.
BTW, the Karafun software froze up when the connection dropped. Once I got the connection working again, I had to reboot Karafun after each time. I don't recall Karafun freezing before when connecting to a second monitor but this is not something I do when in the software. Usually the second monitor is hooked up beforehand.
The last issue I have is a high-pitched noise that I detected. I suspect this is coming from the mics. It is only noticeable without music playing but it bothers me nonetheless. I suspect it is a result of my microphone receiver setup. I have an AT System 10 Pro dual channel unit. One of its features is that the RF part of each receiver (about the size of a deck of cards) can be remotely mounted using standard unshielded network cables. I mounted the receivers on the back of the TV screen with the antennae sticking up just above it. I suspect the high pitched noise is from the TV itself and it is being picked up by those unshielded cables. I will test further this week and report back.
