Why so many clients are turning to Green-GO digital intercom

By Mike Reay, Product Manager

Awareness of the multi award-winning Green-GO digital intercom system has grown enormously in the UK over the last year. Every day we talk to customers who are looking for new ways to create better intercom system designs that will ultimately improve the quality of their productions.

What should you expect from an intercom system?

• Clear audio - you shouldn’t be wasting brain power trying to decipher what was just said. That applies to both wired and wireless beltpacks.
• Low latency – you know how irritating the delay on mobile phone networks can be…
• Low noise – for conferences and theatre work where instructions are sometimes whispered
• A decent headphone amplifier that won’t fall over when things get a bit noisier and that will drive your favourite headsets including those using an electret mic.
• Enough intercom channels for more complex shows (uniquely, our devices can each store 32 channels for instant access)
• Robust interfacing to classic analogue and digital matrix comms, broadcast cameras (via their CCUs), to walkie-talkies (extremely useful), to PA systems for announcements, to IEM transmitters for presenters and to show relay systems for dressing rooms and the green room.
• It should work over existing data networks without slowing or crashing the system
• It should be easy to set fixed or dynamically assigned IP addresses on your intercom devices to accommodate different ways of working.
• Systems should be easy to configure to suit new events

OK, Green-GO can do all that….what else are customers looking for?

Along with the technical competence of any potential intercom system, value for money always has a notable influence when people are comparing the features and performance on offer from the leading manufacturers. This is where Green-GO’s choice of operating system has advantages for the customer.

By designing out the eye wateringly expensive central matrix that most digital systems use, Green-GO removed the possibility of a single point of failure, while also making the system affordable. To replace the central matrix, each individual user station or interface holds in memory the complete system configuration with all the settings. In the unlikely event of a device being damaged, there is no domino effect, so the rest of the system will continue working and it takes only a few moments to introduce a replacement unit to the network, copy the system configuration and pull in the User settings.

Audio quality is high, system latency is low (12ms, so no lip-sync problems) and Green-GO can be configured to be as simple or as complex as the job demands – from 2 to 3000 users…
At its simplest, all you need is a PoE switch (to provide the data network and power) and 2 x wired beltpacks. A couple of headsets will also come in handy. Remove the beltpacks from their boxes, plug them into the PoE switch and they will find each other and communicate because they will each have the default factory configuration.

One of the most frequently asked questions is ‘how far can Green-GO travel before a signal boost is required’?

Typical distances are:

For greater distances or local routed connections, you can ‘bridge’ over the internet using a BridgeX interface.

The Green-GO BridgeX is a 4 port network bridge interface, intended to connect up to four remote locations to a local Green-GO intercom network.Each of the four connection ports can function in Group or Remote User mode.

In ‘Group’ mode, two separate and independent Green-GO intercom networks, each with its own BridgeX interface,
will be linked together over the internet or local routed office network.

Using one data stream, the audio and optional ‘Call’ signals will be transported from one Green-GO network to the other. This setup will create a single intercom group that is common to two sites.

To increase the number of groups, use more of the four available data streams.

The BridgeX can also be configured to enable ‘remote users’. When set to Remote Connection mode, a single Green-GO beltpack or other device in a remote location (with no local BridgeX), can connect over the internet to a LAN port of the local BridgeX. In this mode, the device simply becomes another user on the system and has access to all available intercom channels.

Providing you have a good internet connection at both locations, once you are on the internet, you can talk to colleagues in most areas of the world. The audio quality from the remote bridged system is similar to that of the local system and latency is typically too low to notice.
If you want more information on bridging remote sites over the internet, we are preparing an in-depth article which will be posted on our website www.canford.co.uk.

If you have other Green-GO questions, drop us a line to greengo@canford.co.uk