DCR822 Digital Receiver

The Lectrosonics DCR822 digital two-channel receiver is a true successor to the venerable UCR411a with a dual-channel package in the same size. It provides a high level of RF and audio performance with a versatile feature set including vector diversity, two RF front ends per channel, backwards compatibility, and on-board recording, all in a compact design for field and location production.

Settings can be made from the front panel with tactile buttons and LCD interface, making the unit ideal for use in portable bag systems and on sound carts. An RF spectrum analyzer and SmartTune are built into the receiver to alleviate interference problems in an increasingly congested RF spectrum.

The mechanical design of the receiver fits into the same dimensions as the older UCR411A and combines field-proven features developed over many years of experience in motion picture and television production. To decrease weight, the DCR822 provides a dual channel receiver in one unit powered by 4 AA lithium batteries or external DC. The receiver is also equipped with both an IR port and microSD card slot for data transfer. The machined aluminum housing and panels are surfaced with a hard-anodized finish with laser etched markings to withstand the rigors of field production.

The RF gain stages in the front end use a newly developed design to provide low noise RF amplification, excellent sensitivity and extremely low susceptibility to intermodulation and de-sensitization.

Vector Diversity
An ideal diversity system constructively combines all the energy available at both antennas. Traditional “true diversity” or “ratio diversity” methods use two complete receivers and blend the audio. This works well for FM and Digital Hybrid systems, but falls short of the ideal for today’s all-digital modes. The DCR822’s Vector Diversity subsystem smoothly and continuously combines RF signals from two receiver front ends per channel, with differing phase angles in order to obtain maximum energy. Not only does this method deliver clean, artifact-free performance in all modes, it is actually able to take two signals compromised by multipath interference and reassemble them into a usable signal.

Compatibility
The DCR822 offers compatibility with the D Squared and Duet digital transmitters, including the DBu, DHu, DPr, DCHT, and M2T, and backward compatibility with any Digital Hybrid Wireless® transmitters including the SM and SMWB series, WM, HM Series, MM400 Series, HH Series, LT, LMb, UM400 Series, and SSM.

SmartNRTM
With a noise floor at -120 dBV and a frequency response to 20 kHz, high frequency noise in the source audio is more apparent than in conventional wireless systems. The Smart NR algorithm has three mode. When OFF, no noise reduction is performed. When NORMAL is selected, enough noise reduction is applied to remove most of the hiss from the mic preamp and some of the hiss from lavalier microphones. When FULL is selected, enough noise reduction is applied to remove most of the hiss from nearly any signal source of reasonable quality, assuming levels are set correctly at the transmitter.

Recording Function
The DCR822 can record received audio on a microSD card, in the industry standard .wav (BWF) file format, at 24 bits, 48 kHz for compatibility with any audio or video editing software.