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When you're trying to connect to a studio remotely, working with a wifi connection is risky. It's best to hardwire directly to the router. Not sure what that entails? Anne breaks it down.
What's so important about these cables?
A lot of you connect up to your clients, to your coaches, um, to each other using the Internet. And a lot of times in our homes, we have wifi connectivity, and that just is super convenient and easy to set up, and you really don't have to think about much else. A lot of times when you have a wifi connection, it doesn't always create a stable connection for you on the internet or for you to your client. So it's important when you are communicating with a client, when you're recording for a client, when you're connecting to a studio, that you have a very, very stable connection because the last thing you want when you are giving the read of your career is for that internet connection to drop out.
This right here is called an ethernet cable. So what's so important about this cable? This cable can connect directly to the back of your router and provide a stable input-output-throughput connection between your computer and your router. And that's really important. A lot of times when we are on a wifi connection, there are lots of frequencies that can get in the way. There are other users on the wifi network that might be downloading lots of data, that might be streaming movies, that might be uploading files, and all of that can cause traffic on your network. When there's traffic on the network, there's no priority for those audio files when you are recording with a studio, uh, or the audio data to reliably and consistently go back and forth between your servers. When you can have a more stable connection to the internet, which would mean an ethernet cable, and that wifi where certain frequencies can get in the way, it's going to allow you to have a much more stable connection where your connection won't drop to the studio, and all of your data will be transmitted without interruption.
What's important about this cable? This particular end, will connect to your router or maybe to a switch that connects to your router, um, into a receptacle that will be able to accept this type of end connection. Now, the other end looks exactly the same, and this end will be plugged into your computer. You have to make sure that your computer has an ethernet connection. Most MacBooks do not come by default with ethernet ports on them, so you will have to purchase an adapter or a dongle, or sometimes it can be, it will be on the docking station, but you must have something that accepts an ethernet connection. These cables are also known as CAT 5 or CAT 6; that's category five or category six cable. Typically, you wanna get the most recent, which is category six, in order to connect up to your router and your computer.
There will be studios that actually will not, and clients that will not connect to you if you do not have a wired or ethernet connection to, uh, to the studio. I have also been on myself on an ipDTL connection with many of my students who have wifi connectivity to the internet. And a lot of times when they are recording through the ipDTL, and they're recording their demo, and there will be drops in the connectivity. And again, what is so disappointing about that is that you can't guarantee that your take is going to be all there. You would have to go back and redo the take. And again, producing any type of a recording while you're on a connection that isn't reliable is less than desirable.
Guys, this, even though it may look complex and technical and, and it might make your head hurt, is very important when ensuring a great connection to your clients. So it means your business. Look into this, look into hardwiring into your router so that you can provide your clients with reliable voiceover service.
Thanks for reading!
Keep on rocking your business like a #VOBOSS
About Anne Ganguzza
Recipient of multiple Voice Arts Awards for Outstanding Narration Demo - Anne Ganguzza is California-based Voice Over Coach and award-winning Director & Producer specializing in target-marketed voiceover Demo Production. Anne's production team creates SOVAS-nominated demos across several genres, including Commercial, Corporate Narration, and eLearning, and her VO BOSS podcast is the winner of SOVAS Outstanding Podcast in 2022.