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Author Topic: Several questions regarding DTS XD10 Fabian Schreyer Film Handler Posts: 63 From: Aachen, Germany Registered: Feb 2009 posted 10-05-2014 04:15 PM                     Hi everyone, I have several questions regarding the DTS XD10-unit which I recently got via eBay. First thing is that I want to upgrade it to the most recent firmware which is V2.2.06, according to what the datasat website tells me. I've noticed the 2.00.43 firmware in the film-tech warehouse, which I'm downloading right now. Still, is there a link to the most recent firmware or do I have to contact datasat about this? The next question is about networking. Does anyone here know the root password of this device? As I expected, it has nothing in common with the three-digit password you can set on the front panel. My last question for now would be: Is there a simple way to import feature soundtracks via network without owning some special DTS-server?  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-05-2014 04:58 PM                     The current (and final) version is v2.2.06 which can be downloaded as an ISO file (use a blank DVD-R disc) here. Just put the disc in, power cycle the unit and walk away for 40 minutes and it will install itself. When the disc ejects, you're good to go. You have to load feature discs one at a time into it. Just put the disc in and the screen will tell you when it has been ingested. Once you have that done, you can then turn on network sharing in the setup, assign two DIFFERENT IP addresses of a second machine on the same subnet and content will transfer any loaded between them. Make sure to go into the disc space option and turn preshow all the way as low as it will go and then increase film sound as high as it will go so you don't have a silly limitation on how many movies you can fit onto it. If you can't find these settings let me know and I'll fire one up and give you specific menu structure navigation. If your old IDE drive is flaky, you can use one of these SATA to PATA/IDE interface adapters and replace it with a SATA drive. I would recommend you cover the back side with electrical tape though just to ensure you don't have an accident.  |  IP: Logged Fabian Schreyer Film Handler Posts: 63 From: Aachen, Germany Registered: Feb 2009 posted 10-05-2014 06:27 PM                     Thanks for the link and all your advice, Brad! I've burned and verified the iso and it boots up fine till the point, where it asks me to press "[ENTER]" in order to start the installation. I can press this button as many times as I want - nothing happens. I've been watching the device for 30 minutes now. Absolutely no noticeable access to the DVD drive or the harddisk. May this be connected to the fact that this device runs a very old 1.X firmware?  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-05-2014 07:18 PM                     Take the lid off and try reseating the cables to that front panel board. I've seen a "dead button" that will start working after a reseat.  |  IP: Logged Fabian Schreyer Film Handler Posts: 63 From: Aachen, Germany Registered: Feb 2009 posted 10-05-2014 08:07 PM                     I'm afraid the enter button works just fine when used during normal operation (running the old firmware). I tried to install the older 2.00.43 firmware, but I had no success either. The disc doesen't even boot up. By the way: The firmware currently running identifies itself as version 101.17, in case that matters. As I purchased two XD10 units I tried to upgrade my second unit, which was running v2.1.07. It upgraded to v.2.2.06 without any problem. At least now I know that it is not my DVD... Interesting thing: On this device the message asking me to press enter never showed up. Installation process just started straight ahead. Something is really weird here...  |  IP: Logged Fabian Schreyer Film Handler Posts: 63 From: Aachen, Germany Registered: Feb 2009 posted 10-16-2014 06:18 PM                     Just a short update on what I'm doing As I was unable to upgrade from v101.17, I just replaced the harddrive with a blank (no partition table on it) 160-GB-IDE-drive I still had from some old PC. The installation process ran flawless and everything works fine now. I guess it's just impossible to upgrade from that specific version.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 03-01-2015 03:44 PM                        I had the same problem - enter button on the unit itself not doing anything after booting from the update DVD, but working OK when running the old software. The workaround I found was to connect a keyboard, monitor and mouse to the back of the thing, and then, when prompted, to press enter on the PC keyboard rather than the front of the unit. That started the updating process for me, which worked successfully.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 03-01-2015 03:55 PM                     Remove the hard drive. "Clean" it using a PC. Reinstall the hard drive. Run the dts cd installer. This way it can't see an older version.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 03-01-2015 04:34 PM                        My guess is that there's a bug in the bootloader of the 2.2.0.6 update disc and/or the version of the software that was on Fabian's and my unit to start with, such that under some circumstances, when it displays "Press enter to continue" on the front panel of the unit, it's actually listening for the enter key being pressed on a PS/2 keyboard, not the enter button on the front of the unit. Given that the update DVD contains a warning on the label to the effect that running it will nuke all configuration settings and ingested audio tracks, I'm further guessing that it at least reformats the hard drive and possibly even rewrites the MBR at the start of the installation process. So if you have a PS/2 keyboard easily to hand but do not fancy taking the player out of the rack, opening it up and extracting the HDD from it, using it is probably a quicker way of achieving the same result. That having been said, any XD-10 in use now that still has its factory-installed, original HDD probably has a drive in it that is 5-10 years old and therefore effectively on borrowed time, especially if it's been doing significant hours each day. That, IMHO, is an argument in favor of replacing it with a new one anyway, especially if the player is to continue in regular service (e.g. for DTS 70 shows).  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 03-01-2015 06:00 PM                     Agreed. Honestly if I had to choose between a used XD10 vs. a dts6-d (3 drawers) with no backup unit for a dts70 show (since those don't have an analog emergency fallback), I would rather have the dts6-d. If a cdrom drive died in the 6-d, at least the disc could be quickly moved to the third drive and the show continue to run. On the XD10 if the hard drive starts to die, you're dead. This is why I used dual XD10 units in a couple of my Interstellar dts70 shows. Should the primary unit fail, audio would continue on the second unit. That being said even on the installs where I use XD20s with a raid, I still setup two XD20s for automatic failover.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-01-2015 11:41 PM                     I just recently worked on the AFI/Silver's XD10s. I put in new HDD (1TB since that is what we stock for DCinema) and the latest/greatest XD10 software...however, before doing so, I had them all networked so that they could "share" their content...then updating one at a time bounced the content back on the new HDD...with the storage each one now has (about 800GB effective storage for audio), and with 4 systems, they should be able to hold whatever content comes in the door and have redundancy for when a HDD dies. Note, they also needed new capacitors (they had started to flake out due to leaky caps)...once recapped...they all came back to life perfectly. Theatre 1 at the AFI has two XD10s (one for each pair of projectors) so they effectively have a backup right in the rack though they are not set up to failsafe to each other, they would need to be repatched.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 03-02-2015 12:54 AM                        quote: Brad Miller Honestly if I had to choose between a used XD10 vs. a dts6-d (3 drawers) with no backup unit for a dts70 show (since those don't have an analog emergency fallback), I would rather have the dts6-d. If a cdrom drive died in the 6-d, at least the disc could be quickly moved to the third drive and the show continue to run. On the XD10 if the hard drive starts to die, you're dead. Good point. In our case (somewhat unusual, granted), our double-feature format required that we swap discs every night before every show. That was doable, but a pain. We enjoyed our last few years with film a bit more after we swapped our 6-D units for XD10s. I recall something similar about the upgrade problem. I think DTS had to send me some files on a thumb drive. After I loaded those, the new version upgraded fine. I could be wrong, but the thumb drive may have had a version that you could not jump over with the ones on the DVDs.  |  IP: Logged Andrew Maddison Film Handler Posts: 13 From: Coventry, West Midlands, UK Registered: Sep 2007 posted 03-03-2015 05:34 AM                     quote: Steve Guttag Note, they also needed new capacitors (they had started to flake out due to leaky caps)...once recapped...they all came back to life perfectly. How bad a job is replacing the capacitors? Had to do our CP500 a couple of years ago just to keep it going until it could be properly sorted out, but from what I remember of the XD10 the power supply looks like a more complex PC-like PSU! We have 2 XD10s (as the 1st stopped powering up shortly after we got it) so it would be good to resurrect it if possible  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 03-03-2015 05:26 PM                        quote: Andrew Maddison ...from what I remember of the XD10 the power supply looks like a more complex PC-like PSU! That's because it is a PC PSU. An XD-10 basically consists of a PC motherboard of early 2000s vintage, attached to which are a bunch of bespoke cards for audio input and output and the front panel. It runs a customized version of Red Hat with the DTS application software on top. If you plug a PC monitor into the VGA port at the back and watch it boot up, you'll see that it looks just like any other PC booting a Linux image. Steve - were the bad capacitors you found on the motherboard, the input/output cards or in the PSU? If the latter, I'd just be inclined to replace the PSU. The "Capacitor Plague" scandal coincided almost exactly with the years that the XD-10 was in production, so I'm not surprised to hear that it was affected.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-04-2015 06:56 AM                     It was just the motherboard...though we did change the ones on the D/A converter too (there are three up there). The change out isn't bad though the bottom of the mother board is "coated" so you have to "burn" your way through that or dissolve it. Didn't have to change out any PSUs.  |  IP: Logged

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