Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Going digital

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Topic: Going digital

David E. Nedrow
Master Film Handler

Posts: 368
From: Columbus, OH, USA
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 06-18-2014 02:44 PM

Well, we're finally making the move. Our install is supposed to be scheduled middle of next week.

We ended up going the Christie/Scrabble lease way. We just have no way to buy a projector outright. We did a fund raiser and were able to collect the upfront costs for the system. About $14 grand.

We're getting a Christie CP-2215. I'm a bit sad about the whole thing, but, if we want to keep showing movies, there's no choice. [Wink]

The nice thing is that I can more easily integrate pre-show video, and not having to deal with film-based trailers will be nice.

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Andrew Thomas
Master Film Handler

Posts: 273
From: Pearland, TX, USA
Registered: Jun 2012

posted 06-19-2014 01:07 AM

One warning I will give is that the guys who do the site surveys know what they are talking about, the guys who do the installs know what they are talking about.

The in between people that order everything and set up the installs don't know anything. Get ready to hear the installers bemoan the fact that this or that didn't get sent out. Our installers from Christie had to literally find the closest Fry's electronics to find extra odd n ends to get our install finished.

I also had one install issue that they tried to charge me a service call to fix. When the equipment was originally installed, their networking gateway that allows them access to the equipment didn't get plugged in. So when the NOC tried to check in to our site, they couldn't see us. So before bothering to call me and make sure everything was connected, they send out one of their techs (a really decent guy, not his fault!) for an emergency $600 service call.

Didn't pay that nonsense because they forgot to plug the ethernet wire in!

We have three Solaria Ones and one CP4220. Honestly, I haven't had any major issues. We lost one show in 6 months. Basically, the NAS needs a full reboot every once in a while. I've had it happen once since then and simply rebooting the NAS saved the show, albeit 5 minutes behind schedule.

One other thing I find kind of curious is that they didn't supply any spare bulbs upon install. I don't expect a free spare, but they didn't even offer to sell it to me! Seems like a pretty important thing to have at least one spare on hand!

Other than that, they are easy to deal with. They automatically pull the lease payment each month and the reporting requirements for the VPF amount to filling in the movie title, studio, and opening/closing dates for each movie you book. Easy as pie.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 06-19-2014 03:15 AM

I do weekly cold reboots of all projectors and servers, but still, on slight occasion you get one or two that won't 'wake' up after a reboot and have to repeat to finally 'wake' the unit up.

I have IMB's with external RAID storage devices and once in a few months, a storage device loves to "unmount" itself from the IMB, which causes a presentation crash where I have to "remount" the storage device to the server, then reboot to recognize the "remount" to be all well again.

Digital is SO MUCH FUN to look forward to ....

-Monte

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-19-2014 04:49 PM

Andrew -

I am curious. Do you have a TMS/LMS to control the content on your digital projectors/IMBs? You have four screens, correct? Do you individually ingest each movie at each projector/IMB? On Thursday nights, do you have to re-ingest the movies at each projector when you switch auditoriums?

I am wondering if Scrabble offered you any type of TMS/LMS setup.

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Andrew Thomas
Master Film Handler

Posts: 273
From: Pearland, TX, USA
Registered: Jun 2012

posted 06-19-2014 05:46 PM

quote: Dennis Benjamin
Andrew -

I am curious. Do you have a TMS/LMS to control the content on your digital projectors/IMBs? You have four screens, correct? Do you individually ingest each movie at each projector/IMB? On Thursday nights, do you have to re-ingest the movies at each projector when you switch auditoriums?

I am wondering if Scrabble offered you any type of TMS/LMS setup.

Currently we do not have an LMS/TMS. I actually just ordered all the hardware to build a separate LMS/TMS box for my office. Should have it built this weekend and then I will go through the process of configuring it all.

Up until now, I would ingest the content onto each projector throughout the week leading up to it opening. Definitely a pain to do, so I look forward to having the LMS/TMS set up!

And Scrabble did not initially offer it as their standard policy seems to be not to bother if 4 screens or less. I did get a quote from them and it was something nutty like $10k. Since I've been building computers and networks since I was 10 years old, I'm really comfortable doing most of this myself.

And I like that I can keep spare parts on hand to swap out if need be and being able to train my staff on how to fix anything that might break. Harder to do with somebody else's system!

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-20-2014 05:57 AM

The 10K thing is nutty.

Have you priced out any of the TMS software yet? GDC's is compatible with the Solaria IMBs,

They all charge a licensing fee per screen.

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Andrew Thomas
Master Film Handler

Posts: 273
From: Pearland, TX, USA
Registered: Jun 2012

posted 06-20-2014 09:57 AM

Not yet. Sales rep contact info?

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-20-2014 10:18 AM

I hope you don't get the guys from San Antonio to do your install! They kept a customer of mine with a single screen down for an entire week because they weren't smart enough to know how to make their own AES digital cable. So... they installed a new CP-750 in place of the customers equipment and then tried to charge him 3 grand extra for it. My customer read his contract and no where did it say there would be any extra charges. So he told them to stuff it and basically got the 750 for free. But imagine someone an installer so stupid that you switch out the entire processor to get it to work instead of just making a correct cable for $2300 less cost. I bet these technicians are good with tinker toys and Lego sets though...

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-20-2014 01:28 PM

quote: Monte L Fullmer
I have IMB's with external RAID storage devices and once in a few months, a storage device loves to "unmount" itself from the IMB, which causes a presentation crash where I have to "remount" the storage device to the server, then reboot to recognize the "remount" to be all well again.

Of the 30 or so SX-3000's I've installed that hasn't happened to a single one of them! Not even on the early firmware versions. In fact they have had zero issues with the exception of one not seeing the CRU bay on boot up. That was just a simple bios setting.

GDC typically charges ~$500 per screen initially and then a much smaller renewal fee per screen every two years. Just contact your local GDC dealer. There are other TMS apps out there as well but they are much more expensive.

Mark

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Andrew Thomas
Master Film Handler

Posts: 273
From: Pearland, TX, USA
Registered: Jun 2012

posted 06-20-2014 02:11 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I hope you don't get the guys from San Antonio to do your install! They kept a customer of mine with a single screen down for an entire week because they weren't smart enough to know how to make their own AES digital cable. So... they installed a new CP-750 in place of the customers equipment and then tried to charge him 3 grand extra for it. My customer read his contract and no where did it say there would be any extra charges. So he told them to stuff it and basically got the 750 for free. But imagine someone an installer so stupid that you switch out the entire processor to get it to work instead of just making a correct cable for $2300 less cost. I bet these technicians are good with tinker toys and Lego sets though...

All but one of the 6 CDMS installers are out of San Antonio. The problem isn't their intelligence, it is their lack of training. The three that I dealt with knew the projectors very well, but didn't know virtually anything about the audio side of D-cinema.

That is because Christie gives them many hours of training on the projectors and little to none of the audio. We were actually one of the first audio installs two of the three guys had ever done!

And thanks for the heads up on the GDC software. I'll definitely consider it after I try out CDM.

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-20-2014 02:37 PM

CDM - CineDigital Manager?

I am testing this at my single screen site. Not impressed so far. Not to mention the price (when it comes to that). Ouch.

The reason I am testing it there - is that they state that you can have a free license for up to 2 screens. Still in the trial period, still waiting on the 'free' license.

Since I have been reviewing/testing various software - I got the price on the regular professional version.

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 06-20-2014 03:42 PM

Mark: this is exactly what I am referring to when I talk about people who won't work on dimmers, hearing impaired, amplifiers and speakers. Believe me, there are many more than just San Antonio. (Louisville is 99% Christie.)

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-20-2014 05:15 PM

Louis,

I think the majority of digital techs are pretty proficient. Some are slower than other and a few like these guys from San Antonio are just the "me too" types. The probably also almost work for nothing doing contract installing for Christie!

Andrew.. My customer said almost exactly the same thing. Projector went right in.... the rest dragged on and on and on. No excuse for this though. Down time is lost revenue for a small cinema.

Mark

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-20-2014 05:33 PM

How long should these installs take? I realize that each one is different, but my only reference for this is a single-screen house that needed a new sound system (processor, amps, speakers) and was keeping the existing 35mm projectors (already in place and working). No LMS, no VPF, minimal automation (for D-cinema only, not 35mm), no oddball video formats (just DCP and Blu-Ray). The vendor said that this install would take a day (which seemed optimistic), and ended up taking a week (which seems long). As far as I know, there was no coordination issue with the electrician or any other vendor (and the carpenter had already installed another porthole and demo'd part of a wall to make space for the new projector)--the installation just took that long.

Apparently everything just went wrong on this installation, although the theatre never lost a show (they continued to run 35mm until the D-cinema quipment was ready to go).

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-20-2014 07:06 PM

Scott...

A day and a half absolute tops to do the projector and sound processor including on waiting on an electrician to make AC feed changes. If more work is being done (Screen, speakers, amps, pots, pans, glasses) then perhaps a couple more days depending on the difficulty of the work and if you are waiting on someone else to run conduit or pull wires...

I think my first Series 2 projector took me a couple days because I had to figure out the DCC stuff and the projector as I went along. NEC hadn't held a training class on them as of yet.

Also, doing FW updates to early Series 2 was high pain level thing. You had to update each stage manually and some times the new FW wouldn't load correctly. I remember spending a whole afternoon trying to get SP 2 installed on Mike Blaksley's NEC. Once SP-3 appeared it was all automatic and fool proof.

Also, if no electrician is involved like on NC-900's then it can be done in less then a day with just a helper.

Mark

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