Deluxe "eCinema" delivery service is coming in December

[James Gardiner]

We received our server 6 days ago. It's a QNAP TS-453DU with 4x 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS drives in it. It has two 2.5G ethernet ports, one for our media network and one for internet. We're about to rack it tomorrow and see how it works to ingest movies instead of receiving the drives. We pay $40 per drive now and when moving to eCinema, it will cost $25 per feature that we book. They don't have trailers on the service yet so we'll still receive TrailMix drivers but they said that's coming in the future. So we'll save $15 per feature and there is no upfront cost for the server or service. It's owned by Deluxe and I assume they'll repair or replace the hardware if there's issues.

Wow thats interesting. Them moving to a QNAP system. They must have made a Plugin for the QNAP NAS operating system. Does it have any local web interface to monitor what on it in terms of administration of DCPs? If you log into the QNAP interface, and you see a Deluxe app running on it or something like that?

When you indicate DCP-disks cost you $40, does that include them paying for shipping the drives to/fom your location or is that still an extra you have to pay? But now with this is $25 (No physical needs) only going forward?

[Darin Steffl]

We received our server 6 days ago. It's a QNAP TS-453DU with 4x 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS drives in it. It has two 2.5G ethernet ports, one for our media network and one for internet. We're about to rack it tomorrow and see how it works to ingest movies instead of receiving the drives. We pay $40 per drive now and when moving to eCinema, it will cost $25 per feature that we book. They don't have trailers on the service yet so we'll still receive TrailMix drivers but they said that's coming in the future. So we'll save $15 per feature and there is no upfront cost for the server or service. It's owned by Deluxe and I assume they'll repair or replace the hardware if there's issues.

[Darin Steffl]

I just received an email with tracking number for our eCinema server. They said it should arrive this week or next week. A rail kit is included. Here's the setup process for once we receive it.

-----------------

Darin,

I hope all is well. I am happy to inform you we have a server provisioned for your site and it is shipping today (finally!). You should receive the server in a few days – FedEx tracking number is XXXXXX. The installation instructions are straightforward. After you find a location for it, perform the following.

1. On the back of the server are two network ports. The left port connects to your ‘media’ network. This will be the network where the TMS or screen server pulls the content via an FTP connection. The right port connects to the Internet network. Both ports are configured per the information we received in the site survey form you submitted.
2. Connect the power cord. Press the power button on the front panel to power-on the server.
3. Send an email to ecinematechops@bydeluxe.com after the server is powered on and we will check status from our side. If everything looks good we will send you a piece of test content and if you can ingest that we will consider your site operational for e-delivery.

You will be one of the first sites we attempt to enable for e-delivery in the US so this is a big milestone for both of us.

Thanks,

Brad

[James Gardiner]

On this topic.. Did people see the latest..
https://www.digitalcinemareport.com/...educing-prices

Now, I know what the release says, but I would be more inclined to think this is a reaction of Deluxe eCinema solution (and possibly others) and competition in the market.

In any case, an interesting development on this topic.

[Leo Enticknap]

The cinema does not own that server. Deluxe/Cinesend does. They will decide when things get deleted so it's irrelevant that you want to delete something when it's their box to manage. I'm assuming they will delete content to make room as they see fit to keep things running smoothly.

Just as long as Deluxe/Cinesend does not have the ability to delete stuff from your DCP server (or any end user-owned external or NAS storage used with it), that seems reasonable to me, as long as you're not made to pay twice to download content for a repeat booking within a reasonable time period, because the first download was deleted.

[Carsten Kurz]

Same with Gofilex. Usually they wait for the RAID volume to fill up, then they start deleting the oldest content to make room for new transfers as necessary. You can make suggestions to them though, their support is quite responsive. But after all, they earn money not by keeping stuff on their NAS, but by transferring new content.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Deluxe and Cinesend wouldn't want end users to be able to delete things off their server. The cinema does not own that server. Deluxe/Cinesend does. They will decide when things get deleted so it's irrelevant that you want to delete something when it's their box to manage. I'm assuming they will delete content to make room as they see fit to keep things running smoothly.

According to Frank, that option was available when it still was Cinesend.

In the end though, the customer, as in the exhibitor, shouldn't really need to worry about the storage on the machine and it would be nice if Deluxe would take that part over and hopefully don't neglect that part of the service, as the device will eventually fill up.

[Darin Steffl]

Deluxe and Cinesend wouldn't want end users to be able to delete things off their server. The cinema does not own that server. Deluxe/Cinesend does. They will decide when things get deleted so it's irrelevant that you want to delete something when it's their box to manage. I'm assuming they will delete content to make room as they see fit to keep things running smoothly.

[Frank Cox]

I just deleted the content after the week was over. After all, I don't need a copy of last week's movie this week.

It's irrelevant now since end users are no longer allowed to delete stuff.

[Gordon McLeod]

with the original cinesend the user was never supposed to delete content from it as if one did it had issues if they had to resend the same content at a future time We had two locations where a manager tried to do this and then had a raid in a server die and we had to get a physical cru drive sent as they could not resend it as it would corrupt itself each time

[Frank Cox]

As far as I know, FTP is all there is for us lowly end users. I'm sure they have ssh access to it themselves, but the only thing I was told about was how to get into it with FTP.

When I was allowed to delete stuff myself I just deleted everything after the relevant week was over. I see that Eternals is still on it right now, and that's last week's movie so it will be interesting to see how long it lays around on there.

The device has 10TB of storage so I don't imagine that space is going to be any issue for the next little while anyway. If there does get to be a ton of obsolete stuff on it I'll send them a "Hey guys" email, but maybe it'll all just be handled by magic and will never be a problem.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Do you have SSH access to the box? Or do they provide for something like SNMP? That way you could easily monitor the available storage on the partitions.

What ways do they export the content? Is FTP the only way or do they also offer NFS or SMB sharing to access the files? You could monitor the "content' directory for changes and send yourself an e-mail once a certain new directory appears via some scripting.

Regarding space management, I guess they'll always match the content on there against your bookings and once a booking expires, I expect them to put it on a "purge list", that automatically removes it from the machine. It may not happen immediately, but via some kind of (cron) job on the machine that runs every so often. That's the way it usually happens around here.

[Frank Cox]

I just got what appears to be my first "official" Deluxe E-Delivery movie (Spider-man). Prior to this point anything that was downloaded was from/through Cinesend, but this time the notification email says that it's from Deluxe Digital Cinema and it came from a @deluxeone.com address rather than cinesend.com so I guess the integration is now complete.

Instead of just dumping the content into the root directory on the Cinesend CSX device they have set up a series of subdirectories.

/content/feature/

/content/trailer/

/content/rating/

/content/test/

Spider-man is now in the content/feature directory.

I can no longer log into the Cinesend venue webpage and see what's on the CSX or delete content from it. I can log directly into the CSX with a ftp client and view the content but as far as deleting obsolete content there's no way for me to do that. I guess Deluxe will manage all of that themselves so hopefully they'll stay on top of it and not let the CSX fill up with obsolete data to a point that it runs out of room. I can't tell how much space is left on it any more either since that data was available through the venue webpage that's no longer available.

One thing that I'm not a fan of is that Deluxe has changed the way that they notify the theatre about downloaded content. With Cinesend they sent you an email every time something was started and every time one of the elements was finished. So you got "A new DCP has begun downloading to your CSX" and then "New content is available on your CSX" for everything sent to you: trailers, features, 2d versions, 3d versions, and so on.

I always knew that something was happening and what that something was. I might end up with twenty emails over the course of one feature download, but that's really ok.

Now Deluxe sends you nothing at the start and one single email when everything is finished saying, "This is a list of the stuff that you now have, and here is the ingest letter."

Personally, I would feel better getting even just one email at the start saying "we're now sending you this or that"; this way you don't know anything about it until it's all over and, well, how would you know if they forgot to send it to you until it might be too late to do anything about it?

[Darin Steffl]

I asked for an update on when the servers will ship. Deluxe received the first batch last week and is starting provisioning now. They estimate we'll receive ours in mid to late January. I'll update once we receive it and get it installed, then receive our first DCP over broadband! I'm excited to get rid of hard drive deliveries.

[James Gardiner]

Steve, saving as much time as I stated is not just about automation of the projection booth. The front of office workload is a much bigger issue.
For example..
Each week distributors send out changes and updates to the release slate. Cinemas are expected to track all this data so they can best understand the films to take and how they fall against each other.. There are many hours per week spent by cinemas owners, typically in excel mapping this out. I created a tool that does this automatically.. See https://youtu.be/YAQ_UmuAdoU
Its very much local industry based.

The tool also visualises your commitments automatically. Again removing the need to the use of excel spreadsheets I have seen cinema owners use to attempt to calculate these requirements. Australia has very rigorous policy commitments. If you over commit, you pay for it later.

Then the cloud TMS side I created a central website application that I basically do the heavy lifting. Look at all the reports that come in from prev week, the films and policy commitments.. than do the main work that cannot be automated. This results in automated reports that go to all 3 locations for signoff. The following day I make any adjustments and cook the schedule.
From there, the studios get extensive reports on what's showing were and at what time. They also get indication of any KDM requests required. The POS system is automatically programmed, the Web sites/online ticket sales are automatically updated. The projectors are programmed and the assets automatically moved to where ever its needed. I don;t do any of these processes anymore.

Any errors, or specifically when the studios forget to do something like send a DCP or KDM, I get automated warnings. Basically, only if something is wrong do I get contacted by the back end system to manage the issue.

All in all, I would say, what took 4 days of work doing it the traditional way I see many cinemas doing it, now takes me 4h to run and operate 3 cinema locations.

Obviously this software is custom and not something that can integrate to other cinemas easily (It's not something I can make free), Plus cinemas don;t like to change their ways. But this was an experiment on exactly how much I could optimise the operations of a cinema.

In terms of sharing some of my work. I am making a tool available that will have a lot of functions that can operate individually. The tools are obviously stand alone which makes them possible to offer this way.. This is for cinemas that don't have TMS / don;t think they need one.. This is all free, and I hope some find these tools useful and make the cinemas more productive. However, like many of the best TMS's they are based on docker (containers) targeting Linux based computers. (On this topic, I understand this may be beyond many cinema owners, but so is running any Linux/containerised TMS's. They have service agents do this for them. And I expect this is how many may look to utilise these tools too. But I understand, many agents may chose not to do this as you don;t get a 25% maintenance fee per year when they run free software.. SO I expect resistance to adopt this type of software by many agents. AS such I highly encourage understanding and if possible operating your own equipment. It takes effort to save money.)

Much of the more powerful tools mentioned above need backend infrastructure that needs monitoring and maintenance on the occasion as it utilise many external data points. It's not something that can be made free. Needs to much after sales support and servicing. (Like any enterprise based cinema operations system)

Why did my company develop these tools?
Because the industry trends indicated they would be needed in the future to help maintain viability in a world adopting digital technologies. COVID has only accelerated this reality. Last I looked.. at least 12% of cinemas in the U.S. have failed to come back so far. If we cannot sustain at least over 20% of pre-COVID GROSS levels, that number is likely to increase considerably. In reality we need more then previous levels as many cinemas are running on negative bank accounts. But I expect they have no choice. I, like many, want to survive long enough so the industry comes back and the cinema business re-establishes "good will" and value. Otherwise it's a "walk away" disaster.