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Topic: NEW, LOWER DTS DRIVE KIT PRICE

Kevin Crawford
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 207
From: Sacramento, CA, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 08-15-2000 01:58 AM

I think that this is a great idea, but they would have done it already. There must be a reason why they don't.

I think that there is probably a copyright infringement or something of that nature.

Just being curious, how would an operator know that the hard drive had failed? Many booths do not have people that check to see what sound format they are in, let alone to see if the DTS is scanning from CDs or not.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-15-2000 11:19 AM

Have a central server feed the data via a ethernet to each player

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John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 08-15-2000 11:35 AM

Yeah, and a Oracle database to be able to feed several different films at once!

We could also copy the picture into Oracle, and use a video projector... opps! What am I saying?!!!

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Antonio Marcheselli
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1260
From: Florence, Italy
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 08-15-2000 04:37 PM

The HD is a good idea, but just a tought: what happened if, for example, the light go away while HD is writing?
In a DOS environment it is possible that the FAT blows and you have to partiton the HD again...
I mean that the DTS software should be able to repair that kind of problem automatically.

And... DTS P8?????? What?

Bye

------------------
Antonio Marcheselli
Projectionist of Cinema Vittoria
Florence, Italy

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-15-2000 05:20 PM

The DTS 8P is there awnser to the DTAC from sonics
It is available in many configurable forms either with cdrom or a hard drive and has capabilities of 8 channel output

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Alan Lyman
Film Handler

Posts: 13
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 08-16-2000 07:21 AM

I seem to remember that DTS told me,that with the new upgrade kit,the disc doesn´t run when the film doesn´t.Precisely to save the drives.

Alan Lyman
Denmark

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Antonio Marcheselli
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1260
From: Florence, Italy
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 08-18-2000 12:46 PM

Gordon: where can I found info about the 8P? What is DTAC from Sonics?

8P is intendef for theaters use?

Bye!

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Tom Kroening
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 214
From: Janesville, WI USA
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 08-18-2000 02:44 PM

Hmm, the hard drive isn't a bad idea, but there is a reason DTS hasn't done it. Hard Drives just are not made to be constantly read from all day long all year long. You would run into the same problem that you do with the CD-Rom drives, only with the hard drive you'd have to deal with bad sectors, driver updates, you would have to take the time to load up the new disks. There would have to be some sort of display on the unit showing what is loaded. There might be some industrial quality Hard drive that would be up to the task, but why not just get a better CD drive? And if $$ is no object, have the dts unit load the cds to a ram disk every morning at power up : P. A note about HD versus CD seek time, a hard drive is about 10 or more times faster at seeking then a cd is.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 08-18-2000 03:03 PM

Does anyone have reliability experience with the drives used in high data-rate servers like the ones being used with Digital Cinema? At ShoWest in March, one of the questions asked at a Digital Cinema seminar was how to repair the drive when it went down. The answer was that it was usually more cost effective to buy a new one.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 08-18-2000 03:58 PM

Perhaps some of our computer geeks out there could answer this one, but why can DTS not make an upgrade kit that will take ANY drive on the street? I can go out and purchase any cd rom drive and dump into a computer and it will work just fine. Why can this not be done with DTS? I'm assuming there is something in their programming or cards that is preventing this. The $15 drive solution has brought up new problems, namely with causing the unit to freeze up during mid-movie!

So am I missing something here?

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-18-2000 05:16 PM

Brad,

If they did that, they would not be able to sell a two-drive upgrade kit for $435!

"Ahhhhh...it's a PROFIT deal. Takes the PRESSURE off..."
----Steve Martin, "The Jerk"

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Scott Norwood
Film God

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

posted 08-18-2000 05:54 PM

I'll begin this with the disclaimer that I've never disassembled a DTS unit, so I'm not exactly sure what's inside it. I generally like DTS as a product, but I am not associated with the company in any way.

First, the issue with the CD drives needing to be specific models probably relates to the SCSI card. Theoretically, all SCSI CD drives should be more or less interchangeable. Some of them have special features (for example, if you want to boot a Sun box off CD, the drive needs to support 512k byte sectors), but for the most part they are interchangeable. The real issue is with the SCSI interface and the drivers for same. I suppose that when you buy the drives and card from DTS you are also buying some assurance that the things will actually work, whereas there is no such guarantee if you use generic drives.

Second, there really isn't a huge issue with reliability of hard drives in large disk arrays. I don't know much about the Qubit, but I'm reasonably familiar with Network Appliance file servers (aka "toasters"). The Netapp boxes use off-the-shelf drives. The older models used SCSI drives; the newer ones use fiber channel, but the end result is the same. In a 20-disk array, it's not uncommon to lose one drive per year or so, which isn't bad considering that the disks are constantly being read from and written to. Drives tend to last longer when they spin continuously rather than being powered down and up regularly. In any case, hard disk drives are far more reliable than the typical CD-ROM drives of the type that DTS is using.

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Dave Cutler
Master Film Handler

Posts: 277
From: Centennial, CO
Registered: Jun 2000

posted 08-19-2000 03:36 PM

Antonio, I don't think there is much information avaliable on the DTS-P8 as they are all (more or less) custom. I have a short 20 page users manual, but it does go very indepth. The DTS-P8 is used for special venue applications such as large format films. iWerks Entertainment installs DTS in their 870 and 1570 large format theatres. I work at an iWerks 1570 3-D location.

The DTAC from Sonics is the digital sound system that IMAX uses. It is a 6 channel system that sync 3 CD's (2 channels per disc) to film. I have never used it so I don't know anyting else about it. Although from what I have heard the new IMAX locations have thier audio stored on a harddrive in the form of 6 channel wav files. The computer is programed to play a certain file for each film and it sync's with a tach pulse. Gordon will correct me if I made any errors about this.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-19-2000 07:42 PM

Dave is basically correct
Imax has two systems
DDP (digital Disk Player) that uses 3 red book cd's synced to the film
The DTAC uses a hard disk and via a spice software you add and subtract different trailors etc to a program file

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Antonio Marcheselli
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1260
From: Florence, Italy
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 08-20-2000 02:00 PM

Gordon,

Thanks for the info. I just thought that DTS P8 was a 35mm sound system... :-)

The 8 channels are the same of the SDDS-8?

Bye
Antonio

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