Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Running typical cinema programs on Vista

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Film Handlers' Forum » Running typical cinema programs on Vista (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Author

Topic: Running typical cinema programs on Vista

Monte L Fullmer
Film God

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

posted 01-23-2008 06:25 PM

I checked with the DELL site and XP is still available.

| IP: Logged

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-23-2008 08:38 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
Sounds like a lazy sales guy. I think the major computer vendors still offer a choice of XP or Vista since that's what the consumers want. At least, I know Dell does. (Or, they did a couple of weeks ago...)

No, not at all. In fact the salesman (Circus City in Cheyenne) went out of his way to get the exact specs of the puter we were interested in. The fact that we needed it right now was more of a limiting factor for us... Dolby told us we'd be the first to try it on Vista and we found out it did not work reliably. He also told us that downgrading the puter to XP would also void it's warranty. They took the equipment back no questions asked.... but he did thank us for there finally being some really good sound systems in town and that he didn't have to drive all the way to Denver to see a movie any more. We found a clean used P-4 Dellwith XP-Pro within an hour and had Show Manager Client up and running within another hour...

Mark

| IP: Logged

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-23-2008 09:53 PM

quote: "Chris Slycord"
The problem with suggesting linux is that the wine "emulator" (well technically it's a re-write of most of the API and not an emulator) is more or less a crap shoot as to if a piece of software will work or not.

Thus the reason I suggested SUSE. WINE is built in.
Novell made a deal with the devil and paid Microsoft for access to some of its intellectual property. SUSE is the one that has the best chance of being able to run the Dolby software.

I agree. It's not a sure thing. But, given the fact that the software isn't working the way you want it using the operating system you have now, you've got practically nothing to lose but a few hours of your time.

I've heard people tell me things like that before. "Oh! You can't do that...", they'd say.

I had been running DRAS on my old Macintosh iBook laptop using Virtual PC and I'd been doing it for several weeks when Lonny from Dolby told me it was impossible. The same goes for the SDDS software and the Ultra*Stereo program. They all said it won't work.

Granted, this kind of thing isn't for the average "mouse pusher" who just wants to turn his computer on and not think about it. You've got to put some effort into it.

If you're smart enough to get Linux up and running on your computer you are certainly smart enough to figure out if it's possible to get Dolby's software to run on Linux using WINE.

| IP: Logged

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-24-2008 12:28 AM

Since most of Dolby's software is Linux based it should be a cinch. I don't know whats with Vista since I more or less refuse to own a copy. I can only assume that its along way before it's time. Seems like many people say there is a lack of drivers for common programs they normally run. I'll stick with XP myself. I even run it on my Dell Server and its been up for many months at a time with out fail.

Mark

| IP: Logged

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-24-2008 10:13 AM

I just got WinDRAS Ver.1.0.4.2 to run on the old Dell in my office using Ubuntu (Gutsy) via WINE.

The application runs perfectly fine if not a bit slow. But this is probably more likely to be because my computer is old and slow and has only the minimum amount of memory rather than any problems with Linux, WINE or Dolby.

I don't have a Dolby Digital processor to connect to so that will have to remain untried for me. But this does prove that the program will run. In my estimation, the only problem that could put a stopper on this is getting the program to access the correct COM ports. That's something that might take some tinkering.

Even though this isn't a conclusive test, I'd say it looks promising. If Ubuntu will run it, SUSE should surely work.

(If you don't want to pay for SUSE, OpenSUSE should work just as well.)

| IP: Logged

Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 01-24-2008 11:51 AM

quote: Randy Stankey
Thus the reason I suggested SUSE. WINE is built in.

I guess you misunderstood my post. Just because wine is installed doesn't mean a given program will work with it at all. That's what I meant by saying it's a crap shoot as to whether it'd work or not.

But it seems it works so that's a good sign.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Since most of Dolby's software is Linux based it should be a cinch.

That's not true. For it to work perfectly, natively they'd still have to write a linux version of the setup software.

quote: Mike Blakesley
Sounds like a lazy sales guy. I think the major computer vendors still offer a choice of XP or Vista since that's what the consumers want. At least, I know Dell does. (Or, they did a couple of weeks ago...)

On the other hand, buying in a store is limited to the computers they have on hand, unlike an online company that lets to configure the system.

| IP: Logged

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-24-2008 12:45 PM

Yes, you are right. You can't guarantee that Linux/WINE will run these programs but they are already guaranteed NOT to work with Vista or, if they do work, they will work unreliably.

In making the attempt to run them in Linux you've got almost nothing to lose but a few hours of your time.

Plus, if they do work, even if they only work reliably enough to get by on until Microsoft and/or the manufacturer comes up with a solution, you're ahead of the game.

Furthermore, with the ability to create a bootable Linux CD-R it might be possible to make a disk especially for the purpose of running software that, otherwise, would be unusable.

Many of us are using "company machines" which come in standard configurations. Surely, it's possible to make a bootable CD with "Damn Small" Linux or "Puppy" or "Coyote" Linux which is preconfigured to work on the machines your company issues. Then all you have to do is drop in your CD, reboot your machine and do your work. When you're done, remove the disk and reboot. The computer is back to its original configuration.

Yes, I know this isn't guaranteed until it's tried. If I had the cinema processor to experiment on I'd be trying this right now.

Given the problems people have been having in the past to get these programs to work I'm surprised it hasn't been tried before. There's almost nothing to lose in trying.

| IP: Logged

Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 01-25-2008 09:44 AM

Use VMWARE. It runs on practically anything, and can boot up virtual PCs with any OS on it from DOS to Vista or any flavor of Linux and other things. And it can pass the guest OS through most of the hardware devices. I think the demo is still free for 30 days. Try it and see. If it works, great! If not, you didn't lose anything. Just delete it.

It doesn't matter what the OS on the host PC is. You can install any guest operating system that will support the Dolby software. We have XP PCs here running VMWARE Windows 95 virtual PCs for programs that don't run in XP. And you can flip back and forth between the host OS and the guest OS. Our users (managers, not IT people) use them, and they're fine with them. They understand how it works and have no problems.

From the VMWARE web site, included in "Those who should buy it":

quote:
Those who need to rehost a legacy application on a modern operating system (i.e, rehost Windows XP as a virtual machine on a Windows Vista host machine)

| IP: Logged

Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 01-26-2008 01:44 AM

I have done the same with DOS and Win95 programs running under Virtual PC in XP. Sure, stuff like that works, and it's kind of fun to build your virtual "legacy" PC and then run old stuff on it (I have done that with old DOS games, just for shits and giggles and a little bit of nostalgia) but I just don't feel like the hassle only because Microsoft have come up with yet another way to screw the customers and force a half-baked product on them. Or actually, that's not yet another way, it's a sequel to what they did several times before, unfortunately with success...

I haven't played with VMWARE yet and wouldn't mind to, again just for fun, but I don't see why I should have to buy that to run programs which just last year ran fine on the then current OS. Nonononoonoo!

| IP: Logged

Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 01-26-2008 07:30 AM

I agree that does suck. You should send the bill to Microsoft.

[Wink]

| IP: Logged

Gordon McLeod
Film God

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

posted 01-26-2008 08:29 AM

the only issue I have heard was vm ware doesn't support pcmcia devices

| IP: Logged

Robert Minichino
Master Film Handler

Posts: 350
From: Haskell, NJ, USA
Registered: Dec 2005

posted 01-26-2008 09:36 AM

Sure it does. It supports any PC Card devices that are supported by the host OS. For example, if you have a PC Card serial adapter, it presents real serial ports to your host OS, which you can then connect to your VMware guest OS.

| IP: Logged

Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 01-26-2008 08:16 PM

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Use VMWARE. It runs on practically anything, and can boot up virtual PCs with any OS on it from DOS to Vista or any flavor of Linux and other things.

A similar program that's free is virtualbox, though it only runs guests that are 32-bit (the 64-bit version is for running on 64-bit hosts).

There's also 2 "versions" of the program; one that's open source and one that's not. The closed source version adds support for running the VM underneath an RDP server, USB support, USB over RDP, and an iSCSI initiator (allowing you to use an iSCSI drive as a target for the virtual disk even if the guest OS doesn't understand iSCSI).

So unless you need to run a 64-bit guest OS, this should do.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.