Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Throw the breakers at night? (CP2000 ZX)

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»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Digital Cinema Forum » Throw the breakers at night? (CP2000 ZX) (Page 2)

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Topic: Throw the breakers at night? (CP2000 ZX)

Brian Guckian
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From: Dublin, Ireland
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posted 05-04-2009 07:48 AM

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quote: Kevin Fairchild
Also I would hate to leave the servers on at night. It just seems like a waste to have them running all night.

It would be interesting to see some figures for the total power consumption of say, a 10-screen digital installation. Whilst individual draw might be small, there is a cumulative impact both in terms of powered-on time and installation size.

Energy costs might be lower again for now, but all the long-term projections are upwards.

There are also issues with energy wastage from heat dissipation, etc.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Brad is correct that RAID's don't like to be powered down... you will also probably experience more red hard drive lights in doing so

But surely this limitation could be designed out in the interests of energy efficiency? When you think about it, typical cinema downtime can be 42% (say, midnight to 10am). Whilst that certainly doesn't translate into like-for-like energy savings, there would seem to be considerable room for improvement.

It ain't easy being green! [Roll Eyes]

[Roll Eyes]

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Scott Norwood
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posted 05-04-2009 08:42 AM

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Power-cycling disks is generally a Bad Thing (tm), as they tend to fail when powered up. I've not dealt with the current generation of D-cinema servers, but, based upon my background (and full time job) in IT, I'd be reluctant to power down servers, except maybe in venues that don't operate every day. The power cost will be trivial when compared with the cost of replacement disks and/or lost shows. Also, as others have mentioned, remote monitoring is generally easier if the machines that are being monitored can be reliably expected to be powered up and on the network at all times. In any case, one would definitely want a UPS for the server.

It would be interesting to see what Dolby and other server manufacturers recommend.

I've also heard arguments that processors and amplifiers should stay powered up, since they, too, tend to fail at power-on. That said, most theaters that I know will shut their entire sound racks down at night, and have very few failures.
Out of curiousity, what happens in the event of a power failure in a [dlp]

[dlp]

show? Can the movie be re-started from the point of interruption, or does it need to re-start from the beginning? Is there any concept of "fast forward" and "rewind" in these servers?

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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posted 05-04-2009 11:10 AM

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All of the ones I know will resume from where the power interruption occurred.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
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posted 05-04-2009 12:51 PM

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I more or less agree with Scott's post. I never shut off my servers at home (Dell 2850's)and both are on UPSs that can run them for around a half hour non-stop. I haven't experienced a single drive failure in either of them and they've been on continously for over two years. One of these days I should power them down and do a good cleaning inside because they're probably pretty dusty by now.

As for Cinema servers... On Dolby's you can fast forword but not in plain sight on screen. You can pause the unit and then hit the fast forword button to jump ahead... then take it out of pause and resume play at the new point. There is also a means to type in a new time along the time line and have it jump to that point as well. I believe there is something in DCI that prohibits visible on screen fast-forwording/rewinding.yes, in a power outage all the servers I;ve delt with resume at the point where power was choked.

Mark

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Brad Miller
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posted 05-04-2009 05:51 PM

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quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I never shut off my servers at home (Dell 2850's)and both are on UPSs that can run them for around a half hour non-stop. I haven't experienced a single drive failure in either of them and they've been on continously for over two years.

You better do a backup before you shut them down. Seriously, Scott is right that most disk failures happen during spin up. Hard drives are quite a bit different than amplifiers with their moving parts. Turning them off at night WILL shorten their useful life. No money is actually being saved when you get to the bottom line.

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John Wilson
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posted 05-04-2009 05:58 PM

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quote: Scott Norwood
I've also heard arguments that processors and amplifiers should stay powered up, since they, too, tend to fail at power-on.

Any thoughts on this? I have amps I leave on mainly because I'm tired of replacing the damn switches on the front. I've been doing that for a year and no issues whatsoever. I also have QSC and Aussie Monitor amps in other theatres that I do switch off. No problems with the QSC's as yet, but the Aussie's go down form time to time...more from an age problem though I think.

Amps off or leave on?

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Jon P. Inghram
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posted 05-04-2009 06:58 PM

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AFAIK we haven't had any of our QSC amps go bad and we switch them off with breakers, except for one auditorium which was turned off with the switches on the amps. We've had a few CP650s act up however, the cooling fan died in one and I think a power supply in another.

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Brian Guckian
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posted 05-04-2009 07:34 PM

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Never had a problem with QSC amplifier switches, also used Crown products without any trouble.

quote: Scott Norwood
Power-cycling disks is generally a Bad Thing (tm), as they tend to fail when powered up.

That's not in doubt, but (remote monitoring aside) the question is why this issue can't be addressed by manufacturers. Admittedly these concerns could be directed at the entire IT area, but it's really very much like "leaving the lights on all night at the office". It's hugely energy inefficient when you start to look at it [Frown]

[Frown]

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Steve Guttag
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posted 05-04-2009 08:34 PM

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I've never found any benefit to leaving the amps or other sound equipment on. I've got theatres that leave em on, other that turn them off...one could not find any convincing evidence that leaving them on does any long-term good.

I do not recommend using the switches on the amps...rather either get a sequencer or just use the breakers...Breakers are cheap and even the non-switch rated ones are rated for an amazing amount of cycles. Remember you are not switching the breakers at full load. If you use good breakers (Square-D QO style or Cutler-Hammer) you'll likely get 15-20 years on them...if you use junk (GE, Siemens, ITE...etc...basically not Square-D or Cutler-Hammer)...then you'll be lucky if they work when new. Now in larger switching gear, GE can be fine...but forget it on the 120/208 load centers. The advantage of switching the breakers is that you can source the breakers at most any home center or electrical supply...the fancy switches on the amps or other gear are bound to be more expensive and less likely to be immediately obtainable.

Steve

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Mark Gulbrandsen
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posted 05-04-2009 08:35 PM

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quote: Brad Miller
You better do a backup before you shut them down.

To be honest I've never backed them up but I agree that I should! One 2850 is running Windows Home Server as a stand alone and it has it's own drive extender that does it's own backups spread amongst the other drives... 6 drives total, about 1.5 tb. The drive extender works pretty well and I've actually tested it by pulling a hot drive out while the server is up and running. Like the Dolby Server you get an on screen warning on the console. Re-installing that pulled drive went just fine and no data was lost. This server is mainly there just to store and share photos although I do keep D-Cinema software on it so I can remotely access it from anywhere. The other box is running Win 2003 with the split backplane and is the front end so to say of my home network. Wife uses it to store cad drawings and other misc stuff.

Mark

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Mike Blakesley
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posted 05-04-2009 10:23 PM

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quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Wife uses it to store cad drawings and other misc stuff.

Well, Mark...she may think you're a "cad," but at least she's still drawing pictures of you so you might have a chance! [Big Grin]

[Big Grin]

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Mark Gulbrandsen
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posted 05-04-2009 10:33 PM

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Yea, and the pictures are now in 3-D CAD... I have lots of dimension going here [thumbsup]

[thumbsup]

mark

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Louis Bornwasser
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posted 05-05-2009 06:58 AM

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I agree that the electrical loads should be shut down at night with the breakers.

However: the disc drives should run continuously. Back in the day when radio stations had cart machines with a large flywheel and bronze bushings, it was found that running the motor continuously gave better bearing life. Apparently getting hot and staying there was better than temperature cycling. Perhaps disc drives are similar. Louis

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Jack Ondracek
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posted 05-05-2009 09:58 AM

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quote: Louis Bornwasser
it was found that running the motor continuously gave better bearing life. Apparently getting hot and staying there was better than temperature cycling. Perhaps disc drives are similar. Louis

That was actually because the motors took some time to come up to speed. Jocks would slam in a cart & hit the start button, only to hear a huge wow in the sound. So... they fixed that by jumpering the motor switches.

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Tony Bandiera Jr
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posted 05-05-2009 01:56 PM

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quote: Steve Guttag
I've never found any benefit to leaving the amps or other sound equipment on. I've got theatres that leave em on, other that turn them off...one could not find any convincing evidence that leaving them on does any long-term good.

When I worked at Knott's Berry Farm here in So Cal, ALL sound equipment was left on 24/7. Failures of any amps were extremely rare and they have literally hundreds of amplifiers in the park. One facility DID turn their amps off at the end of each day and they went through a lot of amplifiers. Most amps there were Crown, there were some Yamaha (they sucked ass..I blew one up on purpose with 240 volts into the speaker jacks after it gave me a huge jolt when hot-plugging a speaker cable, which was a 1/4" line to stage monitors) and finally they started to use QSC. Never had any problems with QSC, even after two of them (Series One model 1400) got rained on one night, while powered up!! (The other amp on that roof was a Yamaha and it died completely. Never could get it to work even after extended drying time in my mom's oven. [Smile]

[Smile]

)

At UC Irvine we have MXa and USA series QSC's that stay on 24/7. Only one amp ever failed (one of the USA's on the surrounds, that was about 4 years after it was installed, and QSC STILL fixed it for free) and this is after 12 years of use. I do clean the dust out of them every other year.

IMHO, I would agree that leaving them on is a lot less stressful that turning them off every day.

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