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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: What goes wrong in digital cinema?
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-19-2014 04:37 AM
The reason why it's hidden is not because they do not want you to use it, but because it's not needed during normal operation.
quote: Steve Guttag
I've actually found that the hard reboot to be the more reliable one in most cases. Given the 6:30 reboot time...would you rather do it once or twice?
Since the mediablock is a self-contained system, the only way to be certain it will do a proper reload after a crash is to kill the power to it. A "hot reboot" won't do that and even a normal shutdown should kill all power to most of the system (including the mediablock), but only for a short time, as it will enter standby mode later. I'm not certain if this short disruption will be sufficient to reload the mediablock in all cases.
If you unplug it, you're certain that all power (besides that from internal batteries off course) gets killed after a few seconds. The problem is, you can not even do that with the power switch, as the power switch will also bring the system back to standby, just like a proper shutdown would do.
quote: Steve Guttag
As for the APC (or other brand) Ethernet controlled power strip...I wish I could find one that responds to normal "serial" type strings instead of the SNMP business.
That's true... They all come with a CLI, SNMP, web interface and sometimes some kind of XML interface. It's rather hard to automate from your cinema server without any nasty hacks. Although via SNMP (via e.g. a Linux shell) it's rather easy once you figured out the correct OID stuff. You might want to try to use a TCP command that connects to the CLI, but that will probably never work reliable as you first need to log in, wait for a prompt and then send your actual commands. This needs to happen in a single TCP session.
But then again, the situations in which you want to automate the hard shutdown/power on of equipment from within your cinema server are probably rather limited. Those things are great (although still a bit expensive) if you need to do power cycles on stuff that's otherwise hard to unplug or located at a remote site.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-19-2014 04:40 PM
Expect, that brings back some memories. I've actually tried to use it once for the purpose of extracting configs from devices. I ended up using Python though, although I don't exactly know why anymore. (And nowadays there's a tool called Rancid that does almost the same and actually uses expect as a library.)
The problem with those tools is to hook it up to your cinema automation, without having to introduce additional hardware or hacks that breaks upon the next software upgrade, especially if you're doing this not for your own business, but for other people's business.
quote: Steve Guttag
I have indeed automated one (Cyberpower brand)...got all of the timing right and such.
Well, you earned some respect ![[Wink]](wink.gif) . But did you do that over Serial or Ethernet via Telnet? Telnet is close to raw TCP, but there are some pitfalls now and then, especially if you need to send those Telnet control commands.
quote: Steve Guttag
Note too...most UPS systems do have an Ethernet card that provide similar control. For instance, the Tripplite brand has the SNMPWEB card that works in the SMART and SU series (as well as others) of UPSes. Once installed and configured, you can turn off outlets in banks.
Like you already mentioned, they mostly are only switchable in banks and not per outlet. In many cases that might be just fine, but I'm still waiting for a manufacturer to produce an affordable UPS with switchable built-in outlets.
The problem with those "structured power systems" is, that most of them are not universal. Great and affordable stuff that might be available for 110/120V AC is often not available for 230V AC or vice versa.
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