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Author Topic: Datasat Digital Entertainment acquired by ATI Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-23-2017 07:30 AM                     An overseen feature of the AP20 is also that it's HDMI switcher is very reliable. In nearly 5 years we never experienced any issues with visual or audio noise, HDCP, etc. when switching sources or configuring devices. This value is probably overseen even by many AP20 users because it just works and you forget that many other devices cause the usual load of problems with HDMI. The HDMI switcher board is not made by Datasat, but is an OEM part. Nevertheless, it's a fully integrated part of the AP20, and it works extremely well. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-23-2017 06:01 PM                     Carsten, I think there are some nifty HDMI switches these days that cost ~100.00 that can do the same exact job. Not quite sure I agree with having video stuff in with the audio processor anyways. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-24-2017 02:52 AM                     I wouldn't trust any $100 HDMI anything in a professional environment. If the device does not have an active EDID and HDCP solution that prevents the source from having to re-handshake with the projector, you WILL have issues, sooner or later. Part of what makes the HDMI switcher in the AP20 make sense is that it extracts the audio, right there. By using an external switcher you have to get three devices all together, the projector, the switcher and the audio processor. By putting the HDMI switcher there, you've removed one device entirely. If the audio processor is in a state of failure, you weren't going to have your show anyway so there is no extra risk associated with it.  |  IP: Logged Pete Naples Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1565 From: Dunfermline, Scotland Registered: Feb 2001 posted 09-24-2017 03:41 AM                     Here we try to avoid HDMI, which is after all a domestic format, in the professional environment altogether. For example, alternative content distributed from a central rack will be converted to HDSDI after HDCP etc has been dealt with and audio embedded. HD-SDI distro is relatively cheap, the cabling is cheap and simple to install as is audio de-embedding at the destination end. Obviously picture is sent straight to the projector. Most importantly is that HD-SDI is reliable. Said rack often will house TMS plus alt-con equipment, a couple of satellite receiver/decoders or a Lansat unit and maybe a Bluray deck and a scaler/switcher (although we try to avoid Bluray too for the same reasons, generally anything to be screened from Bluray gets ripped and converted to DCP).  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 09-24-2017 09:04 AM                     I've done some automated HDMI switching and audio/video splitting on the cheap (< $1K), using ATEN HDMI switchers with serial port, a HD Fury Integral, some DR. HDMI devices to fix the inevitable EDID and HDCP mess. And yes, it works, without any nasty clicks in the audio and issue-free transitions between the video sources. But damn, it's ugly. It's all non-19" rack mountable equipment, you have those floppy HDMI wires running everywhere connected to a bunch of dongle-type devices, together with a whole bunch of those shitty plug-in type PSUs filling up your PDU. You get all this, integrated into your sound processor, part of a neatly 19" rack mountable box as part of an AP20.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 09-24-2017 01:26 PM                        Couldn't agree more with this, especially after an experience last week. I did a PM on a Barco DP4K-32B with an Alchemy, in the course of which I updated the software in both the projector and the ICMP (both were really old: the projector was on 1.3.something, and the Alchemy was on 1.2.4). Two days later, the customer demanded a refund on the service call, because the projector had frozen during a show, causing him to claim that the software update "had made HDMI totally unreliable." The following day I went to the site and tried to reproduce the fault. It turned out that the show in which he'd experienced problems was being done with a $100, consumer grade BD player hooked directly to the Alchemy via a long (probably 30 feet) HDMI cable. He no longer had the disc used for the show, because the owner had taken it immediately afterwards. So we tried another one that was in the booth (the playing surface was covered in fingerprints and scratches, and he wouldn't have cleaned it before inserting it if I hadn't). It turned out that the problem probably happened because he paused the disc in the middle of the program for an intermission, the player went to sleep after a timeout, and this caused the ICMP to lock up. The projector froze and became totally unresponsive, requiring a cold reboot to wake it up. Barco looked at the logs and saw that it got into an endless loop trying to sync to a nonexistent HDMI signal after the BD player went into hibernation. While this shouldn't have totally locked up the projector (which they're investigating further), Barco told me that this wasn't caused by the software update, and would almost certainly have happened with the old software still installed. In fact, if they'd have seen in the log that the old software was still there, they would immediately have told me to update it. The timing of the software update was coincidental, but of course it's totally understandable that the end user didn't see it that way. The takeaway from this is that end users, especially in arthouse and multi-use type venues, expect HDMI to be 100% reliable in a professional a/v environment using consumer equipment, because if a BD player works reliably with the $200 flatscreen in your living room, why wouldn't it when hooked to a $200k d-cinema projector in a theater? The answer is that if you have to turn the TV in your living room off and then on again in order to restart your movie after getting up to use the bathroom, it's no big deal, it happens all the time, and no-one remembers having to do that. But if the same thing happens in a movie theater with 400 paying customers wondering what's going on, that's a bigger deal and you will remember it. So yes, anyone with even a basic knowledge of HDMI's shortcomings would not dream of using a setup like the one I encountered for a professional presentation, and would at the very least use a scaler/switcher that deals with the HDCP and EDID handshaking risks, and very likely converts the video to HD-SDI for onward transmission to the projector. But there are theater staff out there who do not have that basic knowledge, and expect simple HDMI connections involving consumer grade equipment to work reliably when doing a task for which they were not designed.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-24-2017 02:18 PM                     quote: Steve Guttag I wouldn't trust any $100 HDMI anything in a professional environment. Well, there are also more expensive, professional ones available if that suits the budget better. You can spend a hundred dollars or two thousand dollars on an HDMI switcher if you want to. But I still would not want that built into the cinema processor, it's not even a professional video signal format! Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-24-2017 04:46 PM                     Professional or not, it is being used professionally (before paying customers). HDMI is also used a bit in Broadcast now too...but I digress. If you use a switcher system that manages EDID as well as HDCP such that the switcher is a sink and source, your HDMI problems drop to practically zero because everyone is a direct connection, no "repeaters." But those devices are not in the $100 range. As for the sound processor being the switcher...if it is a good switcher, why not? If it is a bad one, I agree.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 09-24-2017 05:47 PM                     I agree with Steve on this. Unfortunately, exhibitors expect to be able to leverage HDMI as an easy access for alternative content. Whether it is the occasional Blu-Ray, some business presentation, some live-streamed event or whatnot. You cannot always expect everybody to show up with a perfectly made DCP. What if they would show up with HD-SDI, would that really make things simpler? If the whole world would have embraced HD-SDI instead of HDMI, wouldn't you think HD-SDI would have the same problems as HDMI? The friction-based HDMI connector might be cheap and a burden in professional, high duty setups, but HDMI itself is not really the problem, it's just another digital interconnect. The problem is mostly in the way it has been implemented. Most implementations are simply riddled with bugs, but before they are getting fixed, the stuff usually is already replaced with new stuff, with new bugs. Part of the trouble is to blame by the requirement to encrypt everything end-to-end, the other part on the simple fact that the world moves so fast, it simply doesn't take the time necessary to perfect things. Another often forgotten feature of the AP20, is that it can serve as a standalone "automation deck" and control device. You can define macros and assign them to buttons. So, if you're running a show with alternate content, it can essentially take much of the functionality of your server or IMS. And you can argue whether or not this should be the function of an Audio Processor, but you'd need a bunch of other devices to implement this or similar functionality. So, the AP20 is (or was?) pretty much a Swiss army knife for theaters that did more than just movies and needed flexibility on their inputs and outputs. It solves most or all of their requirements in a single box. And while you obviously can replace all of them with other solutions, it still makes the AP20 a fine, uncluttered single-box solution.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-26-2017 05:14 PM                     quote: Steve Guttag HDMI is also used a bit in Broadcast now too...but I digress. It's not going to be found on any professional piece of broadcast equipment. You may find it on some lesser camcorders that broadcast people use at dangerous locations because they can be considered throw away if something happens to it. You won't find it in any edit suite or on any piece of gear in the broadcast chain itself. Plus on a large scale right now it's generally only 8 bits, and only very recently does it support 10 or 12 bit data. Mark  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 09-28-2017 03:44 AM                     I concur, the RED WEAPON 8K S35 is one of those lesser cameras. To the defense of RED, it is officially called a "monitor port". (And only morons would use RED cameras to for live broadcasting.)  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-28-2017 06:52 AM                     Mark, you'll find the HDMI port on numerous Broadcast gear now.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 09-28-2017 09:02 AM                     Yes, and it's not surprising. This industry is moving so fast, it's hard to keep up. You'll see an ever growing convergence between the "Pro" and "Consumer" market, which doesn't need to be bad, as long as it works as expected. HDMI 2.0a offers up to 18 Gbit/s while 12G-SDI only offers 12 GBit/s and 24G-SDI isn't even a thing yet. Also, HDMI interfaces, even the high-end ones are far cheaper than SDI. So, for short legs, HDMI has some strong selling points. DisplayPort has a version that can be fixed with a screw, there doesn't seem to be a standardized locking mechanism for HDMI. That's my biggest gripe with HDMI from a mechanical standpoint, those cables tend to slip out, especially if you're working with gear in flight cases that tend to get shipped around a lot. The other one is the lack of simplicity, compared to *-SDI. The auto-negotiation part of HDMI should make it a plug-and-play experience, but sloppy implementations cause a lot of headaches.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-28-2017 12:29 PM                     A big plus in SDI's favor is that the cable can be made in the field with a high degree of reliability. I'm all for SDI but I note I see a lot of TMDS (includes HDMI, Display Port and DVI) type connectors in Broadcast now. As for locking HDMI connectors. "Perfect Path" has had high-friction connectors for some time now.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-28-2017 02:33 PM                        quote: Marcel Birgelen What if they would show up with HD-SDI, would that really make things simpler? If the whole world would have embraced HD-SDI instead of HDMI, wouldn't you think HD-SDI would have the same problems as HDMI? I would guess no, since it doesn't require a two-way handshake, does not have HDCP, and does not have the cable length limits of HDMI. What broadcast equipment uses HDMI, other than cheap monitors and devices that output to monitors? In any case, DVI is really a better choice than HDMI because the connector is more durable, if nothing else.  |  IP: Logged

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