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Author Topic: IMB with Raspberry PI Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 08-11-2017 05:29 AM                     Marcel, the PI does not necessarily need a fast data connection. This is an IMS. You could think of the PI as a touch panel controller. As on a Barco or Christie, they don't need any direct contact with the DCP data. That can be dealt with by other (sub)systems. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 08-11-2017 05:49 AM                     Carsten, that's true if it just runs the IMS part, but Tom indicates that it serves as a storage "frontend" for both internal flash storage and remote storage. If that is true, it will need to transport a considerable amount of data. If it is indeed just the IMS and doesn't do the heavy lifting, a RasPi should be sufficient.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-11-2017 07:05 AM                        quote: Carsten Kurz You could think of the PI as a touch panel controller This makes the most sense in regards to what it's being used for.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-11-2017 05:19 PM                     quote: Marcel Birgelen but Tom indicates that it serves as a storage "frontend" for both internal flash storage and remote storage. If that is true, it will need to transport a considerable amount of data. That's not even how the SX-3000 operates. There is a separate storage controller processor that does all that. It's gonna be eSATA or gigabit or faster ethernet for the incoming data. Mark  |  IP: Logged Dave Macaulay Film God Posts: 2321 From: Toronto, Canada Registered: Apr 2001 posted 08-12-2017 10:45 AM                     What does this matter? If it works, and it seems to, great. Design decisions are both technical and economic. Why design and qualify a processor subsystem if an off-the-shelf one will do the job?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-12-2017 02:58 PM                     Exactly Dave... Even the SX-3000 CPU board is an off the shelf item. It is not doing any of the actual signal handling anyways. Mark  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 08-12-2017 10:09 PM                        quote: Dave Macaulay Why design and qualify a processor subsystem if an off-the-shelf one will do the job? And furthermore, if the off-the-shelf component has been manufactured in larger quantities and for a greater range of applications than something as specialized as an IMB (for which a few thousand of each model will have been made at most), that potentially extends the service life of the product it's being used as part of: there will be a better chance of being able to obtain a replacement if it fails after the product it's integrated into is no longer officially supported by the manufacturer. A recent example I encountered is the power supply units in DSS100s - they're a standard issue Supermicro server slide-in PSU, still used in datacenters everywhere and thus easily available from several vendors.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-13-2017 10:44 AM                     quote: Leo Enticknap A recent example I encountered is the power supply units in DSS100s - they're a standard issue Supermicro server slide-in PSU, still used in datacenters everywhere and thus easily available from several vendors. Actually, All of Dolbly's servers are customized Super Micro equipment. The fan noise speaks for itself . IMagine if Dell had made them for Dolbly how quiet today's booths would be. Mark  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-13-2017 08:20 PM                     Marcel... Speaking of DTS... I had an interesting encounter today in a DTS 6D. I serviced lots and lots of these but never saw one like this. Must have been a way to rebuild units that had failed motherboards. Years back this player has been sent to Computer Spirit which was one of the DTS sub contractors. It has a buss style motherboard and a small industrial 386 equivalent plug on processor board. The Ali chip is a 40 mhz 386 and the board has 4 gb of ram. Its evident that in doing this DTS still wanted to be able to offer repair on these units down the road so they didn't become obsolete. There are various small Chinese industrial computers that would fit in this spot. This had to be the last of the mods DTS provided for the 6D. Also, The Benchmarq BQ3287 is a lithium backed RTC. Although it likely has a very long life, but its still going to die and crash eventually. 10 to 15 years is typical for these in other equipment I've worked on. Mark  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 08-18-2017 04:58 AM                     Interesting find. I guess DTS never got their software to run on more recent Intel compatible CPUs, so that's why they resorted to some exotic Intel 386 compatible chipsets. Else, you'd indeed expect them to use off-the-shelf Intel compatibles, of which there is an almost endless supply. It's probably one of those cases were the original software developers are long gone and nobody dares to touch the original code. Or even worse, where the original code is gone and all that's left is a binary runtime.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-18-2017 11:22 AM                     This was a 6D that had been sent back and upgraded by them, obviously long after they ran out of the original 386 motherboards. This one is still running on DOS. Mark  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-18-2017 11:55 AM                     All 6d ran dos either from a Rom dos card or embedded  |  IP: Logged

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