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Author Topic: GDC SX-3000 “host & SM do not match” Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-02-2017 06:05 PM                        I've always found Dolby's tech support to be excellent, too - it's very rare that you open a ticket on dolbycustomer.com and don't receive a response within an hour or two. They are usually very quick to answer the phone, too, especially if you press the "my screen is down and I need help now" option. Barco is excellent when you finally manage to get through to someone, but I have had emails to their help address go unanswered until I've followed them up with a call, and then had to wait on hold for tens of minutes until someone answers. On the one occasion I've had to call NEC, they answered pretty quickly and gave me the information I needed. I've never had to ask for tech support from Christie or Sony, and so can't comment on them.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-02-2017 09:06 PM                     Things weren't too good before dolbycustomer.com existed....  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-03-2017 05:27 AM                     For the record, I've never had a problem with Dolby tech support but perhaps I'm better connected than most. Yes, GDC tech support has always been excellent. Barco has always been very good for me too and they are the truly 24/7 support company for both techs and getting parts out. For emergencies, I do tend to use the manufacturer's email/support site route combined with a phone call. They are going to ask for logs anyway so I start by getting logs, sending/uploading and then follow with the call.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-03-2017 11:34 AM                     quote: Steve Guttag perhaps I'm better connected than most And there in lies the actual problem that was occuring at Dolby once certain people departed! If a dealer or company is buying another companies product the end user, dealer and servicing person should not have to be "better connected" than any other tech to get the best service. This not only displays a blatant lack of care about the end user on the part of the manufacturer, but it is simply just stupid. In the end Dolby failed anyways and bought up another company to shore up that end of the company. As I have said for a long time. SR was Dolby's pinnacle achievement and they have been there and are gone. Atmos is a last gasp from them and has also failed miserably. Many existing 7.1 systems still offer a more impressive sound experience than the typical Atmos system does. Dolby was once a great entity with awesome products, but have (sadly) literally become completely unneeded in today's cinema industry, and it's been at their own hand. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-03-2017 07:27 PM                     Gee Mark, I can only say "perhaps" because I cannot experience what others experience. Yet you jump on this and run with it as if it was fact. From what i can tell, if you upload to Dolby Customer with a priority 1 then call tech support with a "critical emergency that is interfering with your show" I've never known them not to respond either instantly or very fast. I think Dolby SR was great for analog, Dolby Digital did a lot with very little for 35mm film (did enough to effectively put an end to 70mm releases, unfortunately). Atmos is no small achievement either. You are welcome to like or dislike anything or anyone but it hardly makes it fact.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-03-2017 10:14 PM                     You seem to forget (all too easily) that for about the first three to four years of Dolby D-Cinema that service did not exist there. The service that existed was Norm with his computer database, or email Norm the logs and they'd get to it and you'd hear back in a day or two. Dolby Engineering in fact had to look at the logs up until the on line feature was started. It was after Mike Renlund went to work there that the actual customer service was finally initiated. This was long after all my customers had decidedly left Dolby behind. Mark  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-04-2017 04:28 PM                        If dolbycustomer.com and the log analyzer were Mike's work, then he's made a huge contribution to Dolby's customer service offering (both direct to end users, and via service vendors). An offline log analyzer app would be helpful, though, like the diagnostics reader app that Barco packages with Communicator. Many's the time I've downloaded a log from a Dolby or Doremi server that is acting up, but have been in a booth with no Internet access or cell signal at the time, and thus unable to put it through the log analyzer there and then.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-05-2017 01:18 PM                     I'm fortunate in that regard. All but two of the 334 screens I did have either a tms or booth computer, or both. The two that don't have any access are Drive Ins. And there is internet at the motel less than a mile from either location. At one place the owner also lives right across from the Drive In. GDC has always gotten back to me within a few hours if I send them problematic logs. If they weren't so fast at it then I'd be pretty much demanding an on-line solution from them as well. Right now reading logs is one less thing I have to mess with. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-05-2017 04:14 PM                     Honestly, I've never had a big issue getting prompt customer support from Dolby on the DCinema stuff. Have things gotten better since Mike Renlund started, you bet! Norm was never by himself, as you make it out to be, however. It is extremely rare that the automated log analyzer points me to something that I may have missed. I use it now mostly as a safeguard. It ensures I don't miss anything. If you know the date/time of an incident, it shouldn't be too hard for a service tech to look at the logs and see what happened. This is particularly true of the the DSS logs. It is pretty much a play-by-play log (ScreenServer-Aud#-devel) and you don't have to pay extortion fees to get someone to read it! There are other logs in there, including the mediablock (CAT862 or CAT745) plus many others but starting at the ScreenServer you can get a lot of information. Many times, it is a combination of server and projector. I normally pull them both and compare time lines and can often put a pretty decent picture together. Mike didn't start the log analyzer thing. That is something that came withe the Doremi buyout...perhaps he had a hand at giving it what to look for. I don't know; I never asked.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-06-2017 01:46 PM                     It's irrelevant how the log analyzer got started, but it's a good thing to have access to if you do much with Dolby. With GDC it's just not something I have ever needed since they do it PDQ. In the lat 7 years of GDC I can still count the number of server issues I have had on one hand, about to go to the second hand though. I recently had an OS HD become a bit wacky. GDC kept insisting that it could be recovered with the restore feature, however the console to get to the restore feature could not be made to run because the drive itself had issues and was really at end of useful life. Popped in a new OS drive and off it went, within 20 minutes they had remoted in to update the Serial number and the server was back on line all done in about 40 minutes before the joint opened for the day. Now moving to open finger #6 for the next GDC issue! Mark  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 10-06-2017 03:17 PM                       quote: Mark Gulbrandsen It's irrelevant how the log analyzer got started But Mary, you're the one who made the claim Mike Renlund started it. When you're proven wrong, you blow it off. Quite annoying!  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-06-2017 03:21 PM                     Wow...I was up to server issue 6 for GDC pretty fast, particularly on the SX2000AR and am around 6 on the SX2001. GDC is only reading the logs because your customers are paying them to year-by-year, which adds into the TCO of the GDC server.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-06-2017 04:41 PM                     quote: But Mary, you're the one who made the claim Mike Renlund started it. When you're proven wrong, you blow it off. Quite annoying! Actually not. I just said that actual service started there when he did. Before Mike arrived things were spotty at best. I have yet to even use the on line interrogator because I have but one DSS-100 left in my service area that will become a door stop when it dies. In fact it was you, and then Lonnie leaving Dolby that caused it all to go down hill! quote: Steve Guttag GDC is only reading the logs because your customers are paying them to year-by-year, which adds into the TCO of the GDC server. Except if one of them does need that media block or server swapped out then all of a sudden you are way in the lead dollar wise over what the warranty cost you on a 6 plex for the year. And I have had to do both of those in the last year, one motherboard too. I have now seven DSS-100 (waiting on the 8th) that have become door stops. No GDC's have become door stops as of yet. Mark  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 10-06-2017 04:59 PM                     On a few of my SX-3000 units, I'm getting "Out of Warranty for x amount of days" warnings. Is this going to be a issue related to this thread? thx-Monte  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-06-2017 05:33 PM                     All of the DSS100/DSP100s that I tend to are operational though in two sites they have become the backup server. 3 GDCs have been scrapped, thus far, for me. You Mark are such a liar. Mike's SX2001 was replaced by an SX3000, by YOU when it tanked. Are you going to hand-wave that one somehow? And if GDC had the stellar service record you lead on (and I'm NOT saying that don't have a good record) then why the need for paying for the warranty? Based on your numbers of installed servers alone, GDC is collecting over $167,000/year to read the logs of the servers you install and back up some 6 servers (again, your words). And that is presuming ALL of YOUR customers get the multiplex rate on extended warranty. Gee, for $167K/year, I'll read your logs and replace up to 6 servers/year. And given that your servers never have issues, the log reading would be quite lite indeed.  |  IP: Logged

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