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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Datasat and Qube abandon their customers.
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Juan Jose Garcia Calvo
Film Handler
Posts: 64
From: Pedrajas de San Esteban, Spain
Registered: May 2003
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posted 03-15-2017 03:54 AM
They are going to be big problems, Frank.
We never had VPF for our equipment. Little cinema theaters like ours didn't have rights to get the VPF here...
In my point of view, this is not an programmed obsolescence problem. The server works flawless with no problems at all. Their obsolescence will occur in a few years, of course, but the DC20 is a only 7 years old server that will die because the designed certificate tree can't accept more renewals. This is simply a BAD DESIGN.
Another added problem is their NON DCI compliance. You can get on the internet the PDF specs sheet of the DC20 (signed by Datasat) where you can read the DC20 is DCI compliant, and now it seems not to be DCI compliant.
This is not because the certificates tree issue. As Warner said in his letter, these QUBE servers had two broken security cases detected in Italy, and they saw they are not DCI compliant, so they were going to stop sending films for these servers.
The only solution DATASAT told me some weeks ago was to accept the offer I've received from QUBE to buy an old stock QXPD with no warranty and no spare parts at reduced price. I thought that was not acceptable, and I wrote several emails with no answer.
Yesterday, after some weeks with no answer from Datasat to my emails, I received an email from him saying that they were looking for another solution but as I wrote this post, they stops all their efforts...
I just told him that in the same way I wrote about the problems, I would write about an hipotetic good solution if they gave it...
Next step for us is to go to the European Union courts to tell him this pre-contractual false publicity.
Any other advice will be welcomed
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-15-2017 11:28 AM
quote: Leo Enticknap
I have to say that I have had a far better experience with Datasat when it comes to legacy products and formats: they were always really helpful in providing backup for our XD-10s and XD-20s, and providing audio content on one or two occasions for prints that came without it. Now that they've sold off the DTS film audio operation to another company (can't remember the name), it's up to them now, but while Datasat were the custodians of it, they did a good job, IMHO.
This is from the "Kong Skull Island in 5/70mm" thread in the Film Handler's forum:
quote: Daniel Schulz
The technology is in good hands; Datasat has licensed it to a company in LA called Inventure Studios, which is basically the last man standing for optical soundtracks for film. Inventure has several staffers from what used to be the premiere shop doing optical tracks for film (including quad track SR/SRD/DTS/SDDS), and also has on staff the DTS/Datasat engineer who used to be responsible for maintaining all of the sound cameras around the world for shooting DTS timecode. They all work really closely with Fotokem, so I think the ecosystem can be kept up for as long as the studios demand 5/70 prints with Datasat sound.
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Carsten Kurz
Film God
Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 03-17-2017 07:03 AM
The interesting question here is, what is actually keeping them from prolonging the server certificate? Our Sony and Barco media blocks have certificates that expire 2043. Why was the Qube ever set up/supplied with a certificate that expired already in 2017?
There may be a relation to the underlying OS, I don't know how the server certificate and the underlying OS interact here. It may be that for some reason the embedded XPs license mechanism is running out and a connected media block certificate is bound to that mechanism. It is weird, though, that this machine's certificate did already expire at least two or three times before and needed to be prolonged. That would mean the initial certificate was only valid for 3 years or so. Come on...
It's also not clear why in these cases the certificate was only prolonged for a single year, especially if they now quote a limited number of allowed renewals as the reason for no further prolongation. Sounds like shit to me...
Doremis run on linux kernels that are over 10 years old now, they do not seem to have any of these issues. Shows that a proprietary closed OS may be a very bad choice.
I don't think DCI thought of a mechanism to withdraw DCI compliancy for select equipment. They wouldn't need to. If certain equipment showed a severe weakness years after deployment, they could blacklist the specific devices serials/certs only. In this case, it seems there is a mix of issues, one with the expiring cert, one with alleged security issue. In the latter case, I guess it's up to the local distributors to allow or disallow KDM generation for that series of machines. Remember, there was a time when no equipment at all was DCI compliant, but was still supplied with encrypted content and KDMs.
Yes, Datasat is responsible formally as the company who sold it, but only Qube is able to solve it technically. It's an interesting question how this machine relates to their current servers.
- Carsten
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Juan Jose Garcia Calvo
Film Handler
Posts: 64
From: Pedrajas de San Esteban, Spain
Registered: May 2003
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posted 03-17-2017 12:21 PM
Very good question, Mr McLeod...
Maybe Other owners don't use these forums...
Maybe other owners don't mind to buy another server (new or old stock at reduced price)...
Maybe I'm the only Datasat DC20 server buyer...
Maybe in other countries DATASAT or QUBE has offered a free solution to their customers...
In fact, I know another film-tech forum user with a Datasat DC20 that answered me by PM. I don't know why they want write about his experience here, but if they prefer to be annonimous in this problem, it's up to they...
About the QUBE servers, there are two different series: 1 and 2.
The DC20 is equivalent to the series 2 XPD, and these servers have a upgrade procedure to "Windows 7 standard" (somekind of light OS version of Win7) and this upgrade solve the DCI compliance and the certificates issues.
Some people told me that this upgrade is not stable, but it seem to works... and this is the system that they offered me at reduced price as solution.
So, I think this upgrade sould be performed to our datasat servers, maybe with some little work, like adopting the motherboard drivers to accept the DC20 motherboard, the ASUS P5Qdlx. I think they don't want to make this work ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
The worse part of this is for the QUBE XPD series 1 servers owners...
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 03-25-2017 01:38 PM
quote: Juan Jose Garcia Calvo
They claim to "convert" a series 1 projector into a series 2. Thy sell an "sleeve" to let a series2 server to work with series 1 projectors:
DIGICINE BROCHURE
As I understand it:
Series 1 = media block is in the server, with dual-link HD-SDI output from the media block to a gore board in the projector, encrypted using Cinelink II TLS. The decryption key is communicated separately through the booth's LAN connection between the server and projector.
Series 2 = the encrypted DCP data exactly as ingested is passed through a cat5 or 6 connection from the server to an IMB in the projector; the IMB decrypts it, and passes it through the backplane of the projector's card cage to the TI board.
So this "sleeve" isn't converting the projector at all: what it's doing is to take the output from a server that does not have any media block built in to it, decrypting it, re-encrypting it using TLS, and then passing it through dual-link HD-SDI to the series 1 projector's gore board. Basically, it's a series 1 media block, but in an external box, separate from the server.
I see no reason why this setup wouldn't work or be reliable, but you can buy a used Dolby DSS200 with a built-in cat862 media block for around $5-8k, update the software, replace the fans, hard drives and CMOS battery, and then effectively you've got yourself a new server. If you go to a series 2 projector later, you can put an IMB in it and away you go. The only thing that would scupper that plan is the inability to get hold of a Dolby IMB (cat745) when the time came (I believe that they're not made anymore), but I remain to be convinced that the Digicine approach is the most cost effective solution for someone looking for a new server, who currently has a series 1/gore board projector, but is looking to upgrade to a series 2 projector in, say, the next year or two.
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