Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DTS player drive upgrade

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Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 11-13-2007, 01:39 PM:

I'm considering installing a pair of Pioneer Slot Load DVD drives into a DTS-6 unit. Has any anyone had any experience with drives other than TEAC, Toshiba & Plextor?

Posted by Greg Routenburg (Member # 1742) on 11-13-2007, 04:22 PM:

Are they IDE or SCSI drives? If you have never installed the DTS upgrade kit with the Adaptec SCSI adapter and aquilla board then they won't work. Even with the upgrade they may not work. I've had trouble with Pioneer CD-ROM's in the past.

Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 11-13-2007, 06:32 PM:

The target machine is fully upgraded with the 32x TEAC drives, the new SCSI board and the ROM DOS board. I've been looking for a pair of Plextor 32x or 40x drives (I've heard they work no problem), but then I ran across a set of Pioneer slot load drives (which are SCSI) and thought that might be cool.

For instances where drives haven't worked, does the system simply not enter the "ready" state (blinking system light with activity lights flickering on the drives), or is there some other clandestine manifestation (like it all looks right, but just doesn't work).

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-13-2007, 07:03 PM:

Unless you squeak when you walk you're better off in the long run with the latest upgrade kit. Then when a drive fails you go to Wal-Mart and buy an IDE DVD drive on the cheap and replace the bad one.

If you want to know whats happemnning to the DTS during boot up plug in an ISA video card and watch it boot up on a monitor.

Mark

Posted by Greg Routenburg (Member # 1742) on 11-13-2007, 07:59 PM:

I've seen the DTS units do several different things when you install drives that are incompatible. First is the unit will boot until DTS.EXE is loaded and then reboot itself. Second is that it will lock up just randomly or third is it will boot and start to playback sound track and then flake out, again at ramdom points. As Mark said, you can see exactly what is going on with the player if you install an ISA Video card.

If you're on a budget, I've had success finding TEAC CD-ROM's on EBay. It will get you back up and running for the time being and allow you some time to budget for the IDE upgrade kit from DTS. That will ultimately be the best and most reliable solution.

Greg

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-14-2007, 01:11 AM:

I've tagged a good dozen APPLE SCSI drives off of eBone for a song ... and they work great as long you have the V.1.46 upgrade installed in your "6" - two tray unit.

-Monte

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 11-14-2007, 09:35 AM:

The apple drive that works is the sony caddy drive they made for apple

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 11-14-2007, 11:18 AM:

You can actually get the same IDE-SCSI bridge straight from the manufacturer.

Product page for AEC-772OU you'll see they're selling it for $69 a piece.

You'd still have to get the software update CDROM or, if your MOBO isn't the current E363, the new ROM board firmware chip. Plus, you'd need a power adapter cable like the one you get in the kit (though I'm sure those are pretty cheap).

Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 11-14-2007, 01:58 PM:

Actually if you buy the bridge adapter from the manufacturer, they include a power splitter that will work.

If you have the 1.46 eprom, the non-DTS motherboard (not the E363 board), the Virtual ROM board (AQRM), updated SCSI board (not the Future Domain board), and the proper length SCSI cables, these bridges (2 or 3) and the IDE drives are all you should need. I believe the update CDRom is only for systems with the E363 board (which doesn't use the ROM-DOS board).

Is it the experience of everyone here that once you have the SCSI-IDE bridge you can use any IDE drives? (Presumably all the same model number though).

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 11-14-2007, 10:56 PM:

quote: Blaine Young
I believe the update CDRom is only for systems with the E363 board (which doesn't use the ROM-DOS board).

That's why I said that you'd need the cdrom OR the newer firmware chip. [Smile]

Posted by Matt Close (Member # 996) on 11-15-2007, 09:25 PM:

I have bought enough of these drives to last until film is dead .... so I will let the secret out... here is the info you need......

http://www.6thplanet.com

search for 'teac' ... They still have 42 BRAND NEW CD-532S drives left in stock... 12 quid each!

Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 12-07-2007, 03:19 PM:

Just an update. I've successfully deployed a DTS-6 unit with the Pioneer DVD-305S Slot Drives. The only variant seems to be that they spin up to full speed (where the DTS supplied TEAC drives spin only about 4x or 8x). Also noted that when the drives are not being accessed, the busy lights on each drive are dark. The 'flutter' activity that the TEAC drives perform doesn't happen. The plus side is that it is VERY easy to determine which drive is being accessed at any particular time.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 12-07-2007, 03:42 PM:

How long have you been running these drives? Usually you'll start to see non-supported SCSI drives drop out randomly during the show every once in a while.

Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 12-07-2007, 03:54 PM:

I performed the drive change-out a week ago. I've just added a 3rd drive to the unit yesterday. The playback so far has been error free. I'm keeping my eye on the unit for any failures. I suspect this works because of the latest updates elsewhere in the system are in place, and could take the IDE-DVD drive kits.

I've considered installing a video board and monitor on the system to monitor what's going on at a software level. Does the system actually produce any display data - like the SN / Reel / Frame playing?

Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 12-12-2007, 11:20 AM:

This installation continues to operate flawlessly.

I'm not sure about other installations, but this particular unit (purchased used) had the SCSI terminations all wrong when I got it. The cable went from the SCSI adapter to the bottom drive (B) and then the top (A), with the SCSI termination on the card and then on B drive. Configured this way, the SCSI bus may experience data loss which would lead to dropping out of digital.

I'm wondering if the 'approved' drives are more forgiving of this type of configuration, and when putting in other drives also configured this way, the system simply fails.

This install is wired with terminators removed from the host adapter, Terminators are enabled on the A drive and the external drive - at the physical ends of the SCSI cable.

Has anyone put a monitor on a unit during playback to see what information is displayed?

Posted by Greg Routenburg (Member # 1742) on 12-15-2007, 10:12 PM:

These "approved" drives are no more forgiving then any other SCSI drive. The nature of SCSI is that it's unpredictable without proper termination and it's not impossible that it might work. The flip side of that coin is that it could also become unstable at any time, phase of the moon sorta stuff.

As for connecting a display to the unit while it's in normal operation, it does display information about the current reel number and position, default analogue fall-back format and that sorta thing but all in all I found it to be very useless. If you like looking at numbers flashing by then by all means go for it but I've yet to find a practical application for it.