Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DTS-6D and test/setup discs.

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-25-2013, 06:19 AM:

I have a DTS-6D and a pair of readers, together with a D564 logic breakout board for CP-65 and the following discs:

DTS 6 TRACK DEMONSTRATION D-1
DTS 6-TRACK SETUP REV.DS1
The Buzz and Bill Show 6-TRACK Demonstration Disc D-3 (Plus print)
5.1 Extended Surround Test Disc (ES-1)
DTS EMPIRICAL TEST DISC

I also have a later version of the setup disc downloaded from the warehouse.

The readers needed a bit of attention to the rollers, but have been tested in a cinema, and are working fine on that system. I have set the jumper for two reader operation on my unit.

The CD-ROM drives are the original Toshiba ones, but despite their age are working fine. Before even powering up the DTS unit I connected them to a normal PC by a long SCSI cable, and they all read discs after being cleaned.

If I power up the unit with the drives connected, but no discs in any of them then there is sound from each drive in turn; sounds like a reset taking place. The SYSTEM and CD-ROM lights come on, and stay on; the TIMECODE light flashes once and then goes out. The DIGITAL light does not come on. If I power up the unit with the Empirical Test Disc in the first drive then the disc seems to be read for several seconds, based on the sound from the drive, then this stops, and the disc does not play, but the light on the disc itself flashes slowly and regularly.

I looked at the DTS.EXE file with a text editor, and there are several error and diagnostic messages near the end of it. How are these messages supposed to be displayed? There doesn't seem to be any way to connect either a monitor or a serial console to the DTS unit. If I run the DTS.EXE file on a windows PC it displays the message "Just a moment... waiting for timecode reader reset", so it seems that the system will try to talk to the readers when it starts up.

When I had made up the reader cable I attached the readers to the unit. The red LED reader lights were lit on both readers when power was applied to the unit. The readers are not mounted on projectors, they are just sitting on my desk, so I can't run any film through them yet.

When I started the unit with the readers attached, and the Emperical Test Disc in the first drive it is the SYSTEM and TIMECODE lights which remain lit, rather than SYSTEM and CD-ROM, when the readers ere not connected. Would this behavour be expected? Does the unit need to be connected to the cinema processor before it will try to play the Empirical Test Disc? I can't connect it yet as I have not made up the necessary cables.

Is there a way to connect some sort of display device to the DTS-6D so that the diagnostic messages can be seen? If not, what is the purpose of the messages in the file?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-25-2013, 07:39 AM:

You can use an ISA graphics card to connect a monitor. I believe that an AT-style keyboard can be connected as well. Good luck finding the ISA graphics card, but there may be some on Ebay. If you can't find one, let me know, as I think that I still have one here somewhere.

Check with DTS (Datasat?) about getting the latest firmware chip. You will need this to play the disks for newer films. I believe that they do (did?) send those out for free upon request.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-25-2013, 08:13 AM:

Thanks Scott.

I never thought of plugging in a VGA card, probably because there are no normal externally-accessible slots on the rear of the unit. I can't help wondering why one wasn't included in the DTS-6D; the cost would have been minimal, or alternatively a serial port to connect a terminal.

I've just looked; I don't have an ISA graphics card, but, as you syy, I can probably find one on Ebay. I should have two more DTS-6D units soon, so I will have plenty of spare parts. I assume that you have to remove the plate from the rear panel of the unit to expose the monitor connector as it would be inside the unit, as with the SCSI card. I have the original SCSI card, not the Adaptec one, with the other card next to it, as needed for the later Teac drives.

I've seen the keyboard connector, and as luck would have it, I have an adapter from that full-size DIN socket to a mini ps/2 one. We haven't used ps/2 keyboards in years, but we still have a couple in store.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-25-2013, 12:42 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
Check with DTS (Datasat?) about getting the latest firmware chip. You will need this to play the disks for newer films. I believe that they do (did?) send those out for free upon request.

I'm so rusty on the dts6d these days. Haven't used them in probably 10 years, but they are a great unit. I'm pretty sure the correct chip version Scott speaks of above is v1.46 and this will be printed right on top of the chip. If you can't find it let me know as I have a few of those around and I'll pull the lid off and post a picture, but I recall it was in plain sight once the cover is removed.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 11-07-2013, 04:44 AM:

quote: Scott Norwood
You can use an ISA graphics card to connect a monitor. I believe that an AT-style keyboard can be connected as well. Good luck finding the ISA graphics card, but there may be some on Ebay. If you can't find one, let me know, as I think that I still have one here somewhere.

ISA VGA card, and ps/2 keyboard with AT adapter, installed.

ROM DOS runs, I can do the usual DOS internal commands.

Config.sys and autoexec.bat are there, and look reasonable, they contain the following:

FILES=40
BUFFERS=20
DEVICE=FDCD.SYS /D:MSCD000
LASTDRIVE=F

MSCDEX /D:MSCD000 /L:D
LOADTS

Fdcd.sys is not there if I do a dir, but I cannot tell if it is a hidden file because dir/ah does not work.

The fdcd.sys file is not found, and therefor mscdex does not find the mscd000 device, and fails. Since the cd-rom driver is not loading I have nothing other than the C: drive, and since that's in ROM presumably the config.sys and autoexec.bat cannot have been edited, nor the fdcd.sys file deleted.

There are no folders on the C: drive, just the following, visible, files:

AUTOEXEC.BAT
COMMAND.COM
CONFIG.SYS
MSCDEX.EXE

Strangely, each file appears twice, with the same length, size and date when I do a DIR.

VER returns ROM-DOS Version 3.31

I have no experience at all with DTS.

Any ideas?

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 11-07-2013, 07:52 AM:

quote: Brad Miller
I'm so rusty on the dts6d these days. Haven't used them in probably 10 years, but they are a great unit. I'm pretty sure the correct chip version Scott speaks of above is v1.46 and this will be printed right on top of the chip. If you can't find it let me know as I have a few of those around and I'll pull the lid off and post a picture, but I recall it was in plain sight once the cover is removed.

Brad,

Which chip are you talking about? The DTS-6D manual mentions two rom type chips, both on the timecode card. There is the ROMDOS chip near the bottom of it, and the 'U14' chip just to the right of the large square chip in the centre of the card. Is this 'U14' chip the one you are talking about, or is it a chip on the motherboard somewhere?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-07-2013, 12:24 PM:

I would have to take the lid off of a 6d to remember. It was about 1.5 inches long.

Posted by Scott Ribbens (Member # 180) on 11-08-2013, 01:29 AM:

quote: Stephen Furley
If I power up the unit with the drives connected, but no discs in any of them then there is sound from each drive in turn; sounds like a reset taking place. The SYSTEM and CD-ROM lights come on, and stay on; the TIMECODE light flashes once and then goes out. The DIGITAL light does not come on.

The software for boot up resides on the discs. When you power up the unit, the system looks for discs in the drives. C then B then A. So it's not a reset, it's the system looking for the discs. If there are no discs, then it wont boot up all of the way. The above situation sounds normal.

The digital light only comes on and stays lit when the processor is playing back digital sound. The time code light only comes on when good time code is being read by a reader OR if you have a time code generator hooked up and running.

When the system is booted up and everything is right with the world, you would get a steady blinking system light, no other LEDs. It does take some time to completely boot up, like 40-45 seconds IIRC.

When you play back some film with time code, if all is well, you will get a solid time code light, CD ROM light and presuming you have the proper disc for the film you are running, a solid digital light and the system light should still be blinking.

quote: Stephen Furley
If I power up the unit with the Empirical Test Disc in the first drive then the disc seems to be read for several seconds, based on the sound from the drive, then this stops, and the disc does not play, but the light on the disc itself flashes slowly and regularly.

I looked at the DTS.EXE file with a text editor, and there are several error and diagnostic messages near the end of it. How are these messages supposed to be displayed? There doesn't seem to be any way to connect either a monitor or a serial console to the DTS unit. If I run the DTS.EXE file on a windows PC it displays the message "Just a moment... waiting for timecode reader reset", so it seems that the system will try to talk to the readers when it starts up.

Those messages are not displayed to the Theatre end user. Trying to run the EXE file on a PC will get you nowhere, as you have found out.

Do you have a normal DTS disc? Like a trailer disc or a feature disc? I would try a known good disc(s) in the unit. Don't rely on the test discs 100%, I have run across units that worked fine but would just not play the tests discs back properly. It mostly happened with the white DTS6 units.

If you get a blinking light on the CD ROM drive the test disc is in and you get a solid digital light, then the unit is playing the disc back.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 11-08-2013, 03:49 AM:

Scott,

It's not getting that far, take a look at my first post yesterday in this thread. It can't find FDHD.SYS, which seems to be the driver for the old Future Domain SCSI host adapter. I don't yet have another system to compare this one with. I should have two spare ones sometime fairly soon.

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 11-08-2013, 06:04 PM:

if memory serves it's

dir /a:h

to see hidden files.
How bizarre. I played with the DTS and VGA years ago but I can't really remember much now. When the DTS is rebooted with a disk it should automatically start playback. What you are saying makes sense, if no controller driver is recognised, no CDROM can be seen by the OS.

I am not sure the Timecode chip Brad mentioned has anything to do with the OS, but you're correct in saying the latest version is 1.46. The chip is on the D422 board and the TC chip is U14.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 11-13-2013, 08:29 AM:

Marco,

dir /ah and dir/a:h both seem to work in windows, but neither works in RomDos on the DTS-6D. I don't have an ordinary DOS pc to try it with. on the DTSW unit both give 'Invalid parameter'.

Have I got a corrupt Rom-Dos chip? It dies seem odd that 'dir' lists only four files on C: but lists each of these twice. I still don't yet have another DTS-6D unit to compare it with.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-13-2013, 12:08 PM:

Will the thing just play normal movie sound if hooked up to a reader on a projector and with the correct CDs loaded? If so, I'm guessing that there's nothing to worry about, because there are unlikely to be new firmware updates or whatever released now, and so there shouldn't be any need to go under the bonnet, so to speak.

If it won't, an NFG operating system ROM is what I'd suspect, too.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 11-13-2013, 01:38 PM:

No, it can't find the device driver for the SCSI host adapter, and without that it's not going to see the drives, so it won't read any disk. The drives are fine if I connect them to a normal pc.

Somebody is sending me two more DTS units so I've only got to be able to make one good one, though two would be nice, out of three.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-13-2013, 07:58 PM:

In that case, it sounds to me, too, that there is a hardware fault involving something on the motherboard. Hope you manage to get two working units out of the three.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 11-14-2013, 10:02 AM:

Have tried re-seating the Rom-Dos chip in the timecode card, and the timecode card in the motherboard, and it's still the same. I assume that the driver should be on the Rom-Dos chip, since this is the only 'disk' which exists at that point. I think I'll have to wait until I get the other DTS units, and see what I can do then.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 11-15-2013, 11:18 AM:

With version 1.46 the rom dos chip was removed and a aquila board was added
There were a few scsi boards that worked
future domain and most of the adaptec ones would work
The drives were more problematic
originally it was only the Toshiba and sony 2x
later the toshiba 4 and 12x
finally the Teac 16x (but the new 1.46 and aquilla was needed)
finaly there was a ISA to scsi bridge that allowed most generic dvd drives to work