quote: Fernando Caldeira

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I´ve been searching for one that I could connect to de Cinema Sound Processor directly in to the 6 channel analog DB25 plug.

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What cinema processor do you have? Depending on the specific CP, there are different options for multichannel audio.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 05-15-2014, 04:34 PM:
 
As Carsten said, it depends on the sound processor. It might be possible to build a cable that can take the audio from the 3.5mm outputs on the motherboard/sound card (green, black, and orange for six channel, and I think gray added in for eight channel), and lead to an input on the processor.

The best case scenario would be if you could plug directly into it with HDMI, but the CP850 is the only processor I'm aware of with HDMI inputs. And even then, I'm pretty sure those haven't been software-enabled yet. Also, if you have an IMB with HDMI in, you could probably run through that. The SX-2000 new IMB we use at my theater can handle full 7.1 through HDMI. You could run a full 1080p picture through there too.

Software-wise, you can get it all for free. Just get the K-lite codec pack or something. You'll get all sorts of visual and audio customization options on there. VLC Player is another good option. I've gotten beautiful picture and full 5.1 audio from both. They even do blu-ray playback these days.
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 05-15-2014, 05:15 PM:
 
Since you want to have something that works like a Digital Cinema Server, I guess you also want something with multiple digital video outputs? One output dedicated to playback and the other to operations?

Did you already decide what OS you're going to use?
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-15-2014, 11:21 PM:
 
I'd be doing Ubuntu Linux for my OS if I was going that route - none of this Windows Server nonsense.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-16-2014, 06:41 PM:
 
Since no one has asked this yet...are you outputting the picture using a regular graphics card (VGA/DVI) or using an HD-SDI card? If the latter, you really want to use an HD-SDI disembedder to give you either AES or analog audio from the HD-SDI stream. AJA and Blackmagic (among others) make these. There is some latency in the HD-SDI cards, so there will be sync issues if you output the sound with a regular sound card (though that can be solved with a digital delay in the processor or D-A converter).

If I were doing this, I think that I would approach it as a broadcast playout server. There are inexpensive HD-SDI output cards (e.g. Blackmagic Decklink series and the equivalent from AJA) and there is freely available software for this sort of task. The only issue that I can think of with HD-SDI output is that it will output at the frame rate of the file, so a playlist of files with a mix of frame rates will cause the picture to bounce or roll at the transition points unless you convert all of your files to the same frame rate (e.g. 59.94 or 50Hz). If you wanted to get slick, you could automate a series of commands for douser-close, pause, douser-open at the transition points.

Or it might just be easier to buy a prebuilt box that does this sort of thing. The AJA Ki-Pro is the most common unit, but many others are available from Blackmagic, Grass Valley, etc.
 

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Posted by Fernando Caldeira (Member # 5680) on 05-16-2014, 09:13 PM:
 
First of all thank you for all the answers, sugestions and questions.

Our equipment.
We will be equiping 2 rooms.

One with the DTS 6AD witch is running with the barco DP90, Doremi DCP2000 and the Barco ACS2048.
And the other with a dolby cp650, Nec 3240s with IMB and also the ACS.

We have been using Media player classic with te Klite in a "normal" windows PC and it works but it´s not very reliable and has its bugs. The sound card only outputs stereo and its conected to a sound desk witch in turn gos in to the nonsinc. It works but....I´m looking for a professional way of playing files that are not DCP.

Ithought about the OS and the linux is verysweet, specialy when i have all kind of formated hard drives, but then will media plaier work on it? VLC is just to unstable with heavy prores files...so witch player to use with linux?

Has i´m using the ACS and the SDI plug already is being used i was thinking of a dual DVI Matrox video card.

FYI - SSD 250gb for OS only
2x1TB HDD 7200RPM -Raid 10
16GB Ram
Matrox M-series
Sound card ??
Bluray Drive


What are your thoughts??

Thanks
Fernando
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-17-2014, 06:43 AM:
 
Under Linux, I have had the most success with mplayer as the playback software. It runs on Windows, too, and plays pretty much anything. Set it up as a two-monitor system and then run this command

mplayer -osdlevel 0 -monitoraspect 1.78 -fs -xineramascreen 1

to send the full-screen picture to one of the monitors, while keeping the control window on the other one. It works best if you use a window manager that can be configured to have no on-screen icons, no window borders, and a black background (I have a hacked-up fvwm configuration for this).
 

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Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 05-17-2014, 02:09 PM:
 
I've been wanting to do something similar.

The part I've always wondered about was weather there was a piece of software that would allow me to easily assign serial output cues to a specific timecode on a video file. Something I could use to automatically trigger lights at credits...
 

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Posted by Fernando Caldeira (Member # 5680) on 05-17-2014, 10:53 PM:
 
There are virtual light desks...supose you could use one..but then you would need to have a DMX output to the Dimmers ...or just a USB conection to a "real" light desk. Think moast light deks have time cue... just use a countdown timer on the light desk plug in to coincide with the credits. That might work
 

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Posted by Fernando Caldeira (Member # 5680) on 05-23-2014, 09:12 AM:
 
Any suggestions for the sound card solution?
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-23-2014, 09:49 AM:
 
The 6AD has an external 6ch analog input. Depending on the version of the CP650 you have, it probably has the same option. The NEC installation will probably use 3/4*AES into the CP650 already, so I assume that 6ch analog in is available on the CP650, too.

So, the easiest would be to use an audio card with 5.1 analog outputs. That's also the cheapest way, suitable consumer grade cards can be bought for very little money and they support common player applications. Getting a Pro-Card with balanced outputs to work with these can be a problem. Consumer-grade cards with added transformers seems the safer method for me.

We used MPC-HC for a while to show trailers. It did crash from time to time, but I still think it's the best option for dual screen setups. It was a temporary installation at the time and we never diagnosed the problems, but I think with a proper new installation and proper graphics drivers, we would have corrected the issue.
Consumer video and audio codecs are a nightmare and this will never be solved completely.

It takes a while to configure MPC-HC properly, though. We activated the ini-file config option and enabled write protection on them so no one could fiddle around with essential settings. Worst thing about all players are their hundreds of decoding and rendering options with no documentation. Some settings you can learn about in forums, some you simply have to trial'n error.
I like VLC for my personal use, but not in a dual screen setup in front of an audience.

Some older Creativelabs Audigy 2 ZS (among others) cards have 5.1/7.1 outputs and come with dts neo:6 drivers, so mono and stereo audio can be mixed up to 5.1 in decent quality. That's a nice feature because you will soon notice that most video files will only have stereo audio attached, unless properly grabbed from DVD or BluRay.

These Audigy 2 ZS cards can be bought on ebay for 10US$. The money saved on these cards should be spent on audio transformers/ground loop decoupling and proper cables. I made my own cabling with integrated audio transformers.
The 6AD has balanced 5.1 inputs, the CP650 ext 6ch is only unbalanced, but both will benefit from the transformers.

MPC-HC has an extensive audio channel routing matrix. If needed, I can forward my ini files to you with some explanation why I chose specific settings.

Meanwhile, we use an AP20 processor with HDMI inputs and video and audio is fed over a single HDMI cable from the graphics card. We do play music through it every day, but hardly any video anymore, only PowerPoint.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Fernando Caldeira (Member # 5680) on 06-09-2014, 10:23 AM:
 
Has anyone herd of this:
Doremi DSV-J2
http://www.doremilabs.com/products/proav-products/dsv-j2/

If you have what are your thoughts on this, and can this be a solution for me? (depending on the price ofcourse)
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-17-2014, 04:00 PM:
 
The DSV-J2 is more or less identical in hardware to a standard Doremi cinema server, and so is the price (it's even a bit pricier than a DCP-2000).
It will not play common consumer formats like Mov/MP4.

You may want to look for a Qube XP-E or digitAll dCine.

Honestly, you should stay with a software player based on WIN7 and/or one of the common media center packages (like XBMC). Or, simply spend 100US$ for a WDTV live. ;-)

- Carsten
 

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