Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Sony Servers

This is topic Sony Servers in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-20-2009, 07:20 AM:

Which server does Sony install with their projectors? Anyone had a hand on one yet?

- Carsten

Posted by Matt Johnston (Member # 5457) on 10-21-2009, 05:29 PM:

It's their own brand server called SMS

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-21-2009, 06:03 PM:

Does anyone know wether they are obligatory with Sony Projectors, or can you choose from other servers as well, as long as they can control the Sonys?

- Carsten

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-21-2009, 09:16 PM:

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty certain Sony projectors only work with Sony servers. They even have a special flavor of Real D for 3D projection. Very proprietary. Maybe even more so than Dolby.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-21-2009, 09:42 PM:

I'll say that I've only seen them with their own "Media Blocks" However, they DO sport the traditional dual HDSDI inputs as well as a pair of DVI inputs, just like the DLP projectors. The DVI inputs are now HDCP compliant too.

Steve

Posted by James B Gardiner (Member # 5151) on 10-21-2009, 11:19 PM:

Yes Sony have proprietary SMS's. This is a big problem. I have voiced my issue with this to Sony. As a cinema owner, it is unreasonable to lock ones self in like that. For example, imagine not being able to buy a tire for your car from anyone but who you purchased the car from. Its not reasonable for a long term purchase. The HUGE cinema chains, they can probably get away with this.. but in general no-please.
Sony did make under the table noise that this may change. Probably will as has to.

I expect them to fall in line with the new TI internal media block design. Ie making it possible to plug in the new series 2 in-projector media blocks.

This was all inevitable as there is no 4K signal path possible like current cinelink2/2k implementation.

James

Posted by Sam King (Member # 4029) on 10-22-2009, 12:27 AM:

So all you have for Alt. Content on a 4k is DVI? No component or HDMI?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-22-2009, 06:36 AM:

"The DVI inputs are now HDCP compliant too."

That means HDMI. If you don't care for a simple cable to adopt it.

Sonys projector base has a modular input stage, you can connect whatever you want to it. Wether a component module is supplied with the standard Cinema models, I don't know, but sure it's possible.

Maybe Sony will allow different servers once 4k playout is becoming more common on all servers.

I know german cinema owners and projectionist still have strong objections against Sony because of the SDDS/support issue. You can read that between the lines everytime Sony projectors are being talked about. Thus, same objections against proprietary servers.

- Carsten

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-22-2009, 06:42 AM:

The Cinema version does not have changeable input modules like the A/V version. If you want to expand any DCinema projector's inputs to "Traditional" A/V input you will need a suitable scaler. Barco's ACS2048 seems to be the best, by far. It takes, HD/SDI, VGA, composite, component, DVI/HDMI...is HDCP compliant, outputs 2K at 12-bit (twin-link) and offers some pretty powerful resizing to take full advantage of a 2K imager.

Steve

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-22-2009, 02:57 PM:

quote: Carsten Kurz
Maybe Sony will allow different servers once 4k playout is becoming more common on all servers.

Actually I believe over the next several years you will see servers as we know them disappear in favor of the media block system. The new generation of DLP projectors that will be emerging this quarter of the year will be able to accept the media block system. It should greatly simplify things.

MArk

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-22-2009, 04:23 PM:

I understand it that the whole decryption scheme will be running on the media block and that the encrypted content of the DCP is more or less directly streamed to it. Do we already know what kind of signal this will be? I guess HD-SDI is not suitable for this kind of 'data' link. Gigabit-Ethernet could already impose a bottleneck? 10GE?

Sure it needs to be something that can travel over a larger cable distance?

Standards?

- Carsten

Posted by Pietro Clarici (Member # 4937) on 10-22-2009, 04:37 PM:

Well, I guess most if not all media blocks will have some kind of secure on-board storage to buffer a playlist or two. In that case, 10GigE from TMS will be more than enough, you don't have to stream every show to every screen.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-22-2009, 04:49 PM:

Hmm...

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/mkt-digitalcinema/mkt-digitalcinemaprojectionsystems/product-LMT100/
http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/mkt-digitalcinema/mkt-digitalcinemaprojectionsystems/product-LMT200/

Well, with onboard storage, what's the big difference between a Media Block and a 'small' server? These sony devices seem to drive this idea a bit towards the absurd.
But then it's Sony ;-)

- Carsten

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-22-2009, 05:57 PM:

Being able to use off the shelf servers to stream the data to the media block is an advantage from many aspects. You can also keep them in one "clean" climate controled room. There are places in the world where normal rack mounted all in one servers as we know them now will plug up with dirt fairly quickly. Also, having to send Dolby's show player back for a simple fan change out is hardly convenient. At least the new one isn't this way. Fortunately I don't know of any other servers where you have to send em in for such a simple repair.
Gb Ethernet should suffice for the data lines between each server and media block.

Mark

Posted by Pietro Clarici (Member # 4937) on 10-23-2009, 04:57 AM:

I don't know about Dolby, but the latest Kodak (which is still basically a small IBM server) has a secure JPEG2000 decoder board that you are not supposed to tamper with... every other part is field serviceable and even user replaceable, at least that's what they say. Same concept as a media block, just in a separate enclosure.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-23-2009, 04:31 PM:

Kodak really makes their own servers?

How about a list of manufacturers for servers and projectors? Well, the latter will be short anyway...

Posted by Pietro Clarici (Member # 4937) on 10-23-2009, 04:55 PM:

There you go:

http://digitalcinema.disney.com/assets/pdf/ApprovedEquipmentList_10-12-2009.pdf

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-23-2009, 05:58 PM:

Interesting document - and not just the equipment lists.

- Carsten

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 01-12-2011, 01:12 PM:

It has been 445 days since the last post.

Posted by Bernie Anderson Jr (Member # 410) on 01-12-2011, 01:12 PM:

Is anyone using their STM-100 Management System? The way were doing things here is, you have to import a SPL and then manually ingest the content into that individual projector to create an SPL. So if I have 5 screens of a movie, I have to do 5 seperate ingests for each piece of content for each projector manually (I have to pick the trailers from a list) and then import the SPL.

Posted by John Gavin (Member # 5949) on 02-09-2011, 02:30 AM:

There is a version of the Doremi IMB for the Sony 4K projector.
With such products, the approval process is somewhat involved,
so you should contact your local Doremi rep or Sony rep to find
out if it is released.