quote: Mark Lensenmayer

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paranoid executive

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This is one time that I have to side with the suits. Because all of us film-techers are far too professional to ever twiddle with a server clock in order to show a movie earlier (or later) that we're supposed to, who knows how many high school "projectionists" and other dickheads would do exactly that if they had the chance.
 

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Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 05-06-2010, 07:21 PM:
 
Doesn't software such as virus protection have code in it to detect when the computer clock has been significantly changed? I seem to remember trying to roll back the bios time on a computer I had a few years ago and when I booted up windows Norton Anti-Virus gave me a message that it was expired.

If a company only has a limited number of "authorized" people to access the server clock (which could be password protected) then I don't see much of a problem. I believe it could also be logged internally anytime someone accesses this area of the server.
 

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Posted by Olivier Lemaire (Member # 5579) on 05-06-2010, 07:27 PM:
 
Thomas, using open/know protocol does not means you have less security.
In fact, the reverse it true : using proprietary protocols will probably give you lesser security ("security by obscurity"... just sounds like a virgin call girl...). But, well, I admit it's probably an out of scope debate

Anyway, most (if not all) of the Digital Cinema technology are based upon open standards & protocols. So, NTP is just a good alternative to consider.

But you must consider two types of clocks:
1/ secured clocks from Security Modules, withing some DC elements (Media Block, for example)
2/ and regular clocks, like the one of your TMS hardware and Players's hardware

Clocks of type 1/ are NOT TO BE SYNCHRONIZED to any external sources (see DCI specs v1.2 - chapter 9.4.3.7.).

But clocks of type 2/ should be, for the theater to operate smoothly: afterall, it should be very annoying the think your next scheduled show will automatically at 16:05... and have it start at 15:58 because of a scrappy drifty RTC clock...

my 2 cents,
--
lem
 

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Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 05-06-2010, 07:42 PM:
 

quote: Olivier Lemaire

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afterall, it should be very annoying the think your next scheduled show will automatically at 16:05... and have it start at 15:58 because of a scrappy drifty RTC clock...

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quote:

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quote:

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Olivier Lemaire
afterall, it should be very annoying the think your next scheduled show will automatically at 16:05... and have it start at 15:58 because of a scrappy drifty RTC clock...

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Jeremy
This is why we stopped using our show scheduler. It got to be a pain to compensate for the time drift.

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Ouch... perhaps you should consider installing and NTP server on one of your Intra-Theater server (central library, TMS, one of your players?..) which have a not so scrappy RTC clock. And then, configure all other equipments to synchronize on this central NTPd one?

This way, at least, all the theater will be at the same hours. And as the Time is served internally to your theater, you won't have to fear for any external crackers to break into your very standard setting
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-06-2010, 09:15 PM:
 
You cannot twiddle with the server clock in all servers I have worked with... Dolby, Doremi, and GDC. I am pretty sure this is a DCI requirement. It is a fixed thing and is only correctable by placing an NTP server on the network to do the time correction.

Mark
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-06-2010, 09:37 PM:
 
So, what's wrong converting 7:00 to 6:58 if the clock is 2 minutes slow....?

I worked with a GDC server that was 4 minutes slow. Thus when doing the auto scheduler, I put in 6:56 for 7:00p, and similar with the other 4 showings for that day.

I could do a week's set in 10 minutes on this GDC server..and it would start right on time as per a standard clock for each showing.

Doesn't take rocket science to think backwards some ...

-Monte
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-07-2010, 12:00 AM:
 
Its called technology Monte. In this day and age, it is pathetic to have to input incorrect showtimes to make a $10k+ server start on time.

On the Doremi, you can go to MENU / TERMINAL, login and use the command "date --set=HHMM" to set the user clock that controls the start time. Note this will continue to drift until more suitable measures are taken...but this is a quick temporary fix.

(HHMM is short for hour and minute, by the way.)

With Dolby servers you can set an NTP time server link in the config setup. (Don't jack with this if you don't know what you are doing. Have your tech do this.)
 

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Posted by Elise Brandt (Member # 5552) on 05-07-2010, 04:58 AM:
 
We have the dolby servers and I did update the clock once with no problem at all. It seems the clock lagged behind about five minutes per hour whenever we were ingesting a movie. Because this was usually done during shows to minimize the use of electricity, there was some head-scratching and even manual show starts because the timer couldn't be trusted.

But the clock always reset itself when the system was rebooted, and run right with no problems.

After the last software upgrade there's been no more clock issues though. I'm pretty surprised reading this thread!

I also don't think there is any need to rub it in, yes digital cinema has some oddities as does 35mm and any other projection method. And not all equipment are the same... and there will always be something to fix when the systems haven't been in use for the last three decades. Nobody who upgraded to digital (yes, for me it's definitely up) knew about the issues beforehand and we're all trying to offer the best quality shows to our customers aren't we?
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-07-2010, 10:28 AM:
 
The main clock is in the Show player. It can only be updated by time server interface. There are many security reasons for this being tamper proof. I believe the clock you are talking about is the one in the show store. In theory the show store clock should synchronize with the refrence clock inside the player and perhaps there was an issue there that the software upgrade fixed. I have to chuckle because Dolby is king of software upgrades! Most other server manufacturers have had very few.

Mark
 

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Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 05-07-2010, 10:35 AM:
 
And those software updates, they don't come cheap either!

Last couple have increased the wait time on a lot of modules at boot up, result is a longer overall boot time but fewer issues, such as clock showing incorrect time. More recent releases also allow you to tweak the time, within a limited window. That window varies from machine to machine in my experience, how it is defined I have no idea.
 

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Posted by Jussi Siponen (Member # 5572) on 05-07-2010, 11:19 AM:
 

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen

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I have to chuckle because Dolby is king of software upgrades! Most other server manufacturers have had very few.

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Updates are usually released to fix issues or to introduce new features. If these other manufacturers not releasing updates is due their systems having no issues, then more power to them!

But in general, creating robust and secure software is not just hard -- it borders on the impossible (just ask Microsoft, Adobe, etc). The only way to get reasonably good software of any significant complexity seems to be feature-freeze it and then pound on it relentlessly for the next 10 years or so, applying fixes with surgical precision as problems are discovered.

Because the dirty little secret is: we are still beta testers for this whole D-Cinema chain, to put it mildly. Things should improve when the dust eventually settles. So far the industry has been too busy implementing new features to squash anything but the most serious "show stopper" bugs (and in this case they LITERALLY are show stoppers ).
 

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Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 05-07-2010, 01:03 PM:
 
Maybe there is something wrong with the server configuration. Over the past four years, working with Dolby Digital and Doremi servers, I've never once had to worry about the server having the wrong time once DST started or ended.
 

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Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 05-08-2010, 02:11 AM:
 
The last movie we played that had a stupidly short KDM time (Spiderman 3 I think) we noticed the server clock issue less than a week before hand. Despite being fully connected to a NOC our tech had to come out and manually update the clocks on the Doremi's...he had a busy week doing that in his whole territory.
 

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Posted by Dave Ganoe (Member # 53) on 05-23-2010, 09:33 PM:
 
The GDC works quite well when setup to connect to an NTP server. Setup is quite easy, with the right credentials of course. Did this first hand and no issues of time drift.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-23-2010, 09:51 PM:
 
Ha? I just installed a GDC server and it very definitely has settings in the config for inputting your own system wide NTP server. As for cost over a multiplex full of stuff they are not that expensive an item either.

This type of time server can be had inexpensively and could feed your LMS and all your local house servers quite easily. It takes it's reference from an atomic clock on the many GPS satellites above earth. In reality any large and or important multiplex that is not monitored by off site such as cin-e-dig-it should have it's own NTP refrence server so all digital related cinema equipment and ticketing/concession sales terminals are all synced together.

As for inputing a time correction script sent to you from GDC... it takes all of 15 seconds to do that!! Go into "Technician" log on, insert the usb stick in the front of the server and then press the USB button on the lower center of that page. You're all done...

My gut feeling is that all cinema servers should have an ultra stable tcxo based master clock in them anyway, but we'll never see that happen! we have to rely on the el-cheapo oscillator thats on the mother board.

Mark
 

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