Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Digital equipment must be left on all night

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Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 03-24-2012, 03:37 PM:

How many other theaters are being told that they have to do this? The server and projector power must be left on all night. The fans run in the projector 24/7....same with the server....How can that be good for the equipment and electric bill???? If the quipment is turned off, it's a breach of contract as far as the VPF's go.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-24-2012, 04:01 PM:

It is a good idea for servers to run 24/7 (see other threads on this--power-cycling will kill disks prematurely). In a VPF situation, it is probably also needed to allow for remote monitoring. The power usage is minimal in this case.

I cannot imagine why this would be a good idea for projectors, though.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 03-24-2012, 04:06 PM:

To get the best answer, can you tell us what equipment you're using - projectors, servers, etc?

In reading through the various comments on this issue, I have not seen a consistent answer to this question. What I can tell you is what my theatre is doing.

We run NEC NC2000C projectors with GDC servers. Every night we power down the projectors completely, but leave the GDCs running. In the morning we reboot the GDC while powering on the projector. This procedure came from a Strong tech.

The problem with turning things on and off every night is wear and tear on switches. But energy consumption from leaving them on is probably a bigger issue.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 03-24-2012, 04:21 PM:

They want the projector on so they can poll live-status on it.
Whenever they collect the logs and errors they wont want to see a bunch of "cannot get status of projector" type errors polluting the log.

Not to mention if they do remote firmware upgrades and stuff like that.

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 03-24-2012, 07:31 PM:

Big brother is watching! I say turn it off. The hard drives are machanical devices. If the discs are spinning, they are wareing out. Just like with zenon lamps, if you are not going to be using them for a while, turn them off. The start-up is not as bad as leaving them on all night.

Some servers are in use 24/7, so they are left on 24/7. This is not the case here. Save power (yes, they are still drawing a good amount of power, don't believe me, put an amp meter on it), save the drives and electronics, turn them off.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-24-2012, 07:37 PM:

quote: Bruce Hansen
The start-up is not as bad as leaving them on all night.

Sorry Bruce, but that is dead wrong.

This has been discussed at length before. Some people will insist on turning the servers off at night claiming wear and tear, others understand the wear and tear of turning them off.

Richard, do whatever you want, but IT professionals and studies ALL point to leaving the servers ON all the time. Hard discs WILL die prematurely if you power them on and off each day, and any "savings in electricity" will be offset by the replacement hard drive cost. (Even moreso if it costs you more downtime and loss of revenue.) In addition, most VPF contracts require the servers be on all the time. If they aren't, you are risking logs to be pulled during playback which can and does cause playback issues. (There's that downtime again, with refunds and angry customers!)

That being said, there is no reason to leave the projector on overnight.

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 03-24-2012, 08:01 PM:

I agree about leaving the servers on. My concern is more about the projectors. With all the fans going inside 24/7, how much more dust is being drawn in?

Justin...we have the same equipment. Nec2000 with GDC servers.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-24-2012, 08:03 PM:

Like flourscent lighting: leave them on all the time will make the lamps last longer.

It's that on/off stuff that wears down the ballasts that has to run the lamps.

True, this has been discussed before...

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 03-24-2012, 11:42 PM:

Since the servers pull the logs from the projectors, only the servers are required to be on to pull logs over night. NEC and Christie have "standby modes" where the fans will be off and one need not wear out the on/off switches. I do wish Barco also could have a standby mode. As others have mentioned...doing upgrades requires them to be powered on. That said, when I do remote upgrades, the theatres KNOW it is going to happen ahead of time so I consider it a sign of acknowledgement when they leave the projectors on for me!

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 03-25-2012, 08:59 AM:

Who owns the projector and server? My experience is that the VPF financer does. If the owner tells you how to leave them on all the time, leave them on. Ye, you get to pay the power bills - but presumably you read the contract before signing and this is not a surprise.

Posted by Joris Springer (Member # 4175) on 04-15-2012, 01:45 PM:

The point is actually, it does not really matter. First of all the equipment is built to last for a while and the factory surely conciders that there are companies that will leave them on or turn them off. I doubt it will change much in the time the equipment will last. Only difference is perhaps that a Barco projector wants it's maintenance a bit sooner then in cinemas that turn it all off.

Where I work we turn them off at night, it has no use we think to keep them on. Only the library, TMS and the smartjog stay on at night.