Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Barco Getting into Servers Etc.

This is topic Barco Getting into Servers Etc. in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 04-18-2012, 03:38 PM:

I have heard that Barco is getting into the server and sound processor side of the business. Anybody know whether there is anything to it?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-18-2012, 03:46 PM:

Why not? I think there must be an astounding markup in that stuff...considering a server is just a glorified/crippled computer and they charge $20,000-plus for it, and a $12,000 sound processor isn't much different.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-18-2012, 04:57 PM:

Barco took over XDC's cinestore server business last year. Probably to get a quick entry into the IMB market. BTW - Christie also launched their own IMB with an integrated SMS a few months ago. Makes sense for the projector manufacturers, I guess.

However, they have not entered the cinema sound processor market. They partnered with Datasat (ex-DTS) to implement their Auro-3D sound system into Datatsat's existing AP20 cinema sound processor.

- Carsten

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-18-2012, 07:57 PM:

Mike, your numbers are multiplications of reality. Those are CRAZY bloated prices there!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-19-2012, 12:05 AM:

I would just like to see what it really costs a manufacturer to build a server. I'll bet the numbers would be amazing/depressing.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-19-2012, 12:28 AM:

The media block is supposedly something like 70-80% of the cost.

Posted by Terrence Meiczinger (Member # 5059) on 04-19-2012, 10:50 AM:

The material costs are only one component that determines the selling price.

For example, I did some consulting work for a company that did hardware. They were developing a data processing card that went into a standard PC. When it was done, the board cost about $500 to manufacture. They sold them for $100,000 each. One because they only expected to sell maybe 20 units and two the R&D costs were well over $500,000.

When I did work for say Cisco, that same type of thing would sell for under $1,000 because they expected to sell hundreds of thousands of units.

The market for digital cinema isn't exactly huge, so R&D, marketing, etc costs come into play as much as material costs.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-19-2012, 03:35 PM:

quote: Terrence Meiczinger
The market for digital cinema isn't exactly huge, so R&D, marketing, etc costs come into play as much as material costs.

You are right. Notice I didn't say anything about the projectors in my initial comments. In that case, you have a lot of expense going into developing the DLP chips and everything else so I can see where they are pretty spendy. But a server is just a computer running software -- and so is a sound processor, really. I just think they're awful expensive for the one job they have to do, that's all. Just my 2¢.

Posted by Marin Zorica (Member # 1716) on 04-19-2012, 03:38 PM:

I newer realized why the server and sound processor are not integrated? To say better, why sound processor is not integrated in server......it's so easy to done one card with DSP which are has enought power to do EQ and other things (even there are no more than taht for processor to do in D cinema).

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-19-2012, 05:30 PM:

I guess we will see this being integrated sooner or later. The reason why this has not been done so far is that we are still in an early stage of product development and certification, so manufacturers want to keep their software small and stable. Now recently Doremi introduced channel assignment and volume features.

Also, a lot of cinemas already have cinema processors in their booths, and the server needs to be integrated into an existing environment with 35mm sound systems.

For a digital only screen, you are right, EQ and per channel volume and delay is very easy to do serverside with todays technology. But then there are things like alternate content input, switching, etc. And very soon the cost incl. D/A is not that much different over e.g. a digital only CP like a Dolby CP750.

- Carsten

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-19-2012, 08:06 PM:

As mentioned above, the manufacturing cost per unit is irrelevant. I work for a software company (in the aerospace industry, not the cinema industry) and our software is distributed by FTP. Manufacturing cost is zero, but we still charge upwards of $30k per license because it is a product for a limited market, and the development, sales, and support cost is substantial.

There is a total worldwide market of about 100k units for D-cinema servers, assuming one per cinema screen. With an expected lifespan of 5-10 years, that means that the annual sales volume of all servers combined is 10-20k. Divide that among half a dozen or so vendors, and the annual volume gets really small. Furthermore, there is an expectation of support for a number of years, as well as sales and marketing costs, software development costs, etc. And this is a market with very limited growth potential. At least the projectors have a larger potential market; the servers, however, are really quite useless outside of the cinema environment.

Considering that, I don't believe that $10-15k (or whatever the things go for; I don't sell them and haven't bought one) is unreasonable if the product and support are good.