This is topic NEC Series 1 subtitle issues in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=001400
Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 02-28-2013, 04:04 PM:
 
I’m looking for experiences in using a Series 1 NEC’s in a festival setting – that is, running lots of subtitled international DCP’s of varying authoring quality.

Given the amount of ”indie” DCP’s that arthouse film festivals tend to receive, I tend to try and standardize the D-Cinema equipment across all venues as far as possible to prevent any nasty surprises regarding compatibility. For me, this usually means going exclusively with Series 2 DLP projectors, Dolby DSS200 servers and Cat 862’s, since that’s what most cinemas already have in the country.

In a couple of months I’ll be doing a festival where one of the venues has a NEC NC1600C projector pre-installed. I’m not entirely comfortable with this, particularly as the same unit straight out refused to play the subtitles on one festival DCP last year. The projector logs mentioned a ”SubtitleError--Send Setup-Font error” and then an ”SubtitleError--Internal comm error (DSP)”. It seemed like a standard-issue 24 fps Interop DCP and dcp_inspect reported no errors, but regrettably I never got a chance to inspect it any further. Anyway, the subtitles worked just fine in another venue where an identical DSS200 was connected to a Series 2 Barco instead.

Later it turned out that the NC1600C wasn’t running the latest software (doh!), so this might have been the cause. However, I’ve heard about other subtitle problems even with mainstream DCP’s and the latest software. These are related to out-of-memory errors and they’re apparently different issues from what I described above. Needless to say, those reports haven’t made me any more comfortable.

With a Doremi, I could render the subtitles in the server, but sadly that’s not an option.

Of course, my festival location is extremely remote, and both budget and pre-festival testing time are limited. I’m just trying to decide if I should go through all the budgetary and logistic trouble of temporarily replacing the NC1600C with a rental Series 2 machine just to get through a five-day festival…

Care to share any war stories to help me with the decision? And/or any hints for identifying possible problem DCP’s beforehand?
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-01-2013, 02:32 PM:
 
Maybe you should better rent a Doremi so you have a real choice. Cinecanvas is a nightmare, even under controlled conditions. In a festival situation...

- Carsten
 
Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 03-02-2013, 05:41 AM:
 
Yeah, Doremi does offer a few features that are useful to festivals… In addition to subtitle rendering, I particularly like the way you can swap out the RAID disks without any OS hassle (since the OS resides on a separate SSD inside the server).

Sadly, that’s not really an option for me due to budget and logistical issues. Finland is 99.5% Dolby, so I can get a good deal on a bunch of rental DSS200’s – not so with Doremis, which would have to be shipped from abroad for starters. And as mentioned, I like to standardize on a single server/mediablock model across venues anyway.
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-02-2013, 05:51 AM:
 
Unless NEC knows any specific firmware combinations that are known to work better - you're out of options. Not likely to happen, since so far NEC has been pretty clueless regarding these problems anyway. So, other than using the latest firmware...

It's not 'just' the projector firmware, CineCanvas has some internal limitations that the person compiling the subitles need to know. It is not likely that this will be the case for festival DCPs. It's the general problem with quality control under these conditions.

The best you can possible do is to give the machines as many restarts as possible under festival conditions - which certainly are not many...

I would love to hear your resume.

- Carsten
 
Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 03-02-2013, 06:24 AM:
 
quote: Carsten Kurz
It's the general problem with quality control under these conditions.
Talk about it. I’ve also encountered festival DCP’s that work just fine on a Dolby DSS200 but exhibit various problems on a Doremi. Most recently, I saw a festival DCP where the subtitles were running at a different speed from the picture – but only when played back on a Sony.

It seems to be slowly getting better, but the situation still reminds me of the Web back in the 1990’s. In some ways it’s worse, as the DCP’s are never honestly labelled as ”best viewed on server X and projector Y”… [Roll Eyes]

Regarding the ”out of memory” errors: I’ve found out from some colleagues’ experiences that some Series 1 machines have an official 640 kB limitation for the subtitle file, but in real life they’ve encountered problems with large sub files even before their size reaches that limit. RAM expansion cards are available at least for NEC, for a hefty price of course.
 
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 03-02-2013, 06:33 AM:
 
Note, on a Dolby DSS200 server, starting with 4.4.2 (CAT 862 software 4.4.0.50), if CineCanvas is lost/dropped, the server will attempt to restart within 30-seconds.

TI version 15 is supposed to improve CineCanvas handling. Though I have not had particular problem with TI 14.

TI 15 is part of the NEC 2.11 software (Series 1)

From the TI 15 release notes:

New / Changed Functionality in DLP Cinema(R) Release 15.1
=========================================================

ARM_Main_App.bin 15.1(268):
1. SMPTE (428-7) Subtitle Support Added (15.0)
2. SMPTE (430-11) Presentation List Support Added (15.0)
3. Updated for latest SMPTE 428-7 (15.1)
4. Image error causes overlaping text fixed (15.1)
5. em Sufix is optional in Space, Size, Offset attributes (15.1)

DSP_Main_App 5.1(181)
1. SMPTE (428-7) Subtitle Positioning Support Added (5.0)
2. Preliminary RTL support Added (5.0)
3. Panorama Integrated for RTL support (5.0)
4. FontFusion 5.0 Integrated for Panorma (5.0)
5. Font attribute change in Super/Sub script (5.1)
6. Ruby text in RTL (5.1)
7. Italic RTL text truncation problem Fixed (5.1)
8. Multiple shadow colors in RTL (5.1)
9. Mixing shadow/border in a line in RTL (5.1)
10. Char spacing in RTL (5.1)
11. Aspect adjust/Anamorphic Scaling in RTL (5.1)
12. Last few pixels cut in RTL text with some fonts fixed (5.1)
13. For RTL text, shadow and Italic are towards left (5.1)
14. Huge Font size text causes memory leak. Fixed (5.1)

TI_MAIN_DDP1000_V1.26(141):
1. Interval time keeper was moved out of the Vsync interrupt handler and placed into the main loop to reduce the amount of processing time by the handler.

2. Separated the call to the RDRAM read function between the master and slave ASIC so they occur at different locations within the Vsync interrupt handler.
 
Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 04-29-2013, 07:01 AM:
 
quote: Antti Nayha
I’ve found out from some colleagues’ experiences that some Series 1 machines have an official 640 kB limitation for the subtitle file
I just noticed that dcp_inspect now reports an error if a font file exceeds 640 kB.

Is this a new feature? Perhaps something that Wolfgang added after reading this thread? Anyway, thanks! [Smile]
 
Posted by Wolfgang Woehl (Member # 6901) on 04-29-2013, 01:13 PM:
 
Antti, it has been a very active 2 months for dcp_inspect, indeed. You want to make sure to run the most recent version these days. Update by running digital-cinema-tools-setup every now and then.

Fixes and features include
 
Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 04-29-2013, 02:35 PM:
 
Steve, I had to upgrade a DP3000 with TI 14 to TI 15 which was refusing to show subtitles on 4.5.x
 
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-29-2013, 09:46 PM:
 
I don't doubt it...Dolby 4.5 seems more particular about various CPLs too.
 
Posted by Aleksandar Obradovic (Member # 7266) on 05-02-2013, 05:51 PM:
 
Antti,

If you wish i can talk to one of my friends in Belgium for rental D-cinema equipment which will suit all your needs. They have Barco/Christie series 2 projectors and dolby/doremi servers so you can combine whatever you want (Probably they have others also but i have to ask). They also can give you great support for all other d-cinema jobs you have. It is dcinex (Liege based d-cinema company).

BR Alexander
 
Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 07-16-2013, 02:34 PM:
 
OK, the festival is happily over. We ran twenty DCP's (both 24fps Interop and 25fps SMPTE, most of them subtitled) with the NC1600C and had zero problems this time.

I had the projector's software updated to latest versions. However, the DSS200 was running 4.3.9, and the service company responsible for this venue didn't like the idea of updating that unless absolutely necessary. Apparently they were worried about possible problems running a DCI Dolby software together with a series 1 NEC projector. Since it's not possible to downgrade back to 4.3 in case of such problems, I decided to agree with them.

I wonder how long they can keep using non-DCI-compliant software, though... they're not under VPF, but presumably there will be problems with new studio DCP's at some point.

Thanks to Wolfgang's recent update to dcp_inspect, I was able to spot one DCP where the subtitle font file was larger than 640 kB. Since I found out about this two months before the festival, we simply didn't schedule any screenings of this film at this venue. It played back just fine elsewhere with Series 2 projectors and DSS200's with 4.4.2 software. (Although I suppose I could have re-authored the DCP with a smaller Arial.ttf file.)
 
Posted by Mohd Ridzuan (Member # 7054) on 10-23-2013, 11:50 AM:
 
Hello guys,

i had a subtitle issue on my 2 halls which using combination Nec series 1 with dolby DSS200 and another one also NeC series 1 with dolby DSS100. There were no subtitle at all for the film Thor. using the same content on another hall running by GDC server it show nothing problem with the subtitle.

1.Can anyone help me to rectified this problem.

2. What is the latest version firmware for NEC series 1 combination with the latest version firmware for dolby DSS200 and DSS100. Which firmware is the best results?

Warmest regards

Wan
 
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-23-2013, 12:54 PM:
 
Make sure your Dolby software is at least on 4.3.5 (9). Make sure your NECs are up to date.

If your NECs can handle "TLS" Cinelink 2, then 4.4.2 (10) will have the best subtitle performance.

Also, verify that the Arial.ttf font is in each reel of the DCP (check it on the hard drive itself).
 
Posted by Mohd Ridzuan (Member # 7054) on 10-23-2013, 01:04 PM:
 
Thanks Steve,

Now the issue happened to my another Nec but this time its Series 2 combination with GDC server. Is it a contents problem or projectors?

Beside that, like Barco we can just try out the cinecanvas function by pause n play on the control panel if the subtitle is not running. If there any function like this on Nec? Do you know what is the latest update for Nec as mine is 2.01. Is it the newest?

Thanks again
 
Posted by Stefan Vogels (Member # 5573) on 10-23-2013, 01:57 PM:
 
Package 4.208 is the latest release for NEC series II projectors
 
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-23-2013, 04:15 PM:
 
For series 1, the NC1600 latest is 2.14, for the NC2500, the latest is 2.11

The NEC DCC does not have the same screen as the Barco Communicator. If you are familiar with the TI DLP program, I believe the functionality is there.

Note, TI series 1 DLP software does not like Win 7 64 bit...it will frequently "quit" on its own.
 
Posted by Mohd Ridzuan (Member # 7054) on 10-24-2013, 12:03 AM:
 
Hi all,

thanx again for your kindness help. Today morning we tried playing the same content but this time the subtitle is there. is it everytime the subtitle gone we need to reboot the projectors? feels like annoying. but what to do if its only way to solved the issue.

Anyone had other solutions?

Best regards

Wan
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-24-2013, 04:07 AM:
 
If you search the forum, there is loads of experiences like your's with subtitles. It has become better with recent software releases, but the implementation is still a piece of crap.

- Carsten
 
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-24-2013, 08:06 AM:
 
Word has it that when the "SMPTE" implementation happens for subtitles, that these problems will subside. We'll see.

I'll admit, in our theatres running current software (projectors and servers) I don't get subtitle complaints anymore.
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-24-2013, 10:42 AM:
 
Wondering in how far SMPTE subtitles will actually do something in respect to the server/projector communication? One thing is the server dealing with the subtitle files in the DCP, another thing the interface and protocol between server and projector to transmit and display them.

In theory, you could 'have' SMPTE subtitles in the DCP, but still the unreliable old way of doing it between server and projector ?! Or does SMPTE redefine that protocol as well?

- Carsten
 
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-24-2013, 04:13 PM:
 
I believe that the SMPTE method does away with CineCanvas and the subtitles come over "burned" into the image.
 
Posted by Mohd Ridzuan (Member # 7054) on 10-24-2013, 10:32 PM:
 
Hi Steve, do you know any link or website to download firmware and software data for NEC. Or technical site for NEC so i can apply an account to get the release updates. Thanx again
 
Posted by Antti Nayha (Member # 4980) on 10-25-2013, 12:02 AM:
 
quote: Steve Guttag
I believe that the SMPTE method does away with CineCanvas and the subtitles come over "burned" into the image.
Do you mean that SMPTE subtitles are always rendered in the server instead of the projector? Is that really so?

It's just that I've come across some discussion about if projector family X supports SMPTE subtitles or not. But that wouldn't be relevant at all if they were rendered in the server, right?

For example, let's take the ISDCF Chairman Summaries document:

quote:
Will series 1 projectors work for SMPTE subtitles?
quote:
For the March demo TI had not finished the open subtitle software to display SMPTE Subtitles for Series 1. The Series 2 projectors do not have either subtitle software (as of today’s date). We saw three servers that generate open subtitles internally and do not rely on the projector rendering engine. This may be the wave of the future, but this was not possible 5 years ago at launch so the availability of projector rendering of on-screen subtitles has been very important to the launch of Digital Cinema. I expect to see Series 1 projectors with SMPTE subtitles in a few months followed by Series 2 projectors with both Cinecanvas and SMPTE subtitles.
I've also been wondering about the exact function of the new CineCanvas/SMPTE option introduced in Dolby System 4.6. From the release notes:

quote:
“setPresentationListType” script added to the Administrator login. Allows the user to change between CineCanvas and SMPTE RPL for subtitle display. CineCanvas is the only option when using a series 1 projector.
Is this about converting SMPTE subtitles to CineCanvas to support older projectors / projectors with SMPTE subtitle problems?

I tried switching it around on 4.6.1(4) just out of curiosity, but the script failed to execute...
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-25-2013, 08:58 AM:
 
Hmm, if SMPTE title generation stays in the projector, how can we be sure TI doesn't screw it up again? What kept TI from fixing Cinecanvas during the recent years?

- Carsten
 
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-25-2013, 03:36 PM:
 
BTW - Doremi is still adding features to their server-side subtitling engine, e.g. customizable position offsets. Initially I thought they would give it up after the final advent of Cinecanvas on series 2.
Sonys do not support Cinecanvas anyway, so they render on the server/mediablock as well. With 3D titles, HFR, etc. coming, server-side rendering may indeed be the better way to do it. Would also offer more options to render them more gracefully. Very often Cinecanvas looks pretty ugly.

- Carsten
 
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-25-2013, 04:55 PM:
 
CineCanvas is pathetic. Darn near every ICP issue they are fiddling with it and it STILL is unreliable. Furthermore, the whole way DCinema handles captions/subtitles is hokey, to say the least.

It is almost as if it was designed to fail.
 
Posted by Mohd Ridzuan (Member # 7054) on 10-27-2013, 09:55 PM:
 
Hi All,

Did anyone knows where to get firmware updates for NEC. Any link or person contact to get an account?

Thanx FT,

Wan
 




Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.3.1.2