Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Renting Digital

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

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Posted by Michael Cornish (Member # 6529) on 09-28-2014, 11:04 PM:

Not that long ago I thought I saw a write up on a place that rented digital equipment or was I dreaming about it.......Help

Thanks in advance

mike

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 09-29-2014, 01:56 AM:

And what are you looking for? A company that can rent you digital equipment (which must be quite a few and depending on region) or the place that used said rented equipment?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-29-2014, 05:27 AM:

VER has some D-cinema equipment in stock (Barco projector(s) and Doremi server(s)).

Not sure how the crypto stuff works with rental gear--you would need to get those public keys in advance of the rental, presumably.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 09-29-2014, 06:42 AM:

We have sourced from several vendors including VER. Most of the time is impressing the importance of coordinating information regarding hardware, server time clock and security issues. One show with 1200 people we had four people on their cell phones trying to get the key to start the show……the server clock was six hours off which was hard to get this through the "key" police

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 09-29-2014, 07:18 AM:

That's probably the main issue with those rental companies, they usually don't have a clue about how this DCI stuff works. So keeping the time well adjusted and providing some advance preparation so you can get public keys exchanged is probably very hard to arrange.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 09-29-2014, 12:06 PM:

quote: Richard Fowler
One show with 1200 people we had four people on their cell phones trying to get the key to start the show……the server clock was six hours off

Hahaha! I went through the same thing at a big trade show a couple of years ago.
The company involved was making a big product announcement and so they
had their video "locked" until the last minute for security reasons.

But in my case, not only was the server clock several hours off, but the DCP had
been produced overseas and the time on the KDM they generated was set for
the local time where the video was produced, and not the time it needed to
be played back here in the USA. D'oh!

Fortunately, I realized this enough in advance to get it all straightened
out, but it wasn't easy, and didn't get fully resolved until the very last minute.

The good news is that when I got paid for the show, they threw me a big
bonus (several hundred dollars) for making everything 'work' and saving
them from some major embarrassment at their big event.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 09-29-2014, 12:33 PM:

Creating an encrypted DCP, including all the necessary KDM overhead for something like a product announcement. Their CEO must have been Steve Jobs' brother... They almost deserved to get a smack in their collective faces.

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 09-29-2014, 02:13 PM:

How does a dci compliant media block have its clock off by several hours? Also, time zones are a PAIN! This stuff should all be encoded as utc. If you want something to play at noon tomorrow in Los Angeles, put the corresponding UTC time in the KDM.

Harold

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-29-2014, 07:17 PM:

Isn't it possible to just call a server manufacturer and let them remote in to fix the clock? That's what we did here when our clock got off.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 09-29-2014, 11:58 PM:

I imagine that depends on whether you have conveniently available wired Internet service that's not filtered through X number of layers of NAT.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 09-30-2014, 06:59 AM:

This is a "recycled" Doremi from the U.K. with issues which did not allow for clock change…….running a bunch of "keyless" DCP for a function today which where made with DCP-o-Matic, so no heart attacks today.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-30-2014, 09:46 AM:

If you need rental call James Bond at Full Aperture Systems in Chicago. He does lots of D-Cinema rentals for the studios and does it all over the country.

Mark

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 09-30-2014, 10:21 AM:

Since we're all thieves and pirates, the server security does not allow changing the clock outside a very narrow window. 6 hours is not possible without, from what I know, returning the Dolphin card to Doremi. If you use a DLM to extend the window (which won't stretch it to 6h), the server is no longer fully DCI compliant afterwards - but it will still work fine unless a KDM requiring strict compliance is tried. There are no such KDMs being issued yet, but they could be. The distributors realize that some security requirements available will break a lot of systems... and they don't want to do that. Yet.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-01-2014, 04:13 PM:

GDC is able to remote into a server and adjust the internal clock more then the +/- 6 minmutes per year that DCI allows... I've had to have them do this in places where the internet is unreliable and the server is still looking for NTP but isn't getting it and then drifts.

Mark

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 10-02-2014, 04:11 AM:

Maybe you should give them a Stratum-1 NTP server based on GPS [Wink]

.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like a multi-K investment, but with a bit of tinkering, you can build one for a few bucks.

Posted by Ron Funderburg (Member # 4561) on 10-03-2014, 04:58 PM:

Mark,really call Bond, James Bond? No has said anything about that? You know that poor guy has to hear that all the time!

Made my day! I once knew a guy named Philip Harlow, he had no end to be people saying oh you misspelled it it should be Marlow right?

Okay way off subject just had to make a comment before someone else did1

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 10-06-2014, 03:05 PM:

Here's a clip featuring Mr. Bond in the Gabriel Rhodes short film Behind the Glass.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-06-2014, 04:36 PM:

Where can one see the full thing?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 10-06-2014, 05:40 PM:

We bought projectors from James years ago.

We actually had an electrician come in a couple of months ago named Phillip Marlow. He knew it was some sort of detective name, but he never read the books or saw the movies.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 10-06-2014, 05:55 PM:

Years ago I met two little twin girls, named Ima and Ura. I figure their parents must have been short on common sense since their last name was Hogg....

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-07-2014, 01:26 PM:

Worked with James Bond as he restored the famous Eastman 25B (the Maserati of 16mm projectors) for the Brooklyn Museum's Cantor Theatre. That picture of him hugging the 25B in the video isn't an exageration. The man simply knows as much or even more about every part in that projector then the men at EK who designed it. But beyond that, the man is simply a delight to be around...unassuming, genuine, a guy you immediatly take to and who you would sit down and have a beer with anytime. He is the kind of dedicated guy who worked long into the wee hours because the next day that projector had to be ready to go on the screen -- a generosity of spirit that was very apparent. Saved our butts big time.