Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Multi screening room playback overview

This is topic Multi screening room playback overview - no TMS in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Gunnar Asgeirsson (Member # 3882) on 11-21-2017, 09:45 AM:

Is there any application that allows me to display playback overview of 3 screening room at the same time. 1 of them is Dolby DSS 200 and the other two is DoReMi IMS1000 servers (Branded as NEC NP-90MS01).

Since we do not have any TMS of caurse this 3 screening room act as different person. At the moment there is no GUI that can display all of them on the same monitor.

I was even thinking about some gui that could display this from raspberry pi or something like that.

The idea is that the ticket sale can have monitor just to see what is playing and how long time is left of the show. With absolutely no control of anything. Just to see what is happening.
I know that is easy to grand some monitor view of the playback status of each room if the cinema have TMS but i dont know if i can do this without TMS.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 11-21-2017, 03:54 PM:

Doremi and Dolby servers (and every server out there, as far as I'm aware) both support VNC. If you have a monitor with a high enough resolution, you could launch a VNC viewer and connect to each server and then arrange the window so you can view all three. Even though you don't need it, this would also offer remote control of the servers.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-21-2017, 04:03 PM:

How is playback started on these three screens currently?

- Carsten

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 11-21-2017, 04:21 PM:

Many (all?) VNC clients can be run in view-only mode so the server won't accept input from the client. Which might be what you want to have if you're just monitoring the servers.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 11-21-2017, 06:04 PM:

quote: Gunnar Asgeirsson
Since we do not have any TMS of caurse this 3 screening room act as different person. At the moment there is no GUI that can display all of them on the same monitor.

They're in the same building, aren't they? So, I suppose they already share some common infrastructure, like power, water, heating and maybe even networking and Internet? They sell tickets from one booth?

So, why couldn't they equally share one TMS?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-22-2017, 10:23 PM:

A DSS200 can itself act as a TMS for (if memory serves me correctly) up to three others. So if you could get hold of two more, plus Enigma boards or cat745s for the two projectors that currently have IMSes, there is a solution.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 11-23-2017, 06:48 AM:

Not sure what you mean, Leo.
The DSS "TMS" mode is not a real TMS. It lets you link up to 3 DSS servers so one can control all three. You still need the other DSS servers. I don't think proposing that Gunnar scraps his IMS servers and buys DSS units plus the LD or IMB cards is realistic.

The IMS servers can not support VNC. Dolby DSS servers do not have a webGUI. A PC could display the playback status by showing the two IMS's webGUI pages and a VNC screen from the DSS. That would be a nasty kludge - and give whoever is at that PC full control over the shows.

I don't think what he wants exists.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-23-2017, 01:51 PM:

I agree that it's only a viable solution if the extra equipment could be obtained used and at very low cost. However, a lot of places are now retiring DSL/DSS hardware and replacing it with IMS systems (I have replaced two units in the last week and a half), and so that may be a possibility. That having been said, the amount of used cinema equipment floating around in Iceland is likely very restricted.

Incidentally, VNC is not the only way to operate a DSS over a network: you can install the actual Dolby Show Manager app on a Windows PC. This has the advantage that, unlike VNC, it does not mirror what is being done on a local keyboard and mouse hooked directly to the server. So if you wanted to give someone elsewhere in the building (e.g. the manager's office) the ability to see what the DSS is doing but not to operate it, you could install Show Manager on a PC connected to whichever network the DSS is configured to be managed over (auditorium or theater - it's the latter by default), change the Show Manager passwords to something other than the defaults, and leave it in monitor mode when Show Manager starts (i.e. don't log in at all). This will not affect what anyone does directly at the server, or via VNC from another PC. However, the VNC screen does mirror the local one.

I don't know of any equivalent approach in the IMS. You have to log in to get past the front page splash screen, and so if the lowest level of login privilege still allows the user to operate the transport buttons, that won't work if you need to be sure that the user of the remote PC cannot disrupt a show, whatever they do.

Posted by Ian Freer (Member # 1940) on 11-23-2017, 02:14 PM:

Another idea:
You could purchase a Jnior 4 series (if you don't already have one) and install and run their Event Manager software
http://www.integpg.com/software/event-manager/

It doesn't quite cover all the functions you want, ie I'm not sure it has the function to tell you the exact 'time remaining' in any particular show, but it would at least show when the credits have begun etc.

I've not tried it out (yet) so cannot give any personal experience, but as the Event Manager runs in a browser, you should be able to run that from your raspberry pi quite happily.
I guess you could even set up a script or some method of automatically launching the browser (with event manager as home page) so it starts up to the right place, that way no keyboard or mouse would need to be connected.

Cheers,
Ian

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-23-2017, 09:10 PM:

You could purchase the Dolby TMS software (Doremi TMS) and so long as everything is on the right versions, it is supposed to work with both DSS and IMS servers. But you'll be paying the big "D" in perpaturity to run that software.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 11-24-2017, 08:19 AM:

Maybe split the video signals for the 3 server control monitors out to something like a security cam display that shows all three feeds? Just need to have all three showing the playback progress.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-24-2017, 09:43 AM:

We have one site with a Dolby (ex-Doremi) TMS running a mixture of DSS and Doremi servers, so yes, it does work. But as Steve points out, there is a significant, per-screen one time purchase cost, plus an annual license renewal.

The GDC TMS is supposed to work the same way, too, but with pretty much any server or IMS out there. I'm about to install one next week in a site with a mixture of DSS and Barco Alchemy. Haven't done one before, so I'll be interested to see how smoothly it integrates them.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 11-24-2017, 05:03 PM:

Have fun. The TMS can't program the Barco ICMP black pattern, and the GDC black MOS clips will not ingest in the ICMP.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-24-2017, 07:01 PM:

Black MOS clips aren't that hard. Whereas the TCC works with the Barco Alchemy, it can work with other black clips. Now if you want it to play a black while the Alchemy isn't selected as the active input, it will only do that on the Barco pattern. Or some such nonsense.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-25-2017, 08:40 AM:

Thanks for the heads up, Dave. If the customer needs black video DCPs, I'll make some on my laptop while I'm there.

Was both the GDC software and the Alchemy firmware on the latest version when you experienced this glitch?

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 11-25-2017, 11:27 AM:

Oh yes.
GDC is supposed to be working on a solution so the TMS can build a playlist with ICMP black pattern.
This is only a real issue where a screen has mixed use and the ICMP could be left in an alternative content input mode. If that's the situation it's a good idea to start all playlists with a 5s black pattern with a cue to switch to player input. The ICMP will refuse to play any DCP, but it will play the black pattern if it is in an alternative content mode - so a scheduled show will fail without that black pattern and mode switch cue.

Posted by Bruce Cloutier (Member # 9615) on 12-10-2017, 06:20 PM:

If you do want to try to do this with a JNIOR let us know. If it can be accomplished with Event Manager or something else we can figure it out. If you want to pursue it I would recommend joining http://jnior.com to get a discussion going directly with Kevin.

Kevin wrote all of these applications by the way. Really, ALL of them and we are looking for new capabilities to add. And, uh, short of the JNIOR there likely won't be any additional cost as we should charge for this stuff but don't.

The Raspeberry Pi doesn't come with direct access to designers and programmers who are anxious to satisfy. The Arduio doesn't either. The JNIOR is somewhere in between on that spectrum. Wouldn't you agree?

So, let us know if we can help.