Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Christie Solaria One and JBL60 no sound issue

This is topic Christie Solaria One and JBL60 no sound issue 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=003420

Posted by Ronda Fitzsimmons (Member # 1418) on 08-27-2018, 05:11 PM:

We are having trouble which even Christie can't seem to diagnose (two months and counting, including 11 hours onsite tech), and I thought I'd ask this fine group of folks if you have any ideas. We have no sound in one house if the film or file is interop. Plays smpte just fine. We've done everything we can think of to correct the issue - 4 IMB replacements, full software replacement, remapped the channels, moved sound processor (issue stays with the projector), changed cat 6 cable... Many things have been suggested by Christie, nothing so far has worked. These are version 1 plain jane Solaria One projectors. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 08-27-2018, 05:20 PM:

Did you have sound before and lose it, or never have it?

This sounds similar my problem of not having IOP VI, but SMPTE VI is fine. Still not solved.

Is it possible the AES3 cable is not wired properly?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-27-2018, 05:45 PM:

Did you compare the channel and speaker mapping settings of the IMB-S2 between this and another, functioning screen? It is hard to believe, though, that, after support and tech have spent so much time on it, that the reason would be something obvious or stupid?!

Personally, I would backup this system setting, one from a working system, and restore a working setup to this problematic one to see wether something changes.

When you activate the Test button for a specific channel - do you hear the test tone on all channels? Then when you play an Interop feature, all are silent?

- Carsten

Posted by Ronda Fitzsimmons (Member # 1418) on 08-31-2018, 08:58 AM:

Did you have sound before and lose it, or never have it?

We had sound 3 months ago. We installed a develpmental IMB it was not properly upgraded as I wasn'rt given the directions. The sound dropped out a little while after that. A month ago I realized STMPE worked but interop didn't.

This sounds similar my problem of not having IOP VI, but SMPTE VI is fine. Still not solved.

Is it possible the AES3 cable is not wired properly? Is this the breakout board or the cat 6 cable? It's been 5 years since the install and I can't remember all the terms.

we switched that with a good house and it had the same problems. Nothing has been changed with the wiring and it was working.

and:
Did you compare the channel and speaker mapping settings of the IMB-S2 between this and another, functioning screen? It is hard to believe, though, that, after support and tech have spent so much time on it, that the reason would be something obvious or stupid?!

Yes this has been done several times and does not appear to be the problem.

Personally, I would backup this system setting, one from a working system, and restore a working setup to this problematic one to see wether something changes.
I have installed several new IMBs doing the settings several different ways including putting them in by hand. It doesn't seem to be a setting.

When you activate the Test button for a specific channel - do you hear the test tone on all channels? Then when you play an Interop feature, all are silent?

I Haven't done that yet. I think the Christie tech did do that. But it's a good idea I'll try it tomorrow.

Thanks for your thoughts on this, folks. I'm really stumped!

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-31-2018, 09:05 AM:

Sounds weird. You wrote you exchanged multiple IMB-S2 for that screen - did you always restore the settings from the initial/working screen? Maybe there is something in that config that travels with every restore, but can't be reset through the setup/GUI? In that case, the only way to solve it would be to setup a new IMB-S2 from scratch. But it appears you already did that?

- Carsten

Posted by Ronda Fitzsimmons (Member # 1418) on 09-01-2018, 08:58 AM:

Thanks Carston, yes we did that. Full set up from scratch. Problem continues. We switched sound processors with another auditorium, problem stays with the projector.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-01-2018, 08:24 PM:

The next think I would swap between projectors is the motherboard backplane that the IMB and projector modules plugs into. Its about the only thing left to try.

Mark

Posted by Ronda Fitzsimmons (Member # 1418) on 09-01-2018, 10:00 PM:

Sigh - they won't send us one to try. I'll try to find a field backup we can use to see. I hate to mess up a working projector and risk losing two.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 09-01-2018, 11:01 PM:

quote: Ronda Fitzsimmons
Is it possible the AES3 cable is not wired properly? Is this the breakout board or the cat 6 cable? It's been 5 years since the install and I can't remember all the terms.

It's the one with the breakout board. But if you had sound and lost it, the cable should be fine.

Posted by Ioannis Syrogiannis (Member # 3235) on 09-02-2018, 04:09 AM:

I would concentrate on the difference between SMPTE and InterOp, since there is the difference between playing out or not.
If it was a cable or an adapter, the issue would appear in both packaging methods.
There might be a thing to the channel remapping, but are there overrides of custom remapping in a SMPTE package or in a SMPTE handling from the media block?

The original post states the playing/not playing difference between SMPTE and InterOp, but what about different audio configurations on the two packaging formats? (1.0, 2.0, 5.1, 7.1) would that make a difference?
If you carefully make such "test" files with DCP-o-matic and pack them on both type of DCPs, would they play along or not?
(That's not a proper way to test, but it may provide a clue...)
Does the malfunction gets stated in the logs or not?
What is stated in the logs, regarding the audio in each case?
Does similar reports appear with other similar media blocks?
Does the DCPs alter during the ingest/FTP ingest to the server?
(Recreated PKL or CPL files due to a TMS or the server's operating way.)
If we turn on the paranoid mode, we'll start testing cable pair combinations with the JSD-60 (I guess) input pairs or measuring the AES/DB25 output ones.

The whole issue might be software dependent, but not all software choices are available to a user or an installer.

Once again, the log files might (or might not) shed some light where fruitless speculation can dominate.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 09-02-2018, 06:12 AM:

The SMPTE dialect that DCP-o-matic writes may not trigger the issue, there are lot's of ways to formulate the audio mxf file in SMPTE. Still worth a try, though.

The question is wether the IMB-S2 really does not output any audio at all in IOP, or just mapped to 'useless' channels. The USL-JSD60 only supports 8 digital input channels, so, for some weird reason, it could be that the IMB-S2 routes the channels out to 9-16, and with an 8ch/4ch AES cable only towards the JSD60, they would end up in nirvana.
One would need a DB25 break out cable/board or jumper box to tap into the 16ch AES/EBU output.

Ronda - you mention a CAT6 cable - that probably means, you are using a DB25 (IMB side) to RJ45 cable/board and enter the JSD60 digital audio port through that RJ45 cable/socket? Or are you using a DB25 to DB25 cable for audio, and referred to the network CAT6?

It IS certainly possible that, if you use one of the common DualRJ45 to DB25 AES converter dongles, that you use the wrong RJ45 socket on that converter dongle, thus IOP may get routed to channels 9-16 instead of 1-8, whereas, with a dynamic SMPTE routing, the IMB-S2 sends out the correct channels on 9-16, landing on 1-8 with the converter plugged in the wrong way.
Can you describe the audio cabling and converters used between the IMB-S2 and the JSD60, or send photos? A local tech should be able to find this out, but maybe, in your case, they only connected to the system by remote support access ?

Other than the limited number of input channels and no reroute option for 9-16, I can not think of a reason the JSD60 is responsible for this.

- Carsten

Posted by Ronda Fitzsimmons (Member # 1418) on 09-04-2018, 01:11 PM:

Thanks for taking a look.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 09-04-2018, 04:40 PM:

Hi Ronda - I guess that blue RJ45 cable crossing the solaria logo that is connected to the left socket on the dual RJ45 converter board on the Christie IMB enters the JSD60 on the top left rear. Your first photo shows the JSD60 audio output breakout board (towards amps) and the 'other' blue RJ45 cable enters the NAS network port above, not the JSD60.
The end of the blue digital audio cable must go somewhere else, and I guess, it goes towards the top left RJ45 socket on the JSD60 rear (the one labeled AES-EBU).

Well, I don't know that 2*RJ45 converter board, it might be an Odyssey or DalePro board, I don't know which AES channels go on that one socket. It would be an easy test though, to switch the cable to the other socket and see if playing Interop suddenly gives sound. You could also compare this to your other screens/IMB-S2.

- Carsten

Posted by Ronda Fitzsimmons (Member # 1418) on 09-06-2018, 09:43 PM:

We'll test again, but I'm pretty sure we have tried that. It's Odyssey I'm reasonably certain. Setting up the DCP-o-matic files for testing is a good idea. I'll try that next.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 09-07-2018, 01:10 PM:

All Odyssey cards I've seen have the RJ45 jacks facing "out", not "up" like that one.
But... if you have sound on SMPTE DCPs, not having sound for Interop content has to be a problem in the server, in my opinion.
Working for SMPTE says it does work OK as far as turning data to sound. I'm not sure about SOlaria 1 as to whether it has some audio rerouting capability, SMPTE DCPs have metadata that can be used to reroute channels - if the server supports it, you assign channel names (ie LEFT, LFE, etc) to output channel numbers 1-16 and the sound should go there. If someone routed the audio channels this way to AES 9-16 rather than the normal 1-8... SMPTE DCPs would sound OK but Interop - without that metadata ability - would stay on 1-8.
Odyssey adapter cards are marked as to what channels each RJ45 handles (1-8 or 9-16), take a look at it. If it's not Odyssey YMMV.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-07-2018, 03:12 PM:

quote: Dave Macaulay
But... if you have sound on SMPTE DCPs, not having sound for Interop content has to be a problem in the server, in my opinion.

Yes, exactly! Dave is correct... That's not a wiring issue. Its an internal server problem. Might be time to threaten Christie with your attorney's. They should have straightened this out by now.

Mark

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 09-07-2018, 04:50 PM:

Solaria 1/IMB-S2 has audio rerouting, and optional SMPTE labels. So, of course, it is a software issue, but if the reason is a routing change between IOP and SMPTE, then the wiring may show it.

- Carsten

Posted by Ronda Fitzsimmons (Member # 1418) on 09-13-2018, 09:39 PM:

We are making some progress and have interop working if we assign all speaker channels to the right...all to the left or all center. I have no idea why. Does that trigger any other thoughts? These are the series one projectors and we were about the first installs. The odyssey boards might have been prototypes too.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 09-14-2018, 04:24 AM:

My solution to this would be to have a full DB25 pigtail or DB25 jumper box on the IMB-S2 that allows you to wire every single AES pair into e.g. one AES channel of the JSD60.
Then use a test DCP with signals on all 16 channels ('channel 1', 'channel 2'), so you can actually hear which channel you are getting.

The trouble here is that a missing signal may not simply be a missing signal, but one that comes out on a different AES pair. If you know where it comes out, you may find the pattern. Then you can also rule out the odyssey board.

- Carsten