Reviving a DTS XD20

[Marco Giustini]

Yes I'm aware of the extra 1U unit with drives - and I really doubt that DTS designed something special to work with that board. Most DTS stuff is off the shelf, besides their own boards.
Weird about the laptop DVDRW having issues: CDs are the simplest to read, it should be the other way round!

[Ryan Gallagher]

It would be a fun experiment to see what this display board does when plugged into usb of a XD10. It might do nothing, or it might behave almost the same. XD10 remote? Hah. Though XD20 parts are even more rare it seems.

[Marco Giustini]

The software is the same, I see when the XD10 starts it goes to detect whether it's a 10 or 20. They often use simple ways to tell the difference.
On the DSS series, a DSS200 was assumes if the HW RAID card was present. If not present, a DSS220 was selected.

Who knows what the script is poking to find out what unit is being used!

XD20s were pretty rare I think, they came out towards the end of everything.

[Ryan Gallagher]

The software is the same, I see when the XD10 starts it goes to detect whether it's a 10 or 20. They often use simple ways to tell the difference.
On the DSS series, a DSS200 was assumes if the HW RAID card was present. If not present, a DSS220 was selected.

Who knows what the script is poking to find out what unit is being used!

XD20s were pretty rare I think, they came out towards the end of everything.

I almost have the parts I need for the reinstall, just waiting on an IDE to CF card adapter. Gonna try to see if it will recognize and install to dual 1TB SSDs to enable it's raid functions.

It did boot from the install disc with my USB optical drive.... bios acted like it would boot from USB stick too but I may need to re-image that ISO onto it. Didn't like it on first attempt, will try another stick. But not needed since it does the attached optical boot just fine.

Is it possible to move DTS licenses from the old drive? I'm not sure CSS or Video is going to be enabled by default. (Assuming I can get it to recognize it's video hardware eventually). I didn't have to think about that when i reinstalled our XD10, cause we only needed the basic soundtrack license.

[Marco Giustini]

Licenses: yes but you need to start the player and save a configuration backup. I'm sure there is also a way to do so by accessing the disk itself. But if the player works, find the configuration backup menu and save a backup ASAP as once that is lost, the player will only reinstall as a basic sound machine - at least that is the XD10 behaviour.
Once the SW is installed, you'll be asked to plug the USB stick to re-load the configuration. Or you can do that later in the relevant menu.

booting from USB stick can be challenging, I don't know how the stick needs to be formatted. When it comes to Windows and Linux, you'd need to use tools like RUFUS.

If the board booted from the USB optical drive, happy days! You can stick a Linux Live disk in it and test the system in Linux without HDD! ?

[Ryan Gallagher]

Licenses: yes but you need to start the player and save a configuration backup. I'm sure there is also a way to do so by accessing the disk itself. But if the player works, find the configuration backup menu and save a backup ASAP as once that is lost, the player will only reinstall as a basic sound machine - at least that is the XD10 behaviour.
Once the SW is installed, you'll be asked to plug the USB stick to re-load the configuration. Or you can do that later in the relevant menu.

booting from USB stick can be challenging, I don't know how the stick needs to be formatted. When it comes to Windows and Linux, you'd need to use tools like RUFUS.

If the board booted from the USB optical drive, happy days! You can stick a Linux Live disk in it and test the system in Linux without HDD! ?

Hah, I remember that config step from last time, thanks for the reminder, though it was not really needed on our xd10 cause we only had basic license.

I’m familiar with Rufus, but made that boot stick from an osx machine with dd. Will try a live disc and run memtest from there, since this is ebay memory. (But it’s Micron at least). If I can manage a Linux live via usb the installer should be possible too.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Here are those board photos you requested Marco.

As an aside for other players, I'm not 100%, but I was unable to dump any configs from the existing system until I formatted a USB key with a MBR partition scheme, after that the same key worked as expected. Marco had also said XD10s are really picky about USB keys, so I expect maybe if you "happen" into a MBR one it worked, but other GUID scheme devices were not working.

Something else changing may have caused it to work, but that seems the most likely.

My fresh install was struggling with the Video feature card installed, but I've got a test install going to new SSDs and CF module right now without the video card, and it's proceeding as expected. The video features would have been neat to preserve and play with, but I'm happy if I just get a soundtrack capable machine in the end.

[Marco Giustini]

Thanks! It's weird that DTS/Datasat went through a full re-design from the dual XD10 design with E494 and E622 to the H222 in just a few years.

I've never seen a video card with that chip, I'd be surprised if Datasat had designed their own??
If the card is not working, I'd swap those capacitors... I know it's a shot in the dark but do I see some of their legs a bit corroded? Those SMD of that era tend to leak.

Good to see you got the unit working though - and thanks for the pics!

[Ryan Gallagher]

Perhaps a conclusion post. Success (where it counts anyway, soundtrack and css playback, can't imagine anyone really using the video preroll features anymore).
Sharing mostly for posterity because these are pretty rare to encounter.

Yup, so she's working on new storage, minus the "Video" features, as it is still complaining about the H222 board seeing the video card connection, but finding no video card. However if I remove the video card it boots up normally with no error except for a [ ! } status error indicator still related to the video features being broken). In fact in order to get the fedora installer not to hang I had to remove the video features card too.

It's the same installer as the 2.2.06 XD10, it just recognizes it's being put on an XD20 during the process.

Like Marco says, perhaps some checking the caps on that video board is in order. I also still have that alternate motherboard on the way to try too in case it's slot related. One of my sata ports was also not cooperating... so not fully trusting this motherboard just yet.

It does boot much faster now on the new CF and SSDs. Dual drive raid is not necessary, it arrived to me with just the one HDD, but as this is a personal unit (for now), rather than spend big money on reputable SSDs, I figured RAID 1 would cover me and used some cheaper SSDs in raid. It actually has mounting standoffs for two 5.25 drive cages, but only came with one, so I opted for a cheap 5.25 to dual 3.5in drive sled adapter to house the two SSDs.

The last second gotchya once I thought I had all the parts, was there were not enough molex to power the new CF adapter. I didn't have anything that would work at home, so for now the 5v that goes to the rear chassis to power the accessory optical drive unit (which I don't own) is disconnected. A SATA to 5v molex is on the way as there are two unused sata power handy. Y Molex would have also worked but had none in my box of ancient computer things. The CF module takes floppy drive power plug, but DTS used the only one to power the front panel display.


IMG_6418.jpgIMG_6417.jpg

After all that "planning" to preserve the licenses and safeguard the old CF card and Drive just in case, it turns out the XD20 installer defaults to all licenses active except DTS XDCore anyway, came right up with Soundtrack, CSS, and Video licenses enabled! Wasn't totally fruitless, I think I learned better what the XD10/20 expect for usb devices now.

Raid features all functioning... found the two SSDs and auto configured during.

IMG_6409.jpgIMG_6410.jpgIMG_6411.jpg

Here is what came out for safe keeping, thinking i was gonna need to preserve the installed licenses (not needed for XD20 outside of the DTS XDCore License, but do watch out and save configs first if doing XD10 which don't license CSS by default)

IMG_6413.jpgIMG_6412.jpg

Here is what it got replaced with:

IMG_6414.jpgIMG_6416.jpgIMG_6415.jpg



Here is a quick shopping list of what I used to overhaul it in case anyone else comes across one:


7$ for 2! Lots to pick from but I selected this CF adapter cause it came with molex power tail.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C88MZPVV

27$ This 512mb Transcend CF card, spent a little more money here on something name brand and marketed as "industrial"... though no idea what that changes, other than warranty. 512mb simply because that is what the original was.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XH481W

5$ A dual 3.5in adapter tray (again choices, this one was crap in hindsite, mostly non-ferrous screws and awkward screw-driver slots)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016498CK0

53$/ea Two PNY SSDs (pick your brand poison), I picked some cheap 3d-nand flash units, but not quite no-name brand ones since I'm just experimenting with this unit.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y5VDNT9

Anyway, that was my day off friday afternoon "fun". Once a geek always a geek.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Another gotchya. She’ll load DTS soundtracks via usb, but a usb optical drive does not seem to do the business with discs directly.

[Marco Giustini]

Other thoughts for that video card:
1. Try it in a windows system and see what it does?
2. Push on the BGA chip while booting to see if by any chance it changes its behaviour
3. Warm up the whole board - mainly the chip. You don't need stupid temps, if you have a hairdryer, it'll do. That would potentially temporarily fix some BGA cracks and most importantly might revive dying caps just enough to show you a change in behaviour. You'll need to warm it up until it's uncomfortable to touch though.
4. Use cold spray as well (not on a super hot part!) might help you pinpoint the issue

If you have a hot air station, set it to 200C high airflow and warm around (200C means the PCB will likely get to 100C top, just don't stick the gun on a specific component for too long!). I am not suggesting to melt the solder BTW, just warm it up. I'd say 90% of boards would come back to life when warmed up - or show hidden issues. They'll change their behaviour basically.
5. I'm sure you tried already: good contact cleaner on PCI sockets and connector

Good luck and thanks for all those pics - I am impressed that the same XD10 SW is also looking after such a different machine!!

[Steve Guttag]

I spy a Folsom (Barco) Image Pro

[Ryan Gallagher]

I spy a Folsom (Barco) Image Pro

Good Eye. 3G to be exact. Before I started doing cinema projection I was also repairing those guys, as a lot of the parts in the nicer (at the time) HD/SDI-3g versions could be gotten from broken cheap vanilla image-pros (knob, buttons, screen, power supply, fans, etc), hell even the much older "Presentation Pro" units could donate parts.

I pulled that one out when I was trying to learn if my no video issue was monitor signal support or it in fact was not posting.

[Steve Guttag]

The Barco ACS-2048 was an ImagePro in a 2U package and with DCinema (of the day, Series-1) outputs (twinlink DVI). As a scaler, it was very good...as an HDCP compliant box...it was horrible and would falsely trigger HDCP protections.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Our smaller theatre still has a similar input switcher, not the ACS-2048 though... might be a PDS-902? I'll have to check. They started having problems with it outputting 3-5s of white snow occasionally... and have since lost faith in it and by passed. They have a ATEM Mini and decimator feeding the projector now for ALT inputs.

One day i'll have to pull that unit and diagnose. It's still a nice scaler if it is problem free.