Problems with DTS 70mm Playback

[Michael Zarits]

Did I dream that even/odd pattern with older players or was that actually a thing?

I'd be interested in that as well.

[Marco Giustini]

The "excessive timecode" relates more to Brad's input an memory that there were a handful of modern 70mm prints where Fotokem was doing unusual or inconsistent things with timecode on the tails. Perhaps there is some out of bounds behavior when a print is unusual like this that is specific to the XD20s, it would require Jerry reporting on the presence of non-presence of timecode all the way out through the tails on his testing print.

I didn't meant to sound harsh, Ryan. Learning on whether timecode was printed on the tails might be a data point - what I meant to say was that the system is supposed to work with or without timecode on the tails. As Mike confirmed, the DTS system will start accepting timecode from the following reel regardless. Even if no head or tail leaders were spliced, the system would have the time in between the TC reader and the gate to process the new TC and start playing the new reel. Considering that DTS has 4.5 seconds of "flywheeling" when TC is lost, that is really a non-issue.

We're all looking forward to Jerry's feedback now

[Ryan Gallagher]

I didn't meant to sound harsh, Ryan. Learning on whether timecode was printed on the tails might be a data point - what I meant to say was that the system is supposed to work with or without timecode on the tails. As Mike confirmed, the DTS system will start accepting timecode from the following reel regardless. Even if no head or tail leaders were spliced, the system would have the time in between the TC reader and the gate to process the new TC and start playing the new reel. Considering that DTS has 4.5 seconds of "flywheeling" when TC is lost, that is really a non-issue.

We're all looking forward to Jerry's feedback now

Did not read it as harsh, no worries. In my head I just keep circling back to the fact Jerry is only experiencing this on “some” but not all 70mm prints, and that variation in printing practice combined with maybe an unusual XD20 only behavior (perhaps due to a non patched version), could be the compounding factors.

[Marco Giustini]

Speaking of 70mm, I’ve stumbled into a 70mm DTS head which would show a green LED even when no film is loaded.

is that a known behaviour? I remember that LED is driven by the player and basically matching the ‘time code’ light on the front panel.

A ‘always green’ head would mean the inability to diagnose time code issues.

is this an isolated case or maybe due to some specific HW version?

[Steve Guttag]

Check the wiring of the cable. If pin 9 of the reader has any short to ground/reference, the LED will light. So, anything to cause that line to go low, even a leaky optoisolator (if they're using them) would do it.

[Marco Giustini]

Thanks - so you confirm that the behaviour I have in mind (following the Timecode status) is the expected one?

[Ryan Gallagher]

Is the signal level check and adjustment procedure in the manuals? Or was that a top secret process? If thats not right I could see it then being sensitive to things like sharpness or density in the printing.

Stumbled into those pages again and remembered someone had asked.
As Marco said yes, multimeter for LED voltage on driver board test points (TN-E550), and oscilloscope for checking for noisy signal (TN-E698) as described in Appendix K of the v2.1 XD-10 manual in the warehouse.

I actually should do those checks some time with our readers, has not been on my radar with so few 70mm engagements and no issues.

[Jerry G. Axelsson]

Hello kind friends and colleagues. The XD-20 did not have the latest firmware as it turned out. I have now updated to the last version but not had a chance to see if it will solve the matter yet.

Doing a fresh install wipes all ingested DTS discs. Before doing that, we networked to another XD-20 running on the same older firmware. So material was transferred via network.
After updating the 70mm DTS player, the network-link does to seem to function again. Is that a result of players running on different firmware?

Alternative, how does one go about extracting DTS files from a player to a HDD so it can be ingested in another system? I heard that it can be done via an ftp-arrangement.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Hello kind friends and colleagues. The XD-20 did not have the latest firmware as it turned out. I have now updated to the last version but not had a chance to see if it will solve the matter yet.

Doing a fresh install wipes all ingested DTS discs. Before doing that, we networked to another XD-20 running on the same older firmware. So material was transferred via network.
After updating the 70mm DTS player, the network-link does to seem to function again. Is that a result of players running on different firmware?

Alternative, how does one go about extracting DTS files from a player to a HDD so it can be ingested in another system? I heard that it can be done via an ftp-arrangement.

That is promising news Jerry!

Most recently Michael addressed copying files between DTS system drives over in this thread:
https://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/...3202#post43202

If it is an emergency reach out to Brad via email, Film-Tech has most of the soundtracks.

Michael's method was a raw drive method on 3rd linux host machine or live CD/usb, I'm sure its possible if you have FTP access to both too. I would have hoped network sync would continue to work between versions, but maybe the version difference was too great. Obviously maybe some basic networking setting got wiped in the reinstall that was needed? If you have shell access, you could confirm you can at least ping each XD20 from the other, but I think shell access was somewhat not documented/shared readily. If your XD20's are set up with raid and two drives it might be a tiny bit trickier to mount them in another machine.

[Jerry G. Axelsson]

Ryan, before doing a fresh install all settings were saved and ingested again after the install. The network settings are the same, but no longer work for some reason.
Not an emegency with the erased DTS titles.

[Marco Giustini]

ahah cool, it was (hopefully) a simple thing then. What software were you running?

So maybe it's worth taking a look at that Y cable you also said it was fine?

I only tested networking on XD10s and it was only introduced with the very latest version.
I found that in order for the network interface and transfer to work, a reboot was needed.
Also, at least my XD10s won't work if wired directly, a switch is needed.

I would change the network settings to a different but compatible IP, reboot and see if it works.

Do you have "Network Transfer" turned ON in the menu? I would also toggle that to be on the safe side and reboot.

That said, I do not know whether having the players on different firmware might be the issue here.

[Jerry G. Axelsson]

Marco, we are currently running the latest DTS software version which is on Film-tech. We have the players wired directly and it worked fine before the update of one of them if you read my post above.
Yes, "Network transfer" is on...

[Marco Giustini]

Yes Jerry but I also read "we are on the latest version" on some of your previous posts.

[Jerry G. Axelsson]

Marco, that was one oversight yes. That does not mean that we have not looked at this carefully in other aspects...

Thank you to all which have been helpful in this matter.

[Steve Guttag]

Hello kind friends and colleagues. The XD-20 did not have the latest firmware as it turned out.

<smug grin at Marco>. Never assume/presume. And it isn't about being right (Jerry hasn't told us if this fixed the problem). It's about methodical troubleshooting. Vague terms like "latest" are not to be trusted. Specific terms like "we are on version x.x.x" are to be trusted more.

As to the file transfer...can you ping the various players to know that they are the IP addresses that you've set? I would definitely try disabling the transfer on all units. Save that. Then enable the transfer on all units and then save that. Then wait to see if it starts up again. It can also be handy to change the space allotted for soundtracks so that they get almost all of the space (unless you really do put video content on there).