DolReMi HI/VI/CCAP stuff discontinued - new "CineAssista" to replace them

[Leo Enticknap]

Email from Dolby just now:

Dolby is announcing the withdrawal from sale of the CaptiView, Fidelio and AccessLink accessibility products on June 30, 2022 in most regions. These products will continue to be available for sale until December 31, 2022 in Australia and Russia.

Support for the Dolby CaptiView, Fidelio and AccessLink accessibility products will continue until December 31, 2024. This date represents the end of hardware repairs, replacements and parts availability (including field replaceable/spare part sales). Beyond December 31, 2024, parts will be made available as supplies last, however, all repairs will stop on this date. We will continue to provide technical support after that date.

Dolby CineAssista will be made available as a replacement for customers who would like the functionality of the CaptiView, Fidelio and AccessLink accessibility products. Dolby CineAssista product details, pricing and availability will be announced at a future date.

They were a pain in the bum to install with non-DolRemi servers (messing around with command lines and USB sticks and so on), but blissfully easy with them: essentially, just plug in the dongle, a brief Device Manager setup, and you're done.

[Steve Guttag]

Nah, I didn't like them then either. How does one get non-DCP audio into the HI? What form of troubleshooting do they have? How do you update the transmitters? You move a short-lived tablet around. How often does one have to unplug/plug the USB cable on the configuration stand to get it to recognize the receiver was just plugged into the configuration module? It always felt kludgy to me. At least it was RF and didn't require getting the cabling into the theatre.

[Carsten Kurz]

Looks as if Dolby started the CineAssista brand in Brazil quite a while ago with the sign language/LIBRAS video encoding/playback system that Harold developed. However, it also supports automatic translation. I remember that systems being mentioned a few years ago as a possible solution for Brazil.

https://professional.dolby.com/produ...eassista/#gref

https://vimeo.com/486657010

However, that is a very special solution targeted at Brazil. Hardly any other country needs this implementation. The brand name though as such should work elsewhere just as good.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Thanks Carsten, but I did not develop it! It is clever, putting VP9 video on an audio track. See https://isdcf.com/papers/ISDCF-Doc13...tal-Cinema.pdf . Audio tracks are always being used for something, such as Dbox, Atmos Sync, SMPTE binary sync (though that is server generated instead of being in the DCP). Ideally sign language would be in an Aux Track File and delivered to outside equipment over Ethernet. The original CaptiView idea of moving the caption and HI/VI hardware and software into the server was interesting. The only outside hardware was a standard USB 802.15.4 transceiver. I've most recently thought that it would be interesting to transmit captioning (text and video)) and HI/VI into the auditorium using a WiFi broadcast (one way, no ack) and do auditorium identification using an ultrasonic beacon in the auditorium. Low cost consumer devices have WiFi and microphones, so they could pick up the RF and the ultrasonic beacon. But, I'm not in the business anymore!

Harold

[Carsten Kurz]

Well I know you didn't develop VP9 ;-) but isn't the audio wrapper your work? Or were you just clever documenting it? ;-)

[Harold Hallikainen]

I first learned of it at ISDCF. I may have submitted comments, but I think the format came from a studio.

[Philip Waters]

Thanks Leo, I have been waiting on further updates on this too, but none have been forthcoming. Do you have any further updates? I am also curious to know the specs of the new Dolby CineAssista and its rollout in Australia.

[Leo Enticknap]

It's on the market. I installed a system around Easter time (the only one I've done so far).

[Ryan Gallagher]

We've had temp installs of CineAssista systems for CCAP/HI/VI in both our Doremi and GDC rooms for the last two SXSW iterations.

They work well but the coverage can be a bit hit & miss with the one fairly consumer wifi AP they provided. Our big room with a balcony at least deserves two APs... but the festival tech folks "solved" coverage issues by blocking some seating sections from using those features. I think they maybe deployed 2 in that whole span in our spaces. I kept one in the booth to confirm CCAP/HI on the festival content during tech checks, and they generally worked as intended. Is also kinda nice if you want to follow the CCAP and don't have a decent booth monitoring solution that is audible over the fan noise.

But basically they are just a android phone/tablet with a augmented battery case. The magic is all software on these. There is no room detection... you have to select your room from a pre-configured list, unless they manage to do independent installs... but I think juggling multiple networks on the client devices would be the crux if you want to have a shared pool of devices.

I bet you could side-load the software on any android device, but they seem to have a custom build that dumps you into the software on boot and sell that "hardware" at a premium i'm sure.

We were advised not to leave them charging to keep the batteries healthy, but if you forget to turn them off....