GDC SA-2100 disqualified by Paramount

[Marco Giustini]

Please check the back of your server to confirm the model is SA-2100. If your server(s) are SA-2100, please contact GDC Customer Service and/or your reseller for an exclusive replacement program for SA-2100, which will offer a new SR-1000 IMB that has the option to support legacy Series 1 projectors.

"Offer" as in "free of charge"?

[Leo Enticknap]

No. They are offering an SR-1000 in a Series 1 / HD-SDI adapter chassis at a price that represents a significant discount on list. Commercial confidentiality prevents me from stating any actual numbers, but GDC is definitely trying to soften the blow. However, if you're a small, mom and pop house operating on thin margins that has a still working SA-2100, it'll still feel like a blow, no matter how much it is pointed out that the SA-2100 has already exceeded its realistic design life and is overdue for planned replacement, Paramount's decision notwithstanding.

[Marco Giustini]

thanks.

About the "planned replacement" one could argue that similar products of other manufacturers have not been banned by studios

[Leo Enticknap]

No, but support for most if not all the servers/media blocks that were sold at around the same time as this one (I believe that the last SA-2100s were sold between roughly 2008 and 2011) has been pulled by the manufacturers themselves. If you have a server/media block combo of that vintage still in service, the risk of a motherboard or media block failure (for example) forcing you to replace it immediately is now much higher than insignificant. The fact that GDC is willing to offer end users any help in this situation, especially given that any SA-2100s still in service will now be many years out of warranty, speaks well for them, IMHO.