Dolby cat745 IMB recertification service ended, effective immediately

[Leo Enticknap]

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[Carsten Kurz]

Hmm. Sounds actually as if something unexpected happened...

Maybe Dolbys recertification black box lost it's date and time due to a drained battery?

[Steve Guttag]

Holy crap!

[Sam Chavez]

I'd love to know the back story. I do have friends in low places. Perhaps I can get a clue. Doesn't sound like Dolby's usual well considered policy change announcement. Probably some technical catastrophe as Carsten states. This IMS was OEM from USL. Dolby SF headquarters bldg. has been essentially closed since early last year due to Covid.

[Dustin Grush]

Sounds like you'll be OK if you're under warranty? Perhaps someone did some math: Number of customers with warranty and likely failing units in near future - Number of units in stock = Holy balls, we better not sell any more.

[Harold Hallikainen]

This IMS was OEM from USL.

Probably a typo, but the CAT745 IMB was OEM from USL. The IMS was a Dolby or Doremi development. USL developed the CMS-2200 during the time the IMB was being OEMd for Dolby (adding a server board on top). This was then redesigned to be the CMS-5000.

[Steve Guttag]

Dustin, something else must have happened...like the magic certificate machine broke or something. What was happening because there was a large number of CAT745s who's batteries have prematurely drained during C19, we (and I am sure others), have been rotating CAT745s through to get the battery update in a proactive manner. We've had our customers with CAT745s running on original batteries, leave them on 24/7 to ensure no/low battery drain and to not have them be dead when say the recent holiday season where many cinemas were open or open for longer hours. That strategy has worked. But now we are faced with a difficult prospect where the failure rate of field battery changes is worse than 50%. Like the ICP thread elsewhere, I'm curious if the battery swap would be safer if done while the CAT745 was powered (like with the Dolby IMS Docker or the USL EDP100 (the letters may not be correct but its part was something like that) to maintain power on the certificate while the battery is swapped and the contacts are DeOxit(ed). Possibly in lieu of or in conjunction with the standby battery holder next to the main one.

I do not have any inside information on this one and it certainly will affect a fair number of customers that really do not need another punch in the gut after C19.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Dolby ought to give a trade in like GDC did...

[Carsten Kurz]

They already did offer DSS200/220 trade-ins for IMS2000 during recent years. They may now reestablish that program. Just that the IMS2000 is no longer available, and the IMS3000-non-Atmos is a bit more expensive.

[Steve Guttag]

The IMS3000 (server only mode) is identical in price to what the IMS2000 was. At least in the USA, that is the case. But since the list price should the consistent throughout the world, I would presume that would the case in your part of the world too. If Dolby has a trade-out program, they have not announced that part yet though I will be asking, for sure. That said, if you have a complex that utilizes Show Manager as the TMS and where you may have a mix of IMB and CAT862, trading to an IMS is problematic since the IMS never ran with Show Manager so you will break your TMS system. If you are running manually or with a 3rd party TMS, then there isn't an issue, TMS wise.

[Leo Enticknap]

...if you have a complex that utilizes Show Manager as the TMS and where you may have a mix of IMB and CAT862, trading to an IMS is problematic since the IMS never ran with Show Manager so you will break your TMS system.

If such a complex still includes Series 1 projectors, that will make the situation even more difficult. If one of the IMBs in the Series 2 projectors breaks, you will then have no upgrade path that enables all the screens to be driven from your existing TMS, without also replacing the Series 1 projectors. So you will either need a new TMS, or new projectors.

[Carsten Kurz]

Or buy a second-hand CAT745, they will probably now pop-up more frequently. Hopefully with their cert intact.

[Steve Guttag]

No...the problem is, the longer the CAT745 is without power, the greater the drain on the CERT battery...so anything use you get will have an unknown number of consumption.

[Leo Enticknap]

I would expect this announcement to reduce the availability of second hand cat745s, and increase their price. Anybody who has one currently in service and does not want (or cannot afford) to upgrade to an IMS preemptively is going to be looking for a backup spare, and nobody will buy one without a guarantee that its cert is still good. If one of the big chains decides to upgrade several hundred cat745 installations in one fell swoop, that could cause some to come onto the market, I guess, but I've seen no sign of that happening so far. The reliability and ease of use of these systems, combined with the fact that most of the server parts are generic and still easily available, is making theaters want to hang on to them.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

They already did offer DSS200/220 trade-ins for IMS2000 during recent years. They may now reestablish that program. Just that the IMS2000 is no longer available, and the IMS3000-non-Atmos is a bit more expensive.

GDC still the trade in program standing . Dolby is a much larger Corp, certainly they can sell a few more Doremi's this way.