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Author Topic: Sound But No Picture With NEC1200C & DSS200 Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 11-22-2016 12:00 PM                    Dolby DSS-200 with Cat.862 (media block in server) running 4.3.5.13 NEC 1200C Projector is off overnight or otherwise when not in use. Server stays on 24/7 with periodic reboots. Last run was last night. This morning I fired up the projector and when I went to test the upcoming show it seemed to play normally but there was audio but no picture. I haven't found any error in the projector log but I need to look further. I've not yet checked the server logs. During this period the projector could alt content. But no picture on unencrypted (or encrypted) server material. Rebooting the server did not cure it but then shutting down the projector and restarting it did restore normal operation. I know 4.3.5.13 is not the greatest but I had this happen once years ago with the well regarded 4.3.5.9. One additional factoid. The server, which I believe gets its time from a fairly accurate hardware clock on boot does drift over long runs (not always the same way). As I had not rebooted in quite some time the server clock was behind by about 7 minutes as of this morning prior to the reboot. I believe the media block has its own clock because when the server time drifts ahead one can still not run encrypted content until the real time says the key can open. I wonder if the server time being too far off reality (as reflected in the media block's or the projector's hardware clocks) may be a factor. Just throwing out ideas. If this is just a glitch that happens once every four years or so then maybe I shouldn't worry too much. Scary when it happens though.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-23-2016 01:45 AM                        Yes, the media block has its own clock. On the clock issue, even if the system and/or media block clock is way out, if the server can sync to an external NTP server, that will allow the correct time to be set. Until yesterday (when our shiny new Barco DP4K-32L was installed!), we were using a DSS200/cat745, with a clock in the cat745 that is about two hours fast. By trial and error, I discovered that if the DSS200 can pull the time from an external NTP server, that will let it use the correct (as in, whatever that NTP server tells it) time to determine KDM opening and closing times. To do this, your DSS200 must be connected to the Internet (either the auditorium or theater network, whichever one you have configured to use for administration). As the DSS200 has no DNS lookup capability, you need the IP address of an external NTP server. By looking for our nearest on the list of time.nist.gov servers, I settled on 128.138.141.172. You then need to run the config script (either SSH into your server, or press ctrl/alt/F1 on a local keyboard, then username = see manual, password = see manual), answer yes to "Do you want to change network settings?", enter your NTP server address in the box, save and reboot). If the server goes for a certain length of time without being able to sync with the configured NTP server, it will revert to displaying the media block's time in Show Manager. I don't know what this timeout period is precisely, but it's hours rather than minutes. As for the audio but no pix, this is a known issue with the cat862 (it can sometimes be a white screen rather than a black one), especially with older software versions. The cure is a reboot of the media block (or at least, it was for me). If, when you reboot your server, you do not power it down completely (i.e. you just do ctrl/alt/F1 followed by ctrl/alt/del, or enter the "reboot" command into the Linux shell, and then let it reboot itself), this will only reboot the motherboard, not the cat862 media block. To reboot the 862 as well, you need to pull both power cords when you hear the fans surge during the reboot process (to make sure that you're not pulling power from the unit during a hard drive read/write operation), wait 30 seconds or so, then reconnect them.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 11-23-2016 10:59 AM                    Not sure about that business of Show Manager getting time from the media block after no NTP updates because I've never configured it to reach out to a time server and it does drift. If that was indicative of the time on the media block then the media block is many minutes off yet I've never had a problem with keys opening on time. After a reboot, it's accurate again, wherever the time is coming from. It is my theory that the system gets time from hardware...either on the main board or perhaps from the media block...and then drifts from there. It doesn't always drift in the same direction so that may have something to do with the workload since last boot. If it happens to have drifted ahead, if I go to where one selects a show, if the system time thinks the key has opened, a show with that encrypted content is now offered as an option, but clicking on it takes you back to Please Select a Show for Playback because the media block said it wasn't time yet. If system time were coming from the media block they'd all be in agreement. I never bothered to set it up for NTP because I was satisfied with the accuracy of the time that is on it after a reboot. I just checked on it now from home, and about 25 hours after last boot it's actually running about 38 seconds ahead. Yes, I always reboot by pulling power cords, and waiting at least 30 seconds to make sure the media block will reboot.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-23-2016 12:08 PM                        Someone from Dolby may jump in and correct me, but I'm pretty sure that Show Manager uses the time from the media block if it disagrees with the system clock's time in the BIOS by more than a trivial amount and it can't sync to an external NTP server. When we first got the server that was showing two hours ahead, about the first thing I did was to check the system clock in the BIOS, and that was only about a minute out from what the time on my cellphone (which gets an accurate time from the telco) was saying. I then booted it with the 745 data link disconnected and the projector off, and Show Manager displayed the accurate time. I then booted the projector (thus enabling the server to communicate with the 745 over the main LAN), and a few minutes later, the time jumped two hours ahead. Then I set up a nist.gov NTP server in the config script, rebooted the server with both links to the 745 good, and Show Manager gave me the correct time and kept it. I'm a bit surprised that the order in which the server takes its time is BIOS clock > media block > NTP in ascending order of priority. Given that the media block's clock is the only one that you absolutely cannot f*** with (you could set up your own NTP server on a LAN broadcasting an incorrect time pretty easily), giving an NTP server priority over the media block would be a security issue, if you're in playing a DCP outside the KDM window paranoia mode. I'm guessing that Dolby and/or DCI thought that giving people in situations like mine the option to get the correct time without having to return the media block to the factory is the lesser of two evils, given the tight time windows that studios like to issue KDMs for, and the resulting high risk that a media block clock that is more than a few minutes out could cause the loss of a legitimate, scheduled screening.  |  IP: Logged Leslie Hartmier Expert Film Handler Posts: 100 From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Registered: Jul 2012 posted 11-23-2016 02:38 PM                     Leo, that has been our experience as well about the time drift being non-trivial causing the time to be grabbed from the media block. Our solution was to have a time server in-house, that if the internet went down, the time server would maintain the time as possible, and if nothing else, would at least synchronize all the servers to be the same wrong time for consistency. Note: the internet has never gone down long enough for us to have that worst case scenario. Interestingly, we had an issue with a couple of the BIOS times on some of the DSS motherboards that it would take in the time, but would shift it forward or back hours until we corrected the timezones, but that has little to do with the issue at hand. Leslie  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 11-23-2016 03:27 PM                    What would constitute non-trivial? As of yesterday morning before the reboot, the time shown to me was 7 minutes behind. Wherever it got the time on reboot, whether main system hardware clock or media block hardware clock, that time is accurate or much more nearly so. This is with no NTP action. (Next time I reboot I will look to see exactly how the time -- however supplied -- varies from real as I don't know if the current 38 seconds ahead was present after the reboot or represents drift since yesterday.)  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 11-23-2016 06:30 PM                     if you have no NTP the OS clock is being synced to the 862's clock which is quite accurate. That does not correct the BIOS time, which may be way off - OS time gets the BIOS time during boot up and then attempts to sync on NTP. Failing that it syncs on 862's. To double check 862's time, under system/auditorium enable secure time and if I am not mistaken that will match the OS clock. To sync the OS clock with the BIOS the easiest way is to soft-reboot (CTRL-ALT-F1, then CTRL-ALT-DEL) or get into the BIOS yourself. That said, I reckon that a drifted time does not have anything to do with your issue unfortunately.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 11-24-2016 01:23 PM                    System > Auditorium > secure time area is grayed out. Maybe because it wasn't configured? Current time display is about 22 seconds fast, less than yesterday. Current guess is that the media block is 38 seconds fast and the system drifts in the direction of falling behind. A way to test/prove the theory of where time comes from is, before the system time falls behind real time, seeing if something will open that many seconds early. If the system clock allows the attempt and the media block is fine with it then they are both ahead.  |  IP: Logged Stephan Shelley Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 854 From: castro valley, CA, usa Registered: Nov 2014 posted 11-24-2016 01:57 PM                     To set the secure (media block) clock you have to have a secure connection to the projector. A show ready to play. You should then be able to check the box to enable the secure time adjust. Note you can only do +/- 6 minuets a year. There is a script to adjust the cat 745 +/- i hour. Cat 862s are usually accurate.Try this. ctrl>alt>F1 then reboot using ctrl>alt>delete. It should sync the system time with the media block on boot-up. The black screen can be an indication of a security error in the projector with series two projectors. Any tamper or marriage issues? Is the network connection okay between the DSS200 and projector good? You can ping the projector from the administrator login on the DSS200 to check it.  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 11-24-2016 03:31 PM                     quote: Stephan Shelley To set the secure (media block) clock you have to have a secure connection to the projector. A show ready to play. and not a show running quote: Stephan Shelley Cat 862s are usually accurate.Try this. ctrl>alt>F1 then reboot using ctrl>alt>delete. It should sync the system time with the media block on boot-up. Already suggested that Anyway the system would re-sync on the 862 at boot regardless. The soft-reboot would write the BIOS time in case it was SO far away that ntpdate refuses to sync when the OS is started. Why are you still running 4.3.5-13 on a 1200C???  |  IP: Logged Stephan Shelley Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 854 From: castro valley, CA, usa Registered: Nov 2014 posted 11-24-2016 04:08 PM                     Another thing to check is make sure the link encryption is Cinelink II TLS. Having it set to Cinelink I would get you sound but no image with a series 2 projector. In the systems tab go to theatre devices. Expand screen server and at the bottom of that expand the Cat 862 and it will show the link encryption.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-24-2016 07:02 PM                     Can you even run a SMPTE DCP?  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-24-2016 11:10 PM                        quote: Marco Giustini Why are you still running 4.3.5-13 on a 1200C??? That is the final version that allows you to use DS link encryption, and so you need it if your projector won't support Cinelink (either I or II). But the 1200 is a Series 2 projector, isn't it? If so, I can't think of any reason why Steve can't upgrade to the latest version. quote: Mark Gulbrandsen Can you even run a SMPTE DCP? When I first started at the Egyptian, the DSS200/cat862 was on 4.3.5.13, feeding an NEC 2500, which itself had pretty old software in it (main and TI). SMPTE DCPs that were unencrypted, with a frame rate of 24 and which didn't have subtitles would play. But no subtitles would display from SMPTE DCPs, and if the frame rate was anything other than 24 and/or the DCP was encrypted, the chances were 50/50 at best that it would play at all. After the projector, server and media block were all updated to what were then the current versions, almost all SMPTE DCPs played OK. Very occasionally we would get one with subtitles that didn't work (two that I can recall, in two years and probably around 500 DCPs played in total).  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 11-24-2016 11:26 PM                     4.3.5.13 is a crazy-stable version. All weirdness happened with the move to 4.4.x.x (like with all manufacturers). I couldn't speak for captioning, but that version certainly seems to play everything thrown at it thus far, including SMPTE. So why "upgrade" when it does what is needed and will continue to be more stable than any "upgrade"?  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 11-25-2016 12:25 AM                    I'm sure I could use a host of updates to the server, media block, and the projector. But I generally don't make changes unless I have to. I'm very conservative about software changes. I absolutely do not want anything brand new. Only software that has been out and revealed itself to be bulletproof and bug-free. I'm running a screening room where I don't want to chance any glitches. And total failure must be avoided at all cost (short of duplicate equipment though I do have a DSS100 in the back of the room that I have played with). There is no alternate screen to direct people to in event of a breakdown. It's not like changeover film projection where one could always get through a show on one machine. I never had to do that but always kept some 6K reels in the corner just in case.  |  IP: Logged

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