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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: End Of Production GDC Models
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Jay Glaus
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 123
From: Pittsburgh, PA USA
Registered: Dec 2010
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posted 12-01-2018 03:38 PM
I was just informed by one of my fellow drive in owners that they went to renew their warranties on their GDC servers and were informed that GDC was ending production on the SA-2100, SX-2001, and SX-2000 models, and were no longer issuing warranties.
Previously GDC would not even talk to you on the phone with any technical support or updates if you were not covered on a warranty but according to what I was told they will now provide support for the discontinued models since you cannot get a warranty anymore after March 1st 2019. And from the sounds of it, replacements parts may end up getting tricky depending on what you need.
Mine are currently warranted and I believe expire right after the new year. So I am going to see if I can get another warranty before March 1st providing it will actually last a year and not get cut off at March 1st.
I have 3 SX2000-AR's in operation, two of the IMB's were replaced a year ago, and the other IMB was replaced about a month ago. All of my equipment is protected on UPS's.
But my question is what am I supposed to do? I was told that GDC is offering a $900 credit towards an SX4000 for every old server returned, but that's not going to get me too far. What I am also worried about is what if a year or two down the road I lose an IMB and they do not have anymore available. So I'm almost forced to upgrade but I don't know how I'm going to swing this.
I've come off of the roughest two years of my life out here. Last year the weather was good but just about all of the movies way underperformed. This year the movies were good but my weather was horrendous. I had no spring, it was cold and rainy until June. I only had two busy months out of the whole year, June and July. After that it took a nose dive. And when I was hoping to do some business around Thanksgiving it was freezing and snowing.
Between the weather and everything else going against me, I don't know how you are supposed to deal with these expenses. My booths are 5 years old and already it looks like I'm going to be needing to upgrade soon.
Has anyone heard about this or have any input?
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 12-01-2018 05:34 PM
The mediablocks (and IMBs) will not be available.
The SX2001 and the original SX2000 will cease warranty support as of 3/31/19. The SX2000AR will cease warranty support 10/31/19.
In your case, you can get a warranty (pro-rated) to get you to 10/31/19 and then that is it. If you have an IMB go, that is the end of the server. From what I hear, the other server parts will likely be available until parts are exhausted. How did you like that short notice? They were making both the SX2001A and the SX2000AR THIS year!
They should have offered you the upgrade discount on either the SR1000 (the new kid on the block that can either function as a stand-alone server with the Enterprise storage or function as a streaming server with a 1TB cache drive from a central storage unit (only good up to 2K) or the SX4000 (good up to 4K and more of a traditional IMB/storage unit system).
Note, for those with Dolby DSS servers, October was the last month to get either the CAT862 or CAT745 repaired (except the CAT745 battery, they'll still do that). Of course, this was at 3-years 4-months AFTER they announced that they were discontinuing the units so people would have, at least 3-years to prepare.
This policy of the digital cinema equipment manufacturers is what I personally think will kill exhibition, not Netflix. It will be a death by a 1000 cuts. A server here, a projector there. We are coming up on 10-years from when the series 2 systems went in. As those projectors and servers start to drop, there won't be any VPFs to pay for the next round. This industry was used to projection/sound equipment that lasted the life of the structure. Those days are over (particularly for the projectors and servers...akin to the projector console and platter). Where is the money going to come to replace it at this frequency? (Not to mention, the repair costs of this stuff is greater than the film counterparts).
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-01-2018 10:02 PM
I had an interesting experience with GDC recently.
I was sent to replace an OS drive that had gone bad on an SX-2000AR. When I arrived at the site, they didn't have, and couldn't find, the key to open the lid of the server case (not the lock on the RAID hard drive cage at the front, but the one at the back that gives you access to the main part of the case).
After checking with my co-workers in at other jobs and at the shop and establishing that nobody had one, I called GDC in Burbank. I was told politely but firmly that they didn't have any and couldn't help, leaving me with the options of trying to find one some place else, or using a universal key (AKA a crowbar).
The theater's manager asked me to speak to the chain's head of IT to ask permission for the latter option, who told me to standby while he tried GDC. Since they didn't have keys in stock, he was going to ask them to RMA the entire unit (minus the RAID drives, obviously), and for us to do a straight swapout of the whole thing. A few minutes later he called back: GDC had miraculously found a key, which was waiting for me in reception as soon as I could make it up the 5 to collect it. About an hour later, it was in my possession.
Don't know what to make of that.
quote: Steve Guttag
Note, for those with Dolby DSS servers, October was the last month to get either the CAT862 or CAT745 repaired (except the CAT745 battery, they'll still do that).
Will they continue to sell cat862 firmware upgrade keys? At the moment we're selling and/or installing one or two a month, so that impact will be felt pretty quickly if they stop.
And given the number of these in use, the impact of them ceasing all repairs to 862 and 745 media blocks is going to be felt significantly and soon, anyways. As with the GDC, the DSS200/220 servers use almost completely generic parts that are easily replaceable from third party vendors, so keeping the server hardware alive isn't going to be a serious problem - in the short to medium term, at least. It's the media block that will be.
With GDC, the server will be more of a problem because you need a license file from GDC every time you replace the OS drive and/or pair a server with a different IMB. If they're going to stop issuing those, that will bring this hardware to the EOL point prematurely. At least with the Dolby DSS servers you can clean install the software and media block firmware (at least, to the current version in the case of an 862-based system), without needing Dolby's blessing (in the form of a KDM).
quote: Steve Guttag
This policy of the digital cinema equipment manufacturers is what I personally think will kill exhibition, not Netflix. It will be a death by a 1000 cuts. A server here, a projector there. We are coming up on 10-years from when the series 2 systems went in. As those projectors and servers start to drop, there won't be any VPFs to pay for the next round.
As against which, the price of projectors and servers has come down in real terms. But I think this is a culture issue as much as any other: with the exception of Christie, all the major manufacturers of projectors and servers come from an audio, consumer, broadcast and/or IT background, in which 5-10 years is the industry standard service life for major pieces of capital equipment. As you point out, in the cinema exhibition industry, the expectation is 30-40 years for a projector or platter, and easily 20 for audio processors and power amps.
I don't know what proportion of a typical theater's annual operating costs is accounted for by overall cost of ownership / capital depreciation on projection and sound equipment, but that would be an interesting figure to see and compare before and after the 35mm to Series 1 transition. My guess is that it will have increased, but how much, and whether that increase would be offset by savings elsewhere in the operation, I'm not sure.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-02-2018 08:53 AM
quote: Steve Guttag
As for that stupid cover key...I do carry one with me but I also always leave it unlocked. It has screws to "secure" the cover and they don't wire in the tamper switch on it.
Yeah ... not only did I leave the server unlocked that I worked on, but went around the other screens in the complex and unlocked those just before I left, too, and left printed labels on each server stating that the case was unlocked and asking any further tech who worked on it to leave it that way.
This was the first time I'd had to open the case of one of these, and so had no idea that the lock was there until I encountered it. The GDC tech I spoke to told me that there was no tamper switch on it, and therefore that violence was an option, albeit a last ditch one. I must get into the habit of asking customers I haven't been to before to confirm that they have all the necessary physical keys, and access codes/passwords, that I may need to do the job ahead of time, so at least if they don't, there can be no dispute as to who is on the hook for extra hours and/or parts if a situation like this happens. I met a similar problem recently whereby someone had changed the service mode code on an NEC from its factory default and no-one at the site knew it when I got there, too.
The only switch I found was towards the front of the case, close to the cage beside that of the RAID cage, that contains the OS drive. As you say, it wasn't connected to anything (I presume it's only used in variants that have the internal media block), but even if it had been, forcing open that lock wouldn't have prevented it from closing. The motherboard header could easily have been jumpered to disable it, anyways (unless there is a resistor inside the microswitch, and the motherboard expects to see a specific resistance on that circuit, to prevent you from doing that). It might even have been possible to disable it in a BIOS setting, too, though I didn't look.
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