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I’m going to replace a failed Christie IMB-S2 and am leaning toward the Dolby IMS3000 (rather than the GDC SR-1000). (Projector is CP4230 and we have a Dolby CP850 so won’t be using the IMS3000 for audio). The posts I’ve read indicate folks are happy with the reliability of the IMS2000, so I’m hoping the IMS3000 will prove as sturdy. Any tips or lessons learned re. the IMS3000? Haven't had one before.
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I don't have enough IMS3000s in the field to have a statistically significant representation but thus far, from the few we have, they have been solid, including in Atmos. 2020 looks to be a year in which our IMS3000 count increases significantly with both Atmos and non-Atmos so stay tuned.
I'm not a fan of the IMS3000's WEB-UI...it is worse than the IMS2000s and I didn't like that one...Dolby's use of a mixture of Black, Grey, Aqua(ish) and red are color combinations that are hard to see...even in darkened environments. The default font sizes are also a bit small, in my opinion. Like anything, you'll learn where the important bits are that you always go to but from a cold-start, things are not organized in a very intuitive manner. The best I can describe it is that User-Stuff is towards the top and Technician stuff is towards the bottom. If you are comfortable with the CP850 WEB-UI, then this will look very familiar but with more bits and pieces down the left side and often more more horizontal menus once you've selected the vertical one of interest.
One part that hasn't made it to the IMS3000 yet (but I hear is in the next release) is the ability to set the timeout per-user...something the IMS2000 has already. -
Steve, isn't the IMS-3000 web GUI similar to the one used on the Doremi DCP-2000 and ShowVault? If so, I love it. It is my favorite server GUI. I've never used one, though, so I'm just assuming they are similar.Comment
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No. The IMS3000 is similar to the CP850. If you are using the WEB-UI that has been made available in later years for the DCP2000/ShowVault, then that one is similar to the IMS2000 (actually Identical...that UI started with the IMS1000 and then evolved into the IMS2000).Comment
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Thanks Steve!Comment
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It looks like Dolby is trying to get their WebUI homogenized across their different product lines. I guess they decided to ditch the Doremi implementation in favor of the framework they introduced with the CP-850. Since they needed to include the Dolby Atmos features in this interface, I guess they came to the conclusion it would be easier to adopt the Cinelister environment to their "CP-850 environment" than the other way around.
Anyway, their new style is dark grey and light-blue highlights. While most of the interface is flat, the buttons do have some aqua-glow to them.
I agree with Steve that their "dark mode" interface and rather small default fonts, might not be always the best choice for a dark booth environment...Comment
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They need to do something to improve it!! Its the worst, least self intuitive GUI of any server out there. I always wondered why they didn't carry over the DSS GUI into the IMS servers. That was about as good a GUI as GUI's can get.
MarkComment
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Have you worked with the IMS3000 yet? Or are you speculating? I'm getting a fair amount of grief about the SR-1000 web gui too. I suspect that people used to a different one are going to be the complainers more than those that just grow up on the current UIs. That said, yes, the Show Manager UI was the best.Comment
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You are likely correct that some people are complaining just because it is a "change" from what they are used to. In that regard, I think GDC did a good job on the SR-1000 web GUI and I prefer it over the traditional "VNC" GDC GUI. It only takes a few minutes to figure it out and from there it's easier and faster. What I'm not a fan of is the inability to switch between the VNC and the web interface while a show is playing, but I can live with that vs. the poor design of the IMS3000 web GUI.
I am hoping QSC/USL pulls through as promised with a traditional Dolby DSS knock-off GUI, along with pre-loading the next scheduled playlist and so forth. Dolby really got it right with that interface and nobody has come close since.Comment
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Brad, my five biggest picks on the SR-1000 UI are:- The Dashboard opens with nearly worthless information for the end-user. It is valuable information but worthless, by and large for the average user. The IMS1000/2000 UI hit the nail on the head for that part. You get to see if there are any errors present, is the show running, where you are in the show...at a glance you know where you stand.
- On the build screen, for reasons I don't understand, they REMOVED the automation cues from the left column. I will pick on it as an unnecessary move because having it both on the left column and the current select the current clip and then assign a cue to it wouldn't have hurt them and only serves to confuse existing users.
- Oh my god is the UI sloooooooowwwwwww. It is like working on a dialup it is so slow.
- Only one user at at time...um no...there needs to be the ability for multiple users (I believe that is on the roadmap...as is the abandonment of the virtual VNC...which doesn't suffer from either item 2 or 3 above).
- This is a holdover from the traditional GDC UI...the inability to work on Automation cues while shows are in progress. Everyone else has figured a way to deal with that, so should GDC.
I would agree that the SR-1000 web UI is much more intuitive, on the whole, than the IMS3000.Comment
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The SR-1000 webpage is too long for most laptop screens, so you're forever scrolling up and down to see what's at the top and bottom.
And it's dead dog slow when ingesting from a CRU with lots of files on it, like the Trail Mix drive. The actual ingest runs reasonably fast but the initial "show the files" screen takes a minute or more to show up, and it waits a very long time between each new title that it's ingesting. This isn't a problem on a feature drive since there are less files for it to sort or whatever it does that takes so long to do.Comment
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