CP650 Slow/Lagging Operation

[Leo Enticknap]

Correction: the CP650 (with the cat794 option card) is the only one-box solution if you need 35mm SVA, 35mm optical digital, and AES digital (for DCP playback). If you're willing to live with two boxes, then a CP500 feeding the analog input of a 750 works, and I service a couple of houses that have this arrangement (including one that had it until the 750's motherboard died and they opted to upgrade to a 950 - we're still looking for a cost effective way to get the 500's output into the system, given that it is almost never used and they're not willing to spend serious money). A DA20 feeding an AP20 or 25 is another.

[Carsten Kurz]

Sorry for being slightly off-topic - did anyone see Datasat Digital/ATI on Cinemacon? Where they there?

[Steve Guttag]

Yes, they were there with Dan Taylor representing them and ATI. They were, as is customary, next to the HPS4000 booth on the far-left side of the floor.

[Carsten Kurz]

Okay, that is probably a good sign. I was afraid they could abandon the cinema business over the lockdowns.

[Leo Enticknap]

They still offer the H338 optical SVA preamp option card with the AP25 - I asked Dan.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Correction: the CP650 (with the cat794 option card) is the only one-box solution if you need 35mm SVA, 35mm optical digital, and AES digital (for DCP playback). If you're willing to live with two boxes, then a CP500 feeding the analog input of a 750 works, and I service a couple of houses that have this arrangement (including one that had it until the 750's motherboard died and they opted to upgrade to a 950 - we're still looking for a cost effective way to get the 500's output into the system, given that it is almost never used and they're not willing to spend serious money). A DA20 feeding an AP20 or 25 is another.

I've been looking for a cheap option to embed multi-channel analog audio as multi-channel PCM into HDMI for a while now and while there are plenty of cheap options to de-embed it, the other way around seems to be difficult.

The most robust way to switch between multiple input formats right now, for us has been Q-Sys, as it offers a high level of input flexibility, but it is certainly not the cheapest way. Not only will you customer pay for the hardware, but also for the integration, which will also add to the cost.

Sorry for being slightly off-topic - did anyone see Datasat Digital/ATI on Cinemacon? Where they there?

There actualy is an entire Cinemacon 2021 topic
But yeah, I was also afraid they'd silently sneak through the covid emergency exit...

[Sean McKinnon]

All ones need is an optical preamp card aka from a Dolby, mounted and powered externally from the Trinnov. I have actually done that with optical preamps and CAT 64's. Dolby way way back even produced those as single rack mount units. Easy peasy...

I dont think the trinnov has any on board noise reduction so you would need an optical pre-amp AND noise reduction.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I dont think the trinnov has any on board noise reduction so you would need an optical pre-amp AND noise reduction.

Well, thats easy too. Especially if one can.find a CAT 364, just wire it in and go. Even the level meters are there and it will power Cat 280's. But a box with a preamp, the NR and LED level meters would be lots cleaner. Someone could make and sell some of those!

[Sean McKinnon]

Me thinks a ready to go "add on" box for Q-Sys or any other processor could have a small but reasonable market.

[Pete Naples]

Well, thats easy too. Especially if one can.find a CAT 364, just wire it in and go. Even the level meters are there and it will power Cat 280's. But a box with a preamp, the NR and LED level meters would be lots cleaner. Someone could make and sell some of those!

CP55/65

Take L/R out post NR, send to Trinnov. Have the Ovation perform upmix.
You could also take L, C, R & S out post Cat150 and merely have the Ovation dig the sub out. More wiring and you're relying on the Cat150x for matrix decode.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Me thinks a ready to go "add on" box for Q-Sys or any other processor could have a small but reasonable market.

Well, I guess that most if not all patents on Dolby NR that has been used on film have expired until now. Also, I'm pretty sure we're operating in a realm today, in which we can do any form of Dolby NR entirely in software, directly on the digitized signal. So, eventually, Q-Sys could implement it and offer it as a component, although they can't brand it as Dolby A, B or SR.

[Gordon McLeod]

Well, I guess that most if not all patents on Dolby NR that has been used on film have expired until now. Also, I'm pretty sure we're operating in a realm today, in which we can do any form of Dolby NR entirely in software, directly on the digitized signal. So, eventually, Q-Sys could implement it and offer it as a component, although they can't brand it as Dolby A, B or SR.

Never been a fan of any digital implementation of noise reduction or matrix's the time constants often are not dynamic enough

[Sean McKinnon]

Marcel, QSC owns ultra stereo which actually has their own sort of supposed to be compatible with Dolby A and SR type noise reduction and I would make an uneducated guess that since the last of JDS processors used more software that they may actually have a software emulation of Ultra Stereo NR. Harold may be know. However, when I last brought this up to them they didn't seem that interested in it unfortunately.

[Steve Guttag]

I think you'd need to make the use-case for it Sean. How many sales would be generated by putting forth the engineering time to port even existing A and SR algorithms for use in Q-SYS. The market is going to pretty much be cinema (a division that clearly has gone down in stature already), and a subset of that would be FILM-Cinema...at best a niche market. And of those, ones that would prefer to have it all be in Q-SYS (as possible) so DA20/DTS/and even SDDS would need to be outboard, already). However, there is a subset of those that will prefer to just take a CP65/DA20 or a CP650 and just feed that into Q-SYS already NR processed and optical preamped. So, of what's left...how many people would buy Q-SYS because it could emulate A or SR NR? For that sort of thing to happen, it would either need to be a personal passion of one of the founders to demand it or there would need to be some sort of pent up need in the recording studio industry that would use Q-SYS if it had NR facilities. Something that I also don't see being the case...but who knows.

Just about any engineering time would have to be written off as a loss or as, at best, augmenting sales by removing a minor-negative to the product for a small group of clients. Believe me, I'd like to have near full CP200 implementation within Q-SYS but I'm sort of resigned to the fact that the A and SR will be in the form of 363 frames with CAT300s. I've yet to play with the QSC preamps to see if they would be suitable for optical preamps (with a loading resistor, I'm sure).

[Sean McKinnon]

I totally agree Steve. We have enough genuine, bonified, optical preamp cards and noise reduction cards that we could develop a small 2 RU maybe chassis with a power supply and market a ready made film adapter for Q-Sys (or Trinnov or any other box with a matrix decoder) without all of the extra "stuff" that could fail. One thing that would need to be studied more is how well the matrix decoder component tracks against a cat 150