Barco SP2/4K and scaling

[Magnus Eriksson]

OK, scaling is a bad thing to do in digital cinema. I know that. But you will need it some day in an unexpected situation.
Now, at the moment scaling does not work in SP2/4K. Not with ICMP or ICP-D. It's a bug and it will be fixed in ver 1.7 according to Barco/Cinionic.
Today I had that situation where I needed a little amount of scaling on a SP2K/ICMP.
Just before giving up I tried to connect with the old DLP Cinema Control Program from Texas Instruments. It did actually connect and I could log on!
Of course many things looked weird and confusing, but scaling/masking worked as supposed. The created "screen file" could then be picked up by Web Communicator and used in a macro.
A dirty hack, but it saved my day.
I hope Barco releases 1.7 soon
/M.E.

[Steve Guttag]

Two things:

1. I've used scaling on SP4K since day-1 (I scale up Blu-ray to fit the Flat and Scope dimensions so normal screen files work and no extra lens movements are necessary).
2. 1.7.1 is available (and has been since late last week).

Note, Web Communicator is just your user interface. It isn't a matter of it "picking up" what you had done. It just reads the files like the original communicator (or Christie's TPC or NEC's DCC) does. I start all installs by pushing my default screen files for the various ratios so that all I have to do is make the minor keystone corrections to the screen files (and/or lens changes for F-200/F-220).

If you are not seeing 1.7.1 yet on the Barco site, you may have to clear your cache.

[Magnus Eriksson]

Hm. As I never close my browser (only a drained battery or Windows update does) I missed 1.7.1 today
Yes, the Communicator (web or not) reads what is in there. The fascination was that ancient program written for another device could create a valid screen (picture) file
/M.E.

[Carsten Kurz]

Scaling always worked for me,yes. However, often, Subtitles get scrambled when scaling is applied. Need to check recent versions wether that is actually solved. I never saw it mentioned in any update readmes, though.

[Magnus Eriksson]

Could this be related to one or several specific versions? Some colleagues of mine got into trouble in Norway when the ordered screen did not arrive on time. To save the show they tried to scale the image, but it was totally impossible (ICP-D/IMS3000). The reply from Barco/Cinionic was to wait for 1.7.x where this issue would be fixed. I don't know if they tried downgrading the projector.
They (and I today) had 1.6.9. When even touching the scaling bars/arrows (or entering a value) the image turned into a tiny little stamp close to the top of the screen. But to be honest I can't remember this issue from other installations. On the other hand I really don't use scaling that much.
The old TI program behaved normally however so something must be misinterpreted somewhere between my fingers on the laptop and the ICP part when using the web UI.
/M.E.

[Steve Guttag]

For what it's worth, the TI ICP/Enigma program works on the ICP-D (ICMP, for that matter), the NEC FMT. If you think about it, they are doing the same things and I'm sure the OEMs based everything off of the ICP...so yes, most, if not all of it works. Most of the time, when I'm setting up screen files, I have both the ICP program as well as the OEM's UI...for the NEC DCC...it is almost a necessity as NEC likes to go to full screen when you put a test pattern up. It is faster/easier to use the ICP program to grab the test pattern and adjust the screen files. For Barco S1/S2, I do it all in communicator. For S4, I'm mostly using the ICP program as their "PICTURE" thing on the UI tries to convolve source and screen and is most awkward, for me. Web UIs are always a degree of hackery anyways and feel like one is going through an extra later of interface.

As for subtitles...in S4 systems, they need to be done in the mediaplayer (IMB or Blu-ray) so they would come over as burned in image. I guess the ICMP could be awkward as it is the media player and the scaler all in one.