Doremi DCP-2k4 for home theater?

[Devin McNamara]

I was given a decommissioned DCP-2K4 from my local cinema. The server came with a dolphin board. The non encapsulated one. Mainly I have just been playing around with it to learn more on how they work. It appears the board sends video signals to the projector through HD-SDI. Looking through the diagnostic tool it shows the
secured clock as not working. Does this mean the dolphin board lost its battery? I am getting projector communication failure which I am assuming is because the server can’t talk to the projector through Ethernet (probably pretty similar to the DCP2000 I’ve been fighting with at the theater currently. Finally got that working). Is it worth replacing the battery in this board even though it will more than likely never be used again? Could this in theory be used at all in a consumer environment or would I also need a series one projector to make it play? This is just mainly out of my own curiosity and I just want to learn hands on how to do various things with this equipment. Thanks!

[James Gardiner]

"Non Encapsulated" meaning the FIPS security cocoon is not covering the board? Must be very old, and a development board. Should not have been left in the field.

Unfortunately, it is "junk" as it would likely have had certificates expired even before the battery probably ran out and it disarmed itself. (Dev units typically had short life certs, or should have for security reasons) Once that happens, it cannot do anything and will never be rearmed by Dorami/Dolby ever (as it poses a security risk for one and is no longer supported for two.). The unit is only possibly suitable for spare parts to fix another 2K4 that has a modern and still-armed Dolphin board in it.

One of the disappointing factors of digital cinema. Equipment hit EOL relatively quickly, and is basically becomes landfill and is not of any use to anyone "Electro-recycle, extract precious metals.." optionally.

[Jim Cassedy]

I have what sounds like an identical DoReMi of the same vintage. It's not exactly "junk' - - it depends on what your
needs & expectations are. I do a lot of film festival work, and I often have to QC or de-bug "home made" non
encrypted DCP's that won't play. (Just because people can make their own DCP's, doesn't mean they should. . )
Sometimes I render sponsor slides or program bumper snipes for shows I'm working on or I'm occasionally asked
to do so for a couple of local venues, and I use the DoReMi to check my own work. I've got the output connected
to a monitor and it works just fine for my purposes. If I've used DCP-o-Matic to convert a BluRay for some show,
I can check that the finished DCP is OK without having to wait till I get to a theater or screening room. A couple of
film-maker friends have used it to QC DCP's they've made to make sure it plays before they send it off to some
festival or competition.
I'm not trying to do critical work with it. It's mainly used to simply to verify "playability" and confirm that a DCP has
picture and sound and will play OK on a DCP server. I used to have to stay late & do a lot of this type work at one
of the screening rooms or theaters I work at. Now I can do it comfortably at home, sipping a cuppacawfee, in my
pajamas if want, at my convenience whenever it pleases me. So for me, it's very useful. But, I agree, for any '
mission critical' or commercial applications, a dead dolphin is about a useful as a beached whale.

[Carsten Kurz]

It's probably a Dolphin 1.0 I have seen Dolphin 1.0 working beyond a battery failure, and many are still working happily in the field.

Probably one of the reasons why they were replaced by Dolphin 1.2. The Dolphin 1.0 is actually more robust than the 1.2, as it is lacking the security manager hardware that has it's own set of potential failures. Dolphin 1.0 can still be used with the latest Doremi software, full SMPTE compliance.

Devin - can you post a picture of the back of that server? There was an even older Dolphin board version, the Dolphin B - it had 4 HD-SDI connectors on the slot.

I don't think any Doremi server makes much sense in a home cinema environment. You may configure it to play unencrypted content without link encryption, though.

- Carsten

[Dave Macaulay]

The Dolphin boards with four BNC connectors are really obsolete, I don't think they will still work - ie the certs no longer available from Dolby/Doremi to encrypt or decrypt content however unencrypted probably will play - but maybe. I no longer have one to try pulling certs for its eSN.
The Dolphin v1.0 "open" ones are fine and yes they can work with a dead battery, no idea how but they often do. These are still (not 100% sure) good for distributed encrypted content. There's a fair bit of difference in the server chassis between v1.0 and 1.2, not just the board itself.
Many open Dolphin boards and open S1 interface boards were replaced under the VPF financing rules, FIPS compliant components and TLS link encryption was required. So a lot of Dolphin 1.2 and S1 "gore" boards were installed. If you self financed, the old stuff was OK.
The four BNC versions (v0.?) were replaced by Doremi at their expense, as I recall. Some got the open 1.0 and I think some got the FIPS 1.2.
There are late version unencapsulated S1 TI interface boards that will do TLS and work with the latest server software/firmware/SM versions. The certificate recovery tool can get TLS working if the board supports it, many just never used TLS with early servers so the certs were not set up.

None of the old Dolphin boards are "Dev" boards, just early production. It's possible some test sites got dev stuff but that should have been given back.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

"Non Encapsulated" meaning the FIPS security cocoon is not covering the board? Must be very old, and a development board. Should not have been left in the field.

Unfortunately, it is "junk" as it would likely have had certificates expired even before the battery probably ran out and it disarmed itself. (Dev units typically had short life certs, or should have for security reasons) Once that happens, it cannot do anything and will never be rearmed by Dorami/Dolby ever (as it poses a security risk for one and is no longer supported for two.). The unit is only possibly suitable for spare parts to fix another 2K4 that has a modern and still-armed Dolphin board in it.

One of the disappointing factors of digital cinema. Equipment hit EOL relatively quickly, and is basically becomes landfill and is not of any use to anyone "Electro-recycle, extract precious metals.." optionally.

Not always true!! Many components of a server can be salvaged and repurposed to build computers, media servers, NAS, etc. This "landfill attitude needs to turn into a recycle attitude. Granted, the media block is bricked, but it might also make an interesting display item somewhere since it's not potted. The MB, power supply and hard drives can live to be something for someone else...

[James Gardiner]

Not always true!! Many components of a server can be salvaged and repurposed to build computers, media servers, NAS, etc. This "landfill attitude needs to turn into a recycle attitude. Granted, the media block is bricked, but it might also make an interesting display item somewhere since it's not potted. The MB, power supply and hard drives can live to be something for someone else...

Yes, true, But from my perspective, If you needed a NAS etc that this unit could be used for. I would tend to pick up super cheap Dell r710/r610 that are stupid cheap for doing that and are likely better suited. But yes, you could use the "General Computer" side of the leftover equipment as, general computer equipment. But in general, I would say to take note on the power consumption of the older kit. It is not very efficient and I would say, there are better paths to using a slightly newer and more power-efficient older kit that's available via ebay etc.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

They can also make a nice GDC TMS out of an old server. I have actually done that with the addition of an LSI raid card. The old servers run Windblows 10 just fine. Anyway, power consumption on old equipment like a rack server is certainly higher than an IMB server, we have had that discission on here before. FYI, even many of the new tiny desktops you see these days draw upwards of 50 watts when they have a capable CPU installed in them. Those "tiny" computers are found just about everywhere you go in this country.

[Devin McNamara]

I actually went after the server to rebuild it into a PC as I really liked the look of the chassis. You see I am starting my own outdoor theater in my back yard for family and friends to come watch movies, karaoke, and video games. All of which I am building with actual cinema style electronic equipment. I’ve got a pretty nice collection of cinema amps (QSC DCA), a booth monitor (MS100), a processor (USLs fine JSD80), a digital audio interface (USL ECI60) and a couple of Christie LW Series projectors. All of which I’m building in my very own outdoor booth. The only thing that bugged me about my setup was t he desktop style pc sitting off to the side. I am an employee at our local theater (usher/maintenance/in-house tech) and as luck would have it they had a broken DCP-2k4 (I was going after the dcp2000 but they wanted that for parts) either way the DCP-2k4 chassis grew on me. I was told the unit no longer powered on. I took it home and hooked it up to power and sure enough it didn’t not. Figuring my plan I proceeded to replace the internals with my own. Got a pretty nice PC now. Out of boredom, I assembled the components to n my table to see if I could get them working. Being as I work with computers extensively as a hobby I connected my own power supply rather than the original. The system powered up and before I knew it I was face to face with cinelister. It took a few reseats of the dolphin card to get it to be seen by the system and that’s where I am now. Rumor is one of our sister theaters is unfortunately closing down so there may be a couple more of these up for grabs. I’m curious as to possibly using one of those SDI to HDMI converters to connect to one of my LW projectors, creating my own DCPs and hosting my own theater while making it feel just like I am running one. Sounds weird I know. But I would love to be a theater technician and maybe possibly own my own theater one day. But I figured for now I could tinker with this stuff and learn and apply it to the theater I work at now to help them out without a call to the general manager when he is trying to enjoy a night with his family. Anyway thanks for reading my life’s story novel and look forward to talking with you guys. I will send pictures of the card and other hardware but can’t at the moment as I am house sitting for my parents.

[Devin McNamara]

Here are some pictures of the dolphin card in question. I powered up the whole system again and removed the battery. It tested at 2.94 volts. I’m guessing it is starting to get low. Says in the diagnostic tool that the secure clock is “not working” if this is the card you guys have been talking about with the SM hardware not being there I’d assume this is normal? Mostly for the sake of curiosity I created a playlist to try to play the problem is the server is sending me an error about communication failure with the projector so it won’t play anything. Is there a way to get around this? I tried disabling the projector In device manager and creating my own. It is still looking for an IP address. Say I want to use an SDI to hdmi converter to really have some fun with this. How does one get the server to play a non encrypted DCP (there are some pre show DCPs on here to play with)? The other fun part about this is my dolphin card has the AES audio output bracket and I wanted to see if I could get some sound out of it. Thanks!

[Devin McNamara]

So I snapped a picture of the configuration for the projector then removed it from device manager all together. I opened my playlist again, connected a JSD80 to the AES output and hit play. I’m happy to inform that I could see the output leds on the processor flashing away to the signals being sent in. So I managed to successfully play something. I’m still blind for now until I come up with an SDI converter that may let me hook it up to a monitor to see if I can get a picture from it. Getting pretty exciting for me!

[Carsten Kurz]

That's a Dolphin 1.0 - nothing bad about it.

Read this, http://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/m...ear-2024-issue


but, there is still some time to resolve that issue.


You may set the playlist to 3D mode - that will output a more or less traditional HD-SDI format on either HD-SDI output, instead of the Twin-HD-SDI 12 Bit format in normal 2D mode. You don't need to play 3D content for that to work.

- Carsten

[James Gardiner]

I am extremely surprised. Firstly that the card is still in the field. (Doremi should have chased it down and replaced with a protected unit) Secondly that the card works at all. The fact that such a card is still in the field is a security threat to the protection of all cinema content.
The non-gorze board allows the potential for numerous ways to attach the board for extraction of non-encrypted image signals that could be intercepted to make pristine digital copies.
The board should be disarmed (I imagine, as such boards should have had short cert lengths and not have been sent out new certs in upgrades), and if so, the player software should simply refuse to even operate. A lot of this is covered in the CTP documentation. But in general, if a device is not containing a valid certificate, it is supposed to become completely inoperable.. For security reasons. If it half work, it gives an attacker more latitude to trick it into doing something it is not supposed to.

[Elia Orselli]

I have at least 3 working dolphin 1.0 in the field and waiting for certificate renewal (already available)

[Devin McNamara]

Ok so my next question is how to add my JSD80 to the device manager to control it through my network. I have a static IP address set to the Doremi and a static IP set on the processor. Both are in the same subnet but have two different addresses. Both are on the same network and I can access the summary of the processor by opening its IP in a web browser I can do the same with the Doremi as well so I know they are both valid on my network. When I open device manager I can add a processor however the only manufacturer choice I have is Dolby. I tried leaving it as unknown and adding the processor’s IP however the test comes back as connectivity failed. Is there a package I have to download to allow me to talk to this processor that I need? Thanks!