Sony to Stop Manufacturing Digital Cinema Projectors

[Pete Naples]

@Steve Guttag, that's not a new issue with Sony, I remember in my TV days, trying to control a Sny VTR from anythign non-Sony was hell on earth. Heck even getting say VO and BVU series VTRs to talk directly wasn't officially possible.
There was a guy in the UK named Michael Selman who had cracked the protocols and sold all manner of conversion interfaces.

[Randy Stankey]

I remember in my TV days, trying to control a Sny VTR from anythign non-Sony was hell on earth

I remember, when I sold TVs in a department store, there was one brand of universal remote that could learn the commands from any other remote control if you put them head-to-head, facing each other, and pressed the appropriate buttons on each remote at the same time.

I sold a lot of those remotes, especially to people who bought Sony VCRs.

[Steve Guttag]

Yeah...the Sony protocols could/can be unnecessarily difficult. It isn't like Sony doesn't put the commands into their products but they guard them like they are sacred or some sort of proprietary thing. In fact, they make your product more valuable when they integrate. Crestron, ironically, is the same way. They don't publish their Telnet type commands. They just want you to buy/use a Crestron controller when, in many situations, that would be WAY overkill. Had all manufacturers taken this approach, Crestron (and AMX) would never have gotten too far since they are essentially "super-remotes."

In this world of the internet...the information is going to get out...eventually.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Not only does Sony have a track record of abandoning products, they have a tendency to create "vendor lock" when you get involved with the Sony ecosystem.

Exactly! They are the only company that's worse than Apple in this regard. At least older apple products are still repairable... but new ones pretty much have to be repaired by an authorized Apple repair center. New parts have to be keyed to the devices serial number in order for it to work. I recently took my Imac to Good Will. ONce it stops updating the OS it becomes pretty much useless as apps stop updating shortly there after and you can not load new apps.

[Bruce Cloutier]

You need to ask before you buy if the equipment can be integrated/interfaced by others. And, if so, how, and are the specifications readily available.? This is the only way it gets on their radar. Otherwise, the logic that Steve suggests will prevail. The company is too big and the decision makers too assimilated into the power structure to think about your convenience over theirs.

In the 1980s I had a product in the clinical laboratory market. It was a disk-less workstation way before the term had been coined. We integrated clinical instruments into the new laboratory information systems. So we interfaced with over 400 different instruments from many manufacturers (Kodak there too). Okay, back then EVERY protocol was PROPRIETARY, if there even was a way to communicate with the instrument. We had an uphill battle in almost every case.

But, by the 1990s our products were found in hospital labs everywhere. The hospitals started suggesting to sales people that they wouldn't buy an instrument unless the manufacturer first confirmed that it was compatible with us. Suddenly we not only started receiving protocols ahead of product introductions but multi-dollar instruments (1990 dollars) would show up on our dock unannounced for testing. All because the buyer upfront asked the right questions.

Okay, we did good with that but the Ethernet networking (developed by Xerox where I was once an employee) came along and slowly but surely eliminated our role in that market. We also had to shift away from our own disk-less workstations to PCs where we had to port our interfacing know-how onto our own I/O boards. I actually have one of those boards (530MPC) here on my desk to bring back some memories. We probably had the first ever dual port solid state non-volatile RAM drives for PCs (and didn't know it).

[Steve Guttag]

Often, cinema purchasing and people expected to make things work are not the same people. Decisions on what to put in are done over lunches/dinner or hype that have zero to do with actual performance or longevity. One thing I can guarantee, "will my automation be able to easily control this and will you supply the protocol?" are not words discussed mentioned when the "deals" are being made. Now, if it is a "design/build" where we present a "System" then it is factored in and one of the various aspects of what equipment gets selected is just how well it plays with others. Reliability beats "features" every time.

[Leo Enticknap]

Christ, I was just trying to control one of their Blu-ray players for a Q-SYS system and it is effectively impossible to get info out of them (its working but thanks to a Crestron guy...not anyone from Sony).

For this reason, I wish that QSC would come up with a Q-Sys IR transmitter, like Crestron's, that you can populate with commands by capturing them from the remote that comes with the device, then you stick the transmitter on the receiver of the device you wish to control. It's not an elegant looking solution, but it works in situations where either the device cannot be commanded by IP or RS232 at all (many consumer devices), or the OEM is being an a-hole and won't release the API.

[Steve Guttag]

There are 3rd party plugins for IR devices for Q-SYS. I believe it is Global Cache that is the manufacturer. FWIW...I have posted my Command Button (uni-directional) Sony UBP-X1100ES user component on the FB group for Q-SYS programming.

I do have a handful of query commands/status to investigate but for the project I'm doing, they were not needed so I didn't want to spend the time to do a full bi-directional component. That Sony unit appears to be a sturdy little beast and they have a rackmount adapter for it. It's no Oppo but I can control it via Ethernet!

[Frank Cox]

As part of getting my mother set up in her new apartment I got her a new television and cable tv service.

The remote control that came with the cable box uses some kind of magic to pair itself to the television. You press the setup button on the remote control, then hold the TV OFF button down on the remote control for several seconds until the television turns off. After that, it just works for turning the tv on and the volume control and everything else. So the cable box people have apparently figured out a way to automatically pair their remote control to your tv.

[Brad Miller]

Christ, I was just trying to control one of their Blu-ray players for a Q-SYS system and it is effectively impossible to get info out of them (its working but thanks to a Crestron guy...not anyone from Sony).

Steve, check out the TASCAM BD-MP1 bluray player. It's the best bluray player out there. Also their APIs are very well documented. I have it integrated with the Film-Tech system and my only beef with the unit is that if the unit is powered off, it will not turn back on via ethernet. It will however turn back on if you are controlling via serial.

PRODUCT PAGE:
https://tascam.com/us/product/bd-mp1/top

MANUAL:
http://www.film-tech.com/vbbfiles/Tascam_BD-MP1_manual.pdf

API:
http://www.film-tech.com/vbbfiles/Tascam_BD-MP1_API.pdf

[Steve Guttag]

Yup. Already sold one. It is the "twin" to the Denon DN500BDMKII (look at them side-by-side, front and back). It suffers the same thing as the Denon. The Ethernet port powers down when in standby! Dumb. Even the Sony UBP-X1100ES doesn't do that!

I haven't integrated it into Q-SYS yet but I'm sure that is coming (on the Tascam). The problem is, I see most of our new installations going 4K so a 1080 player may not be as appealing. Thus far, this year, all of the 4K systems the customer has opted for a 4K player. As you know, they new 4K RGB laser projectors are not priced into the stratosphere anymore and are actually pretty much price competitive with Xenon (far cheaper when electricity and lamps are factored in) so I do finally see cinema moving beyond 2K.

I don't recall on the Tascam (only sold one, thus far) but I liked that the Denon, upon getting 120V, powers on rather than have to be powered on. I also like its 1U rack consumption.

[Marcel Birgelen]

So far, I'm pretty happy with the Sony UBP-X1100ES, although the thing really is massively overpriced, if you compare it to other 4K offerings out there. There also seems to be a rackmount kit for the thing, but nobody seems to be able to order it around here. But even this is a typical Sony thing. While the RS232/IR codes have leaked over time and are available on-line if you Google them, it's not like Sony has an actual support page with those codes or even imagine they would put them into the manual, (maybe the situation has recently changed, but I doubt so). Wouldn't it be for the "public leaks", for me, it would entirely defeat the purpose for such a relatively expensive device, given that about the only extra feature of this "professional" appliance, is the automation options provided.

As part of getting my mother set up in her new apartment I got her a new television and cable tv service.

The remote control that came with the cable box uses some kind of magic to pair itself to the television. You press the setup button on the remote control, then hold the TV OFF button down on the remote control for several seconds until the television turns off. After that, it just works for turning the tv on and the volume control and everything else. So the cable box people have apparently figured out a way to automatically pair their remote control to your tv.

Many newer remotes have "vendor detection". Micro-controllers are cheap, so your remote has now more CPU power than your 1990s game console. Often, the "power off/power on" signal is sufficient to detect the brand, if not, you may need to input a few other strokes.

Additionally, you can, those days, send remote commands over HDMI also. That way, your TV remote can also control e.g. a Set-Top-Box.
If it works, it's great... but I often encounter some problems with stuff like "fast scrolling" or that one button not being implemented...

[Brad Miller]

Marcel, if you have a copy of the API, please upload them here for others.

As you have rightfully noted, without the API, there is no reason for anyone to bother purchasing that Sony player.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I've added the XLSx (MS Excel) file, containing the RS232 commands for the UBP-X1100ES, in a ZIP format (because XLSx can't be uploaded directly) as an attachment to this post. Maybe this is better suited in the "Automation" section in the warehouse though.

[Gary Wachter]

I wonder how this will impact their long term theater plans when the hardware wears out. Sony was slated to open their new new 16 screen 85,000 sq ft luxury Galaxy Theater in The Colony, Texas (north of Dallas metro) last month.