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Yes, you read it correctly. My question concerns the ancient Sony SRX R320 and its lens macros.
I am projectionist in a Dutch cinema (excuse any incorrect English as it is a third language) still running four (+3 extra in storage for spare parts) Sony SRX R320's. Among a long list of problems regarding these massive beasts' mechanics, electronics, and their interaction with our TMS or the companying programs, comes the following question:
Is there a way to change the location of the lens macros? On all four of our projectors the placement (F1-F...) is never exactly the same, see the below screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet one of my colleagues made:
Lenses.png
As you can see, the 2D lenses are the same for 1 and 4, and 2 and 3. Unfortunately because we sometimes use a 3D lens in 4 when needed, I can’t use the same functions for these projectors as standard. Cinema 2 always runs a 3D lens, so I can't use the same macros for 2 and 3 either.
This has the effect that I have to make at least 4 individual SPL's per movie, one for each projector. But to make my life a bit easier it ends up being 5 of 6 SPL's per movie, because I use one or two separate SPL's as sub-SPL's to make sure I always have the same trailers, offsets and intermissions between projectors.
This is of course more of a luxury problem than a strict operating problem, but to minimize the risk of sending the wrong SPL to a projector or program the wrong macro, I would like the macros to be the same.
I have asked this question three times to the company servicing our projectors. Two times my mail was left unanswered. The third time I was on the phone with one of their technicians. He said that he found the situation odd because they always aim to make the macros the same across machines. But because he didn’t specialize in Sony's he would put it forward to one who was. Unfortunately, I never heard back from that either
Now you have to understand, in the Netherlands we have CinemaNext. They are the only (yes, the only. All the others were taken over by them) projector distributor and service company in our small country. And in that singular company there is a single technician who specializes in Sony's. He was over the last couple of days for yearly maintenance and I again but forward this question. His answer, in absolute CinemaNext style was "uhm, sure, technically yes, but it is difficult and takes time. If I had known this before starting your yearly maintenance then maybe I could have also worked on that" (keep in mind I had already asked three times in the past). This is classic CinemaNext, everything is difficult to do, takes too much time which they don't have or is very expensive (yaay for monopolies). And don't get me wrong, they have been very helpful in the past, but this is a recurring trend in their responses and technical feedback on problems.
Therefore I turn to this forum. I have found very helpful information here before on Sony's, most recently with the Y2K24 bug. From what I can find in the manuals you would need the program SRX controller to make any changes to this. This is the first hurdle I haven't been able to cross. I couldn’t find it online and when asking Sony, they forwarded me to another company who, again, did not reply. If any of you can help me with finding or providing the SRX controller software and instructions on how to make sure that I can use the same macros on all projectors, then I would be eternally grateful.
-Ferenc
I am projectionist in a Dutch cinema (excuse any incorrect English as it is a third language) still running four (+3 extra in storage for spare parts) Sony SRX R320's. Among a long list of problems regarding these massive beasts' mechanics, electronics, and their interaction with our TMS or the companying programs, comes the following question:
Is there a way to change the location of the lens macros? On all four of our projectors the placement (F1-F...) is never exactly the same, see the below screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet one of my colleagues made:
Lenses.png
As you can see, the 2D lenses are the same for 1 and 4, and 2 and 3. Unfortunately because we sometimes use a 3D lens in 4 when needed, I can’t use the same functions for these projectors as standard. Cinema 2 always runs a 3D lens, so I can't use the same macros for 2 and 3 either.
This has the effect that I have to make at least 4 individual SPL's per movie, one for each projector. But to make my life a bit easier it ends up being 5 of 6 SPL's per movie, because I use one or two separate SPL's as sub-SPL's to make sure I always have the same trailers, offsets and intermissions between projectors.
This is of course more of a luxury problem than a strict operating problem, but to minimize the risk of sending the wrong SPL to a projector or program the wrong macro, I would like the macros to be the same.
I have asked this question three times to the company servicing our projectors. Two times my mail was left unanswered. The third time I was on the phone with one of their technicians. He said that he found the situation odd because they always aim to make the macros the same across machines. But because he didn’t specialize in Sony's he would put it forward to one who was. Unfortunately, I never heard back from that either
Now you have to understand, in the Netherlands we have CinemaNext. They are the only (yes, the only. All the others were taken over by them) projector distributor and service company in our small country. And in that singular company there is a single technician who specializes in Sony's. He was over the last couple of days for yearly maintenance and I again but forward this question. His answer, in absolute CinemaNext style was "uhm, sure, technically yes, but it is difficult and takes time. If I had known this before starting your yearly maintenance then maybe I could have also worked on that" (keep in mind I had already asked three times in the past). This is classic CinemaNext, everything is difficult to do, takes too much time which they don't have or is very expensive (yaay for monopolies). And don't get me wrong, they have been very helpful in the past, but this is a recurring trend in their responses and technical feedback on problems.
Therefore I turn to this forum. I have found very helpful information here before on Sony's, most recently with the Y2K24 bug. From what I can find in the manuals you would need the program SRX controller to make any changes to this. This is the first hurdle I haven't been able to cross. I couldn’t find it online and when asking Sony, they forwarded me to another company who, again, did not reply. If any of you can help me with finding or providing the SRX controller software and instructions on how to make sure that I can use the same macros on all projectors, then I would be eternally grateful.
-Ferenc
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