GDC SR-1000 User Password Hierarchy

[Barry Floyd]

Does anyone know if the GDC SR-1000 servers have the ability to set up a "user hierarchy" of passwords so some users can have access to some functions, but locked out of others? Example: User Level 100 has full access to playlist editing / creation, ingest capabilities, maintenance, etc., and User Level 80 would only have access to "load show and play", play, pause and stop.

I have an assistant manager who likes to edit the playlists on my days off and deletes things out of the playlists so the double features end earlier and she gets to go home earlier. Doing so alters the start time of the movies from our advertised start time and its pissing off my customers who drive from an hour away only to arrive and find the movie has already started well before the advertised start time.

I know my POS system has different level of users that have restricted functions, but didn't know if the GDC SR-1000 had or could have something similar. We do NOT have any type of TMS, just two stand-alone projectors and servers.

[Steve Guttag]

Not for users. There are three tiers:

1. User
2. Technician
3. Maintenance

There is one password for each.

[Frank Cox]

Just tell her to stop doing that.

Problem solved, no technical changes required.

[Marcel Birgelen]

What what what? You're expecting people to take responsibility?!!

The current niche suppliers of this kind of hard- and software, the likes of Dolby, GDC, Barco and a few other "honorable mentions" we silently ignore here, already struggle to keep the sh*t working they're pushing out now. I wouldn't even want them to cobble up an advanced role model, because that's just years of extra hurt in the making.

Now, I'm exaggerating just a little here, but given the fact how small the feature-set actually is, it still often blows my mind how much crap we've seen with this stuff over the years.

If you want a more granular permission scheme, you should consider installing a TMS. A TMS will also keep your normal staff away from the actual playout software, which is usually a good thing: Don't let people mess with things they have no clue about. Chances they're messing up stuff, with the paying customers holding the bag, are pretty realistic. Actually: those places where the Chief Popcorn Officer also "manages" the booth in absence of anybody else, are usually the places I try to avoid as the plague. And no, that doesn't include single screens where the life-long owner both manages the booth and hands me the popcorn, fully expecting that the owner cares about his business and knows his sh*t.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

What Frank said... You are the boss, you gotta put your foot down. Unless it's a relative... then of course you don't want to cause any family friction.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Makes me wonder what they are deleting that is perceived as a big enough gain in the clock out early department to be worth risking the job over?
A symptom of having too much preroll maybe?

On doubles, if the 2nd show has an advertised start time and can be attended separately, it should never roll before that time (as you know), regardless of what someone feels like trimming (authorized or not).

We don't even put the two films in the same playlist (but we also have next to zero preroll to manage).

[Randy Stankey]

What Frank said... You are the boss, you gotta put your foot down. Unless it's a relative... then of course you don't want to cause any family friction.

I hate giving out discipline. I have always tried to avoid it, sometimes to the point of bad things happening because I didn't when I should have. There comes a time, however, when you've gotta' do what you gotta' do. Barry, I think you've come to that crossroad.

In all the times I have been in charge of different places, I have only ever had to send one person away. Decades later, I still feel bad about it. I didn't want to do it but my hand was forced by my boss.

Except for that one time, I have rarely had to go beyond saying, "Hey, don't do that." There was only one time when I had to issue a written warning and I have never sent anybody on a "mandatory, unpaid vacation."

I get the impression that you are a lot like me in this respect. You don't do discipline. Like me, you, simply, expect that people do as they are asked without needing to to have you looking over their shoulder, all the time. That's commendable and it's the way I believe things should be. I have a long fuse when it comes to handing out discipline but, if I have to, I'll say, "Git!" and point the person toward the door.

Your employee needs a talking to. They are messing up your business and pissing off your customers. This behavior must stop and it must stop today.

If you want me to come down there and read them the Riot Act, let me know.

[Paul H. Rayton]

Ummm ... Randy, I think you'd have to go "up there", rather than "down there", to do the reading thing. He is in Canada, after all ... :-)

[Frank Cox]

Lebanon, Tennessee, Canada.

Now that would be some kind of an accent!

[Randy Stankey]

Frank is in Saskatchewan and Barry is in Tennessee. Right?

I live 120 miles north of Pittsburgh. In Da' Burg, they say "down there" no matter which way they are headed.
If you start in Pittsburgh, you can go "down" to Canada just as easily as you can go "down" to Tennessee.

[Leo Enticknap]

I have an assistant manager who likes to edit the playlists on my days off and deletes things out of the playlists so the double features end earlier and she gets to go home earlier. Doing so alters the start time of the movies from our advertised start time and its pissing off my customers who drive from an hour away only to arrive and find the movie has already started well before the advertised start time.

This sounds like a 21st century version of what a trade paper in the 1920s called "the picture-racing menace," namely the practice by some projectionists in the late silent era of running the last show of the evening at frame rates of up to 30-35 (hand cranked projectors in those days, so if you had the stamina...) in order to be able to get to the bar before closing time.

[Marcel Birgelen]

This sounds like a 21st century version of what a trade paper in the 1920s called "the picture-racing menace," namely the practice by some projectionists in the late silent era of running the last show of the evening at frame rates of up to 30-35 (hand cranked projectors in those days, so if you had the stamina...) in order to be able to get to the bar before closing time.

I'd call that the 20th century version of HFR.

[Barry Floyd]

I checked with my equipment dealer who also contacted GDC. Looks like there's no built-in option to do what I want. I do appreciate all of the input and suggestions.
I did speak with her about it, and stressed to her why it's important to leave it the way I had it set up.

It's hard to hand out discipline when you're married to the culprit.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Well, like I said... Don't cause any family friction!!

[Martin McCaffery]

This sounds like a 21st century version of what a trade paper in the 1920s called "the picture-racing menace,"

Back in the reel to reel days of porn cinema, management would tell us to start changing over sooner to trim minutes from the show. It is not as if the audience was wrapped up in the plot.