Setting up Fader Cues with Doremi DCP 2000 and DTS XD10p Audio Processor

[Gordon McLeod]

This is a good converter
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BBH3SYZT?...kipTwisterOG=2

[Dave Macaulay]

Why explore rabbit holes? Carston seems to have answered you. The DCP2000 has a serial port and using it is pretty easy. I don't know of issues with cr/lf with it. You may need a weird cable and to play around with command termination but RS232 is about the most reliable comm method there is. You can also use the Jnior to do network commands to serial, or just use it to do dry contact control. Servers are pretty closed systems (thanks, ultra paranoid security model) and I'm not sure you can just add a USB to serial device and get it to work.
Note that the DCP2000 has obsolete components and is not (nearly) fully supported by Dolby. And the Enigma unit required in the projector is also getting hard to find. You should be budgeting for a modern server - and projector as S2 are near EOL and S1... good luck.
A surplus place nearby has about 30 DCP2000 units (no Dolphins, no PSUs).

[Kevin Kelley]

I truly appreciate all of the info you guys are supplying. The only issue is, I have no idea what any of it means! LOL. I am pretty tech savvy, as in if I see how its done once or twice I can pretty much figure out the rest on my own. but I am not familiar with any of this aspect of projection, so I am basically an idiot at this point. If anyone has kind of a step by step on how to do this (ie. from the Doreme Device Manager click on this and then select that...blah blah blah) It would be really helpful. I know it may seem like a big ask but, I figured I would check.

[Dave Macaulay]

In Device Manager you add a serial device. I can't really guide you through the whole process of adding cues etc but once you have a device, you can add cues to it in a macro using macro editor. You need the appropriate command syntax for your device, and generally you put a line feed at the end of command text.
Do you have the server user manual? It isn't in the manual warehouse here but I can send it to you.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I fired up the DCP2000 during our music show tonight and took some step based photos for ya to get some basics demonstrated. This would be your possible option to have a DCP2000 talk RS232 directly to the X10p (assuming the serial ports are otherwise not in use on either device already) via Macros that can be part of show playlists.

This also requires admin user privs on the DCP2000, or at least manager?

The connecting cable is either a DB9 standard serial cable, or a DB9 "Null Modem" cable. Some devices will auto-negotiate and not care, you may have to try both. If they are far away from each other you can look into serial over cat5 baluns, but at that stage you might be better of with one of the network to serial translating devices and ignoring the serial port on the Doremi.

If you feel too far out of your depth this is something to hire a tech to integrate for you more completely into your CMS. But the basics of DCP2000 talking to X10p via a macro in an SPL are simple enough, and resembles what we did a lot of in my booth. You can certainly implement this as a proof of concept and then change the routing and devices involved in the serial data link later on.

Design wise, having the commands in Doremi might not be where it is best for your CMS. The JNIORs you already have, or other network2serial devices may be a cleaner implementation.



Go to the Device Manager:
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Add a new device:
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Choose type "Serial" and add it.
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Set the Serial device parameters then save, my photo shows what I expect might work based on the documentation linked previously by Carsten.
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Now go to the Macro Editor:
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Add a new "Automation Cue" aka Macro (you'll be adding several)
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Give it a logical name (This is what appears in the SPL list of available automations), I tend to pre-pend most of mine with something to indicate what device they are talking to so they sort together in the list and gives you a group search term. Like "AP20_Fader 6.0"
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Find and select the one you just created, then click "Insert New Action", each macro can have 1 or more actions.
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Configure the options for that new action, in your case it's a general I/O action, of the "Send Message" type.
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Once you click "add" for the action, you get to define it, here is where you select your previously created device, and use the syntax the documentation describes for buttons and level commands, example should be correct for Fader 6.0, although the "\r" escape sequence might be different device to device. Also note the fader levels 0-100 (representing 0.0-10.0) are expressed in the X10p command syntax as hexidecimal strings. 100 in text is 64 in hex. 60 in text is 3C in hex. Just use google to translate for ya. "Message Label" is just how it shows up in the actions list, completely unrelated to the actual message it sends.over serial.
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click okay and you are done with that action and macro, you can add another macro, or test the one you just made using the "Macro Execution" feature from the main menu. These are very basic macros with just one action item each, the serial fader command itself. You'll need one for each fader level you intend to be able to execute. When I did this for the AP20 I only made Fader 5.0 thru 10.0 in .1 increments individually... everything below 5.0 I made has larger .5 step jumps because I don't expect to need those.

After that it's just a matter testing them in an SPL context, and then integrating them into your SPLs that need level changes. Presumably your CMS points to SPLs on each server, though I'm less familiar with how CMSs work in general. No doubt the CMS could execute network commands to a translation device(s) as others have recommended. So if you want fader control in the CMS more directly you might have to go that route.

If you had to go down the GPIO rabbit hole in an attempt to talk to the remote fader contacts on the X10p, most of this still applies, but your device type configuration and macro type settings might vary. Plus can't tell it specific levels, only plus .1 or minus .1 command changes You'd have to stack them as actions in the macro, or as as stack of macros in the SPL. And adding delays might be required to keep from saturating the serial link's execution speed. Not as transparent/readable as just executing fader levels.

[Sean McKinnon]

Kevin,

Are you at the TARA? You should get in touch with Magna-Tech and ask them to do this for you.

[Bruce Cloutier]

I would add one thing in favor of the JNIOR in these scenarios and that is the added diagnostic utilities it has. There is a "transmission log" and using the IOLOG -AO command from the JNIOR command line you can see the bytes/characters sent to and received from the device connected to the serial port. None of these other devices (and automations) have that capability to my knowledge. You can also see the communications with the DCP2000 with the built-n network sniffer and all of that.

The serial log will easily

1) prove your wiring is correct or not
2) show that your commands are going out and show anything coming back
3) tell you immediately if you have the wrong baud rate (stuff back on the port would be all garbled)
4) help you with the CRLF confusion

You can even use HELP AUX at the command line (or through the webUI) and the JNIOR will tell you the pinouts for the port.

Not to mention that you can email support at INTEG and get personalized help promptly.

I agree that RS-232 is reliable once you have it wired properly and you are not using lengthy cables. I still end up using my breakout box more often than not to get wiring right. That lets you try different connections with little jumpers and use LEDs to help verify your signals. That can even help if you have connector gender issues. Once it is working then you know how to construct the proper cable. USB nicely did away with that but creates other issues.

If you update your Series 4 to v2.5.1 (soon to release) you can do this.

rAux /> echo "This is a test" > auxout

jrAux /> iolog -ao
-- 10/28/24 14:34:17.724
54 68 69 73 20 69 73 20 61 20 74 65 73 74 0D 0A This is a test..

jrAux />

And that marched out the port.