NEC NC2000C Bad Certificate Error

[Steve Guttag]

The current CAT745 deal is on the low $$$ side for a lost certificate. The battery scheme was such that one had a better than 50/50 shot of losing the certificate using the prescribed method (even Dolby techs, in a controlled environment didn't do so well). As such, part of the fee includes a 10-year soldered in battery. Anyone thinking that they are going to get 17-25 years on a server isn't realistic to begin with...they have computer lifecycles.

I'll tell you, I'm really starting to favor the super-cap method of certificate storage. That is what has kept Enigmas and Dolby CAT862s going for a long time now. The only downside is that they presume that you actually USE your equipment. So that has to be factored into any seasonal operation (e.g. Drive Ins or Beach locations...etc.) or even the every-century pandemic. You need to get power to these devices in a regular fashion such that they run the equivalent of 3-5 days straight over 6-months.

Part of the problem I see with batteries, now that we have some long-term experience with them is, if you are a non-conventional theatre (and it has been magnified by C19), you are consuming battery life at a greater rate than the manufacturers anticipated. So you don't get your 3 or 5 or 7 years (whatever they quoted). Every hour that projector/server is off, you have consumed a portion of your battery life. So you need to have a greater frequency of battery changes. Conversely, a super-cap, it recharges up once you return to "normal" operation.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed, and I wonder why Dolby charge significantly more to re-cert a Doremi IMB than they do a cat745. I can't see how the cost to them to do the work is proportionally higher. But either is a much smaller whack in the wallet than the one resulting from a GDC media block that is out of warranty.

[Carsten Kurz]

That poor guy from Turkey that lost his ICMP recently after 5 years because of a drained battery had to pay about 3500US$ to have it reserialized by Barco. And I think shipping came on top of that. And he's doing postproduction, he did never actually utilise the media block/cert mechanism, just the alternative content inputs, which went belly-up with the cert loss as well. So much for TCO.

[Marcel Birgelen]

According to secret communication between someone and TI, not even TI can do it. They employ another party for manufacturing, and serialisation can only take place at their manufacturing plant. Makes no difference, because neither TI nor that third party will answer your request. As it stands currently, both a dead ICP and a dead Enigma will remain dead forever from an exhibitor or integrators perspective.

You'd expect that official implementation partners like Barco, NEC and Christie Digital would at least get the possibility to do the initialisation of those boards themselves.... But yeah, It doesn't even sound too far fetched, so it's probably true. Obviously, it only further complicates stuff... It's great to know that only this one outsourcing partner of TI can trigger the boobytrap mechanism and that those boards have to be shipped in this kamikaze-mode across the entire planet... So, essentially, once that outsourcing partner goes belly-up or their contract is up for renegotiation and they decide to stop it, the entire supply of "fresh" ICPs is in danger? Sounds all-right to me...

I think what annoys so many people about the ICP is that there is no DCI rule forcing the battery to be non-rechargeable and non-replaceable, combined with the high replacement cost of the board. In many projectors, it is the second most expensive part, after the light engine. It was good to see Barco address this in the ICP-D, by making the battery user replaceable.

I guess the whole exhibition industry is just so used to get screwed over again and again and again, but if you look at this neutrally... This just screams class-action, doesn't it? The whole design is just planned obsolescence. Something becomes technically unusable, because, eventually, a bad design forces it to lose a magic key of just a few bytes and renders it unusable. If this would be any car manufacturer, the attorneys would be lining up for the potential court cases....

[Ronda Love]

My position is quite unpopular, but I think it's time to scrap the DCI model entirely. The film companies are willing to run day and date digitally, so the BS about it being a security matter are pretty clearly not their primary concern. A lot of folks are getting a lot of pockets full of cash for unreasonably expensive old tech.

I walked into a Costco and stopped dead in shock looking at the amazing picture on a very large screen quite inexpensive TV. I can buy a crazy good laser projector that would more than double my current resolution for $10k, cost a fraction of what I'm spending to operate, replace and upgrade every few years for less than I've spent on extended warranties, and give my customers a much better experience, but because there's no way to integrate into my system and no licensing model for playing film on non-DCI equipment even sub-run, I'm stuck with either mortgaging my business yet again (we didn't get OUR equipment paid for with VPF, cause, sub-run) because our equipment is aging out, for equipment NOT BETTER than it was 10 years ago at the wildly inflated price point it is still being sold, or selling or closing. Not too many buyers here in the CV19-Land.

Give sub-runs at least an E-Cinema option. First Run theatres SHOULD be fighting for this for themselves, but need the overly expensive cost of entry model to prevent competition. The home entertainment tech is CREAMING us in presentation, and upgrades every single year. If cinemas die, it's going to be the DCI model that kills it.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed completely that the DCI security regime is an artificial barrier to entry. It's not unique to the movie theater industry. At the risk of getting political, a debate is gathering steam here in California about the extent and necessity of professional licensing imposed by the state. Apparently there is even a state licensing exam for bartenders (the training and exam for which costs thousands), and some counties actually require their bar staff to have them!

The gotcha, of course, is that the major studios will only release first run movies to theaters within this DCI security wrapper. Maybe this is one of the reasons why they're pulling back releasing straight to streaming on the break, after having tried it in a blaze of publicity with Mulan. If first run titles are to be released to consumer platforms, then the DCI model will break as an unintended consequence, either because theaters will install non-DCI projectors with a Netflix box, or other, non-Hollywood distributors will release product to theaters on formats other than encrypted DCPs. If the industry wants theaters to maintain the DCI security system and all the cost overheads that come with it, they need to ensure a reliable supply of content within it that is not available to theaters and consumers any other way.

[Carsten Kurz]

We won't see the security regime being relaxed, I'm sure. You can play DCP encrypted and non-encrypted on non-DCI compliant (but compatible) equipment, but only some very few rights holders will expose unencrypted DCPs or issue KDMs for non-compliant playout software. Yes, the equipment does cost a lot of money, but cost has come down over the years, and there is a significant second hand market, especially within and after the current Covid-19 situation (as bad as that is already).

[Frank Cox]

We have a mandatory course and certification here for bartenders, bar waitresses and bouncers: https://www.slga.com/community-educa...t-saskatchewan

I have no idea how much it costs or what it involves since I don't run a bar, but I know that the liquor inspectors check for that and the bar owner can be in some serious trouble if he's not compliant.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Well, my opinion also might not be the most popular, but I've been crying foul about the whole DCI security theater for a while now. We've loaded our expensive gadgets with boobytraps that brick them only looking at them the wrong way. No need to even touch them, they'll self-destruct automatically anyway. The result is that DCI equipment is relegated to a niche, while the rest of the industry is playing catch-up very fast. While it's true that the DCI security requirements have kept out those who cheapened out on the presentation side to some extent, in this post-pandemic market, where you can fetch a used DCI installation for a few grand, this is certainly no longer true.

Also, with more and more of this DCI tech now becoming obsolete and this tech ending up in the "free market", it's only a matter of time someone breaks the DCI security chain and like Ronda indicated, the studios are releasing day and date to both streaming and theater. The whole security thing is now totally worthless to begin with.

To me it's clear that the exhibition industry we knew before the pandemic is gone. For all those running theaters in the future, who are not blessed to be single-servants in a very isolated market, the going is getting really though and some new models will be needed in order to survive. This market is not being served by limiting factors like DCI security, which only holds back innovation and served to fill up the coffers of a happy few players that managed to dominate in this niche market.

I for one, want to be able install an 8K LED wall in a multi-purpose theater and show current movies on it in the most awesome way possible...

But maybe we don't need to worry at all... Hollywood has made itself almost completely irrelevant the last year, with the likes of Amazon and Netflix now seemingly being the front-runners of all things making a buzz... No need for any DCI compliant hardware there, just connect your Android TV to whatever device you want and start streaming in Dolby Vision at 4K. And hey, you can bitch about the quality, but some of those latest Netflix releases in Dolby Vision, exceed anything that's currently being released on DCI, despite the heavy compression...

[Justin Hamaker]

Just a follow up. About two weeks after I posted this thread I received a notice from GDC about our server certificates expiring. At the time I received this notification the certificate for the projector in question had already expired. We are waiting until closer to reopening to renew the certificates, but it appears it may not be a bricked board after all.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Just a follow up. About two weeks after I posted this thread I received a notice from GDC about our server certificates expiring. At the time I received this notification the certificate for the projector in question had already expired. We are waiting until closer to reopening to renew the certificates, but it appears it may not be a bricked board after all.

Hopefully you have been doing a more frequent powerup since then, as the interval you mentioned in your OP was far too long to avoid bricking the hardware.

How has your area overall recovered from the fire? I hope you and your staff and family are doing well despite the CV shutdown.

[Steve Guttag]

Please note, a certificate expiring is not the same as a lost certificate (battery dead). GDC certificates had a 10-year from date it was originally put on the mediablock (not from when installed). If the mediablock (IMB or conventional mediablock), has a dead battery, then only GDC can load a new one. If the certificate has expired but the battery is still good, THEN GDC can issue you a replacement certificate. There is normally a minimum software requirement so you may need to update for that too. The updated certificate pushes the expiration date out another 10 years, as I recall. You WILL need new KDMs for that server, however. Same serial number but it is a replacement certificate.

[Justin Hamaker]

Steve, the servers in our Cinema were installed in 2010 and 2011. We have one where we had to replace a server and the certificate is still good for several years. And yes, I do need to do a software update before we can get the new certificates.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

The cost of GDC warranty extensions is so high that many users feel that it's worth the risk of not buying them (especially the owners of older SX-3000s, and rack servers with IMBs or HD-SDI media blocks). Industry conventions prevent me from posting actual figures on a publicly accessible website, but one customer I dealt with recently had been quoted an annual renewal figure which was such that between one and two years' warranty extension amounted to the cost of a brand new IMS. In other words, if his out-of-warranty IMS survives for two years, he's ahead. He told me that this is a calculated risk that he's willing to take. The Dolby IMS costs a bit more to buy initially, but when I'm asked why, I flag up one of the reasons as being that it's significantly cheaper to get them recertificated if they're out of warranty.

I think what annoys so many people about the ICP is that there is no DCI rule forcing the battery to be non-rechargeable and non-replaceable, combined with the high replacement cost of the board. In many projectors, it is the second most expensive part, after the light engine. It was good to see Barco address this in the ICP-D, by making the battery user replaceable.

Yep! I never had a single customer buy the extended NEC warranty because theyu were priced on the moon. But every one bought the GDC warranty after the initial 3- year warranty expired... and they still do....
I have been lucky that no ICP's or servers were bricked among my customers during this shut down...

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Steve, the servers in our Cinema were installed in 2010 and 2011. We have one where we had to replace a server and the certificate is still good for several years. And yes, I do need to do a software update before we can get the new certificates.

Justin, in the large rack mount servers the media block cert batteries are good for 5 years. IN the SX-3000 they are good for 3 years. And on the latter one I have had them fail at three years plus 1eleven days!! So if they have never been replaced you are walking on extremely thin ice.