Dolby cat745 IMB recertification service ended, effective immediately

[Carsten Kurz]

That said, the server market now has shrunk considerably, so, another brand could have some prospects. The CMS5000-Q-Sys integration also would be a straight non-Dolby way into object based audio.

[Gordon McLeod]

MikroM I believe made the IMB wused by DigiCine and Qube

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

MikroM I believe made the IMB wused by DigiCine and Qube

They also made the media block for the short lived DTS server. BTW: That server put out the best images I have ever seen projected digitally...

[Gordon McLeod]

Also MikroM web site is empty and listed forsale

[Carsten Kurz]

MikroM has been liquidated in 2018. I have some of their stuff archived. XDC also used MikroM media blocks. It has been a huge cascade of sublicensing back then. MikroM used IntoPIX hardware decoder chipsets, XDC used MikroM, Sony used IntoPix. etc.

[Steve Guttag]

No, in fact it was way before that when they announced in an early DSS-100 training class to "not be surprised if Dolby completely pulls out of Digital Cinema"."That thje board of directors is not very gung ho about it".

Maybe. Dolby was certainly used to having some sort of patent or copyright ensuring that their technology was essentially legislated into the market. Digital Cinema was going to, essentially, eliminate it. That said, the DCinema server market was a small one and Dolby was early into it. The DSS100/DSP100 evolved a bit, particularly when JPEG2000 became the standard. Dolby updated all DSP100s, for free for that. They also change out all of the "Promise" drives for CRU-Dataport when those became the defacto standards. So Dolby, if they had misgivings, certainly continued down the road of product support and development.

My speculation is that the DSS line of products were developed more as one-off projects, most likely with external parties involved. Especially the DSS200 and DSS220 never felt like native Dolby developments

That I'm certain is incorrect. The DSP100 was all Dolby, as was the CAT862 that was in the DSS200. The DSS100 (and DSL100) were Supermicro servers with (expensive) Dolby skins on them. With the DSS200 and DSS220 they, wisely, didn't put money into putting lipstick on a piece of metal when that money could go elsewhere. What people are going to perceive is the "server" part of the server is the software that runs on it. That is why Show Manager looks identical on the ENTIRE DSS line. That is why, until the SR1000, all of the GDC servers, from a user standpoint, look IDENTICAL for operation. The same is true, to a lesser extent for the Doremi up until the IMS1000...where the IMS1000 and IMS2000 (and the web UI of the DCP2000 series) are identical. It is less about what hardware they are running on (which affects performance) than the software that is running on them.

You have a finite amount of money to spend on a project. Do you really want to start, from scratch, on developing server motherboards, custom metalwork, RAID designs (and some have had "fun" with those)...and only down the line or let those people that have already done that heavy lifting and just concentrate on what makes your product unique, the software? How far do you take it? Do you develop your own ICs and mine the copper? The chief advantage of making your own stuff is that you control your destiny. This is witnessed as there are various motherboard revisions throughout the product's life where your OEM made a change. This also affects your ability to supply repair parts. Then again, when you recognize we are a tiny industry (seriously, less than 200,000 units (which is a sample size for many industries would mean 100% domination of the industry with leftovers), making your own stuff, depending on the thing, would require it to be vastly more expensive due to your relatively small, but unique production runs. Conversely, I can source a Supermicro X7 or X8 motherboard for a DSS200 still, despite Dolby dropping support years ago and discontinuing the product now over 5-years ago.

Q-Sys plugins for Dolby and GDC servers are starting to appear, easy integration with Q-Sys is no longer its killer app.

i don't think what Q-SYS brings to the table for the CMS-5000 is the plugin for Q-SYS...though perhaps they may be developing something that is killer, it is that it is native to Q-SYS and, as such, removes a multi-thousand dollar piece (the cinema processor) from every screen. To a degree, Dolby has this with the IMS3000, if you get the cinema processor enablement. You get a single stream of AES67 but have spent the cost of the JSD60 doing it...without the JSD60's analog inputs. However, for the cookie-cutter 5.1/7.1 theatre, that may very well be the "entry-level" sound solution going forward with the new low cost COREs or Dolby's own DMA amplifier. If you have a TMS you are happy with, the server's UI is less important. If you are using the server UI, Dolby has a server and sound UI right in a single web interface accessible via any device with web access and they have a bluetooth dongle that will allow some pads (there are resolution/size requirements) the ability to be a local UI.

I think CMS-5000 could find a market but I think it will be difficult. As I said, you have the OEMs that blast out their server in their projectors for lower cost. You have those that have GDC or Dolby/Doremi and are entrenched. In some countries, Qube. What is QSC's credible server experience? For that matter, what was USL's credible server experience? Thus far, they don't have any points on the board. Everyone that has dabbled into the server market has found that it is a rabbit hole where one has to keep up with a changing playing field to keep DCI compliant and roll with new punches and new projectors (things out of their control). How fast will QSC be able to respond to such changing landscapes? How unhappy does one have to be with the current server landscape to take a chance on an unproven server platform? For what gain? Low-cost ATMOS? That is such a small percentage of the market, right now and, I don't think you get to use any Dolby promotional material with that so it will always sound like you are selling Mello Yellow or generic green soda instead of Mountain Dew.

I believe competition inspires innovation so I welcome their attempt but I think it will be a VERY uphill battle for them. It's doable, just not easy and it would require a huge commitment in money and time. 2021 is probably not the right year for either.

[Carsten Kurz]

The IMS3000 is way to expensive to compete with the ICMP-X. If you buy a Barco projector, you nearly get the server for free. Wondering what NEC does now since their IMS1000/2000 OEM servers are gone. That said, CMS-5000 certainly can not be one of the lowest cost offerings as well with it's added value - but it is a QSYS integrated non-Dolby OBA system. There needs to be some competition in the OBA market. What this all means in the current situation, we'll see sooner or later.
I wouldn't even be surprised if the plug is pulled for Direct View DCI systems, as there is not enough market to bring down the cost now.

GDC has a strong foot in the asian/indian market. And these are probably the only markets with decent growth in the near future.

[Steve Guttag]

No lie, in the USA, I can sell an IMS3000 for less than an ICMP-X...even when the ICMP-X is part of the projector (and the IMS3000's SDI connector is active...ICMP-X that is an option), it doesn't really tilt the scales...and the new ICP-D hands out two HDMI 2.0 ports though the IMS3000's HDMI 2.0 port seems less fussy than Barco's. Barco comes with 2-year warranty. The IMS3000 comes with 3. The cost of adding additional warranty to the IMS3000 is less than for the ICMP-X to a projector. Dolby's warranty tops at 5-years. Barco seems to allow one to continue it for the life of the projector, which tops at 10-years. I've never had an IMS2000 fail and the only IMS3000 fails have been batteries during C19 on new units that were in storage too long. My experience with the ICMP has not been as good. The best warranty is the one you don't need.

[Marcel Birgelen]

That I'm certain is incorrect. The DSP100 was all Dolby, as was the CAT862 that was in the DSS200. The DSS100 (and DSL100) were Supermicro servers with (expensive) Dolby skins on them. With the DSS200 and DSS220 they, wisely, didn't put money into putting lipstick on a piece of metal when that money could go elsewhere. What people are going to perceive is the "server" part of the server is the software that runs on it. That is why Show Manager looks identical on the ENTIRE DSS line. That is why, until the SR1000, all of the GDC servers, from a user standpoint, look IDENTICAL for operation. The same is true, to a lesser extent for the Doremi up until the IMS1000...where the IMS1000 and IMS2000 (and the web UI of the DCP2000 series) are identical. It is less about what hardware they are running on (which affects performance) than the software that is running on them.

You have a finite amount of money to spend on a project. Do you really want to start, from scratch, on developing server motherboards, custom metalwork, RAID designs (and some have had "fun" with those)...and only down the line or let those people that have already done that heavy lifting and just concentrate on what makes your product unique, the software? How far do you take it? Do you develop your own ICs and mine the copper? The chief advantage of making your own stuff is that you control your destiny. This is witnessed as there are various motherboard revisions throughout the product's life where your OEM made a change. This also affects your ability to supply repair parts. Then again, when you recognize we are a tiny industry (seriously, less than 200,000 units (which is a sample size for many industries would mean 100% domination of the industry with leftovers), making your own stuff, depending on the thing, would require it to be vastly more expensive due to your relatively small, but unique production runs. Conversely, I can source a Supermicro X7 or X8 motherboard for a DSS200 still, despite Dolby dropping support years ago and discontinuing the product now over 5-years ago.

I remember typing some rant in reply to this, then, in Texas, the lights went out... I will try to reconstruct part of what I was saying.

Regarding Dolby sourcing many of those server components right off of the OEM market: Yes, that's quite understandable. Doremi did the same for their products. Yet, especially the "PC OEM" market is a very volatile one. Much more volatile than if you design your own boards and populate them with "off-the-shelf" components. Even if one of those components tends to get EOL, it's often relatively easy to design around it and replace it with a new component, as long as you retain the knowledge of those designs. While we can still use the second-hand market to source components for repairs, if you're Dolby, you can't rely on that. Getting a commitment of 5 years for component-availability from any PC OEM manufacturer will already be a hard one.

The DSP100 certainly was still a "real" Dolby product, probably built with the idea in mind that playback and storage will be two separate components for the foreseeable future, where storage can be done on standard, off-the-shelf hardware, but playback would still be done with dedicated appliances. The DSS interfaces were a superior user-experience, compared to Doremi offerings, you can argue that the hardware design was probably also better (stuff like hardware RAID). They felt more integrated, more streamlined, yet they decided to essentially ditch it all and replace it by Doremi's offering. That's why I simply presume they did so, because much of the knowledge about the DSS-line may be external knowledge. Now, with Doremi under their belt, they had end-to-end product knowledge in-house and it would be safer to bet on them than to bet on the existing line of products.

Regarding DCI in general... I've posted it here before, but either it went up in smoke with the last restore, or I posted it somewhere else. I think we've seen the end-of-the-line for DCI this year. Since the cat is out of the bag, it will be very hard to go back to the old release schedule, where exhibition still gets their exclusive release window. Even if Hollywood decides to go back to that format, newer studios like Netflix and Amazon Studios never conformed to that window and probably never will.

With that in mind, DCI has lost its primary function: Protecting the precious HD(+) content from prematurely leaking onto the Internet. It's not that there will be no-more DCPs in 5 years, but I predict, that in the near-future, we'll be increasingly just streaming content via some Android boxes.

[Steve Guttag]

...

The DSP100 certainly was still a "real" Dolby product, probably built with the idea in mind that playback and storage will be two separate components for the foreseeable future, where storage can be done on standard, off-the-shelf hardware, but playback would still be done with dedicated appliances. The DSS interfaces were a superior user-experience, compared to Doremi offerings, you can argue that the hardware design was probably also better (stuff like hardware RAID). They felt more integrated, more streamlined, yet they decided to essentially ditch it all and replace it by Doremi's offering. That's why I simply presume they did so, because much of the knowledge about the DSS-line may be external knowledge. Now, with Doremi under their belt, they had end-to-end product knowledge in-house and it would be safer to bet on them than to bet on the existing line of products.

Regarding DCI in general... I've posted it here before, but either it went up in smoke with the last restore, or I posted it somewhere else. I think we've seen the end-of-the-line for DCI this year. Since the cat is out of the bag, it will be very hard to go back to the old release schedule, where exhibition still gets their exclusive release window. Even if Hollywood decides to go back to that format, newer studios like Netflix and Amazon Studios never conformed to that window and probably never will.

...

It is definitely your presumption but not based in any fact. As someone that participated, often, in beta development of the DSS line, I can assure you, that the software was homegrown its development was all Dolby until the end (unless you mean the Linux part that they used as an OS). In fact, DSS software remained at a faster development pace up and until the end of 2019, long after the Doremi acquisition, with the 4.9.x.x versions, ending in 4.9.5.2. The DSS line remained a distant 3rd in the world behind Doremi (#1) and GDC (#2). Now, in individual markets, those positions may have been significantly different (Europe was better for Dolby while GDC has done better in the Pacific Rim). Once Dolby had the #1 server, for reasons I didn't and still don't agree with, decided to run with the #1 sever brand rather than continue with what became a "niche" server. Nobody likes to be abandoned and I think Dolby sent people over to GDC from their prior-DSS customers rather than jump to Doremi. I'm sure they thought that they would retain more with the Doremi/Dolby TMS software that would integrate the two platforms. However, Dolby has, essentially, abandoned that too.

I think you'll find that the DSP100 being its own separate box was multifold. Again, Dolby was relatively early to the DCP world and everyone would be doing their own interpretation of what the DCI requirements meant. It also meant that they could deal with the mediablock and its needs completely independently from the life-cycle of the box-server market. the space it took to make a mediablock back with the DSP100 came out would be larger than how it ended up. Dolby's initial security started with security screws on the case itself of the DSP100. Sort of like how Sony started with just a physical key to keep one out of the pedestal/server area. All of the projector companies evolved their security methods from Mark VII (aka S0 projectors) to S1 to S2 and beyond. Barco had their silly Dallas key, which what working its way to retirement on the S2K models. But when all the directive is that one has to be physically present to clear a marriage tamper, everyone seemed to do their own spin on it. Ultimately, there is no difference between someone with a physical key (Dallas) and a button with a key symbol accomplish the same thing. NEC required one to put in a PIN...which eliminated the means of keeping an access structure (plus the software user/password on top of all of that). Christie required a unique user/password plus a button. I believe all three have converged on the special button as the key approach is sufficient.

In the same light...as technology allowed, the mediablock became a card, pretty quickly (Doremi Dolphin, GDC internal mediablock...and, eventually Dolby CAT862). And, then for 4K, the IMB (integrated mediablock), which is where they all are now. They started in different places and depending on when a manufacturer came into the "game" is where their starting point was in mediablock development. Ultimately, as storage has become smaller (and less mechanical) it seems to be moving into the IMB area with Dolby's IMS and even GDC's SR-1000 has a growing cache storage. Streaming storage seems to be something that they all can support, at some level too.

I don't think DCI is going anywhere. The studios still require KDMs on catalog titles that NEVER were released after DCP became the norm yet when a movie like "National Lampoon's Vacation" is issued as a DCP, with a long history of home video release in just about every form, it is still keyed via KDM. The fact that one could buy the Blu-ray, rip it and make one's own DCP of it has not deterred them in the slightest. There is no incentive to give it up as it also ensures that they get paid or the KDM turns off.

Likewise, in terms of presentation, the DCI equipment is the reference equipment for image and sound and what the creatives in the cinema world reference for their presentations. When something heads to the home market, part of the trick is seeing how light and nimble it can be (smaller is better for streaming, don't need all frames, better to compress them away...etc.). With DCI equipment, all frames are rendered/shown, no funny business is done on contrast or colors (well, sort of...laser-phosphor and even RGB lasers have their color issues) and the sound on the movie is what the creatives laid down and not some goofy near-field mix and, again, compressed down like home-ATMOS is (ever look at a Blu-ray ATMOS title on a CP850/IMS3000? You can see that it does not smoothly move objects about like a cinema ATMOS).

I think thing will return to the before-times, for the most part but it will certainly be interested with respect to release windows to see how that all plays out. I still think they will see a shrunken overall market if the the release window is removed and the total market will increase with large windows with the ideal window size coming when you can have both a first run and sub run theatrical market before home release.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

That leaves not many choices for servers now. In germany, GDC has never been sold, same for USL. That means, currently the only choices we have here are IMS3000 and ICMP-X.

I am pretty surprised GDC has never been sold in Germany, but they may have seen it as too small a market to also support it the way they normally do. I have absolutely zero gripes about GDC over 334 units I installed. In fact the customers that still have GDC servers that also have obsolete meda blocks are able to get a generous trade in on the old server(s). Not something that Dolby is apparently doing. But we also have to realize that every piece of gear we have all installed over the years also eventually ends up a door stop.

[Elia Orselli]

Not something that Dolby is apparently doing.

Dolby offers a similar program: installers simply have to indicate the SN of a server that has to be replaced.

[Steve Guttag]

GDC has had to adjust their support for obsolete servers. I can assure you, the blow back I've received for short-lived GDC servers was pretty sharp. I've had 2-3 servers die in what one would consider an unusually short time. The timing was poor on them (where GDC was on their support for either the SX-2001 or SX2000AR) and despite very favorable pricing to an SR-1000 replacement, I was told "anything but" and this is from multiple customers now. Conversely, one of the premature deaths happened when GDC restored SX2000AR support and it was quite the opposite. Despite a bit of a hefty charge for mediablock repair, they were happy, non-the-less and are running GDC to this day.

We'll see how our customers respond to the sudden CAT745 removal from support during a pandemic that would accelerate the need for the support they just pulled. It wouldn't surprise me if I don't get a similar blow-back. People don't like to feel that support seems arbitrary or removed prematurely. Mind you, Dolby may get away a bit easier on this because all of the potentially affected customers have received, AT LEAST 5-years of support after the sale with many approaching 10-years. The ticked off customers mentioned above had their servers on the order of 4-5 years.

Again, Covid-19 will likely way into feelings a bit as I'm sure it will not just be servers that will be consuming bank accounts that are depleted due to C19 and strict operational rules as theatres re-open.

[Carsten Kurz]

I am pretty surprised GDC has never been sold in Germany, but they may have seen it as too small a market to also support it the way they normally do. I have absolutely zero gripes about GDC over 334 units I installed. In fact the customers that still have GDC servers that also have obsolete meda blocks are able to get a generous trade in on the old server(s). Not something that Dolby is apparently doing. But we also have to realize that every piece of gear we have all installed over the years also eventually ends up a door stop.

Germany has a very small number of integrators, and it seems they never wanted to sell GDCs, or GDC never wanted to sell to them. No idea why. The first GDC I ever saw personally in real life was in Ireland. Cine Project once had a GDC server on display during a german trade fair, but, as far as I understood, that was more a prototype or placeholder in the rack. Maybe they would be able to supply a GDC if one would explicitly demand one.
Same for Qube, btw. Some few XP-E have circulated a long time ago.
Essentially, German exhibitors do not even know that GDCs exist. We had XDCs, Dolbys, Doremis, or Sonys. And, of course, the ill-fated Christie IMB-S2/Solaria One. Later, ICMPs.

Now, with only the IMS3000 and ICMP-X left, and maybe after the Covid-19 situation has relaxed somewhat, that could change.