Dolby cat745 IMB recertification service ended, effective immediately

[Mike Renlund]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to post here and try to help with a little information. Dolby always tries to provide ample notification about Withdraw From Sale, End of Support, and any other status change that affects our product line and how our customers and dealers use them. I know this announcement has come as a shock.

We've tried as hard as possible to maintain our operations during coronavirus times when we have limited or no access to our manufacturing facilities and labs. Circumstances have resulted in us no longer being able to support the battery rework and re-serialization of CAT745s. This isn't a security issue, but our manufacturing abilities are affected for this product and we've no choice but to stop the program and focus our energies elsewhere.

Our support team is available to help plan or answer questions for replacing a CAT745 with an IMS or other equipment.

Dolby maintains a document that provides a view of where our products are in their lifecycle. We update it as things change, as early as possible, so that our customers and dealers are well informed. It is hosted in our customer portal, and I'm providing a link to it here: https://dolby.box.com/v/Dolby-Product-Lifecycle-Cinema and hope that it helps.

Mike Renlund
Dolby Laboratories

[Carsten Kurz]

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.

[Emmanuel Nwokafor]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to post here and try to help with a little information. Dolby always tries to provide ample notification about Withdraw From Sale, End of Support, and any other status change that affects our product line and how our customers and dealers use them. I know this announcement has come as a shock.

We've tried as hard as possible to maintain our operations during coronavirus times when we have limited or no access to our manufacturing facilities and labs. Circumstances have resulted in us no longer being able to support the battery rework and re-serialization of CAT745s. This isn't a security issue, but our manufacturing abilities are affected for this product and we've no choice but to stop the program and focus our energies elsewhere.

Our support team is available to help plan or answer questions for replacing a CAT745 with an IMS or other equipment.

Dolby maintains a document that provides a view of where our products are in their lifecycle. We update it as things change, as early as possible, so that our customers and dealers are well informed. It is hosted in our customer portal, and I'm providing a link to it here: https://dolby.box.com/v/Dolby-Product-Lifecycle-Cinema and hope that it helps.

Mike Renlund
Dolby Laboratories

We had about two drained CAT745 just last week, I want to be sure that our client can trade-in or they should buy a new IMS3000 ?

[Leo Enticknap]

Contact your Dolby dealer. According to this, there isn't one in Nigeria: the geographically closest is in Giza, Egypt.

[Carsten Kurz]

Maybe we should also start a thread about live-replacing the cert battery on the CAT745...

[Steve Guttag]

Live replacing? FWIW...I've been trying to get as much information as I can about strategies for changing the battery on the CAT745. I've reached out to not only Dolby but people I believe to have had their hand in or have some knowledge of the CAT745's design before it was even a Dolby product. Thus far, nobody has been encouraging about powering the board as a means to aid in keeping the certificate safe during battery swaps. The best advice I've received, thus far, is to ensure that the temporary battery (CR-2032) is carefully and well inserted. I suggest measuring the battery voltage before putting in the CR-2032 and see if that level comes up to the CR-2032's voltage (3V) and to wait, at least 30-seconds so that level stabilizes before messing with the main battery.

I'm also thinking about using some DeoxIT on the batteries since I heard something about possible corrosion on the elder battery holders. For sure, these will be very nervous battery changes with dire consequences for failures.

Note, the battery changing procedure should be the same (minus removing the "server" portion) as the battery changing procedure for the CMS2200 (originally issued by USL and then distributed by QSC before discontinuation). At the time of this posting, QSC still has the original USL video demonstrating the procedure posted on the YouTube web site.

https://youtu.be/mxY0STmA6yU

[Carsten Kurz]

Are there safe ways to measure wether the temporary cell voltage is going where it should before you take out the primary cell?

[Steve Guttag]

I'd measure the battery, before inserting to verify it is at 3.0V...I'd measure the battery terminals of the PCB (they are visible on the bottom), again, before inserting to ensure that the voltage has dipped below 3.0V. Thus, if putting in the temp battery brings it back up to 3.0V, you should be good. Again, it has been recommended to let the board stabilize on the temp battery before messing with the main one (at least 30-seconds).

[Magnus Eriksson]

Wasn´t this IMB/IMS contraption (Dolby Cat745/USL CMS-2200/QSC CMS-5000) developed by a german company called MikroM GmbH based in Berlin?
http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f16/t001092.html

[Carsten Kurz]

The media block (core) of many DCI media blocks comes from MikroM, yes, but not the full design. Dolby 'bought' the CAT 745 from USL.

At the time of product release, Dolby probably preferred not to have it's competitor USL being mentioned with it.

- Carsten

[Steve Guttag]

I don't believe so. I believe it was a competitor IMB to the USL one. I believe Dolby was doing some soul-searching about its participation in the cinema industry around the time of the IMB coming into prominence. Dolby then proclaimed that it didn't want to be in the IMB business but instead wanted to join into an open-standard system where there would be server manufacturers and mediablock manufacturers such that customers could mix-n-match. In theory, at the time, one could choose the USL IMB or the Mikrom IMB. In fact, at the CinemaCon closest to this time, it was the Mikrom IMB that they had in their dealer meeting on display as an example. I distinctly remember asking "so, when there is a problem, who is going to be pointing a finger at whom for who is responsible for the problem?" Because I could guarantee you that no matter who you asked, it would be the other guy's fault. Politically, Dolby would have a problem using USL's IMB since, historically, Dolby and USL have been arch rivals in the audio industry for their cinema sound products.

The problem was, developing an IMB (mediablock) is no easy task which requires millions of dollars plus a large amount of time as commitments. Yet, 4K resolution was upon us for the top-tier systems. If Dolby didn't have a 4K solution, they would be out of the top installations for the first time in their cinema lives. USL's mediablock was, essentially, ready (and I think Mikrom still had work to do). So, the deal was done (or, at least, that is my interpretation of the events). I may have the other company's name slightly off (it may not have been Mikrom as I recall they are a computer company). In very short order, Dolby had a 4K solution and it worked with Show Manager, practically overnight.

To everyone's credit, the DSS/CAT745 system fit into the the Show Manager scheme like a glove. One got the Dolby look and feel and the reliability of the CAT745 was relatively high. Seriously, other than these batteries, we have not had any rampant issues with the CAT745 (certainly far less problems than with any other company's IMBs of that error, except maybe Doremi though we don't have any of those in the field, ourselves). Dolby did take over the manufacture of the CAT745 for itself so USL ceased being an OEM shortly into the product's life.

Oddly, USL was never able to get a successful product launch, themselves, for their server based off of their own IMB (essentially the CAT745). The CMS2200 never seemed to get out of the Beta stage (and it uses the same battery scheme for the certificate retention) so perhaps making a reliable SMS server isn't as easy as Dolby, and a few others made it seem. Christie certainly learned that IMBs can be tricky. QSC bought out USL and had the CMS2200 on the price sheets but I don't know of anyone that really bought into it so again, it really didn't get out of what anyone would term a Beta product. QSC has thrown money at the server/IMB rabbit hole and developed the never successful CMS2200 into the CMS5000 but, this time, with native Q-SYS (AES67) audio ports. Again, the product never seemed like it could get out of the Beta stage. There is potential in it. The UI is "Show Manager" like but in a web-ui form. Not identical but clearly it got some of its look-and-feel cues from Show Manager. And, being Q-SYS native, it has the potential to eliminate the cost of a cinema processor (or a DCIO for Q-SYS) since you could plug it into the Q-SYS eco system with just one or two Ethernet cables. And, with the new Nano-COREs (including the 8-Flex), the cost of cinema audio starts to primarily be just amplifiers (the Nano CORE is lower cost than even a JSD60 and the 8-Flex is on par with the JSD60). So there is potential there but QSC has pulled the CMS5000, for now, at least. With what just happened in 2020 and speculation on the entire industry, who is to say what the future will be for such a product? It should be noted that the CMS5000 was a significantly updated IMB section too and that various USL people, including Jack had their hand in it. I suspect a problem they will have in getting it deployed is that most cinema chains have their preferred server solution already picked. Why switch?

Meanwhile, Dolby, in 2014 or so, acquired Doremi, the #1 installed based 3rd party (not affiliated with a projector brand) server company. And, for reasons I'll never understand or agree with, in 2015, decided to, instead of merging both product brands into a single product, discontinued the DSS line of servers in 2015, including the CAT745.

So, that is the CAT745 story, as I recall it, from an outsider's point of view. I may have a name or two incorrect in there.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I believe Dolby was doing some soul-searching about its participation in the cinema industry around the time of the IMB coming into prominence.

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".

[Marcel Birgelen]

Meanwhile, Dolby, in 2014 or so, acquired Doremi, the #1 installed based 3rd party (not affiliated with a projector brand) server company. And, for reasons I'll never understand or agree with, in 2015, decided to, instead of merging both product brands into a single product, discontinued the DSS line of servers in 2015, including the CAT745.

My speculation is that the DSS line of producs were developed more as one-off projects, most likely with external parties involved. Especially the DSS200 and DSS220 never felt like native Dolby developments. They used off-the-shelf PC hardware with a thin Dolby veneer tacked on them. Doremi got into this gig more or less by accident, by having Disney as one of their customers. They were an obscure niche company, previously primarily known in the broadcast, post-production and theme-park industry for their hardware playback solutions.

With Doremi Labs, Dolby would be guaranteed to have the actual knowledge of their products in-house, which would also be paramount for the future development of their IMB products.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

My speculation is that the DSS line of producs were developed more as one-off projects, most likely with external parties involved. Especially the DSS200 and DSS220 never felt like native Dolby developments. They used off-the-shelf PC hardware with a thin Dolby veneer tacked on them. Doremi got into this gig more or less by accident, by having Disney as one of their customers. They were an obscure niche company, previously primarily known in the broadcast, post-production and theme-park industry for their hardware playback solutions.

With Doremi Labs, Dolby would be guaranteed to have the actual knowledge of their products in-house, which would also be paramount for the future development of their IMB products.

Who's servers did not use off the shelf PC Products? There is nothing wrong with doing that because designing motherboards is an art in itself that few are capable of. Not until IMB servers were those things designed by the respective manufacturers. And it seems to me a couple of early IMB servers out there use off the shelf miniature PC type mother boards. DTS always did this too. Even later rebuilt DTS units have a miniature DOS capable motherboard inside that mounts via an adapter board into the original system.

[Leo Enticknap]

The CMS2200 never seemed to get out of the Beta stage (and it uses the same battery scheme for the certificate retention) so perhaps making a reliable SMS server isn't as easy as Dolby, and a few others made it seem.

I only ever encountered one, and that was to pull it and replace it with an IMS2000. It was in a high end residence theater, and it would reject KDMs (that were double and triple checked as being for the correct IMB serial, with a new cert issued by USL passed to Deluxe) for no apparent reason. All the usual troubleshooting steps - pull, reseat, remarry; reflash firmware; you name it - would not clear the fault. I found it interesting that the CMS2200 came with SSDs on the RAID board as standard. At that time (2017) 1TB SSDs must have cost an arm and a leg - far more than would have been justified by their performance or longevity advantage.

Agreed with Steve that the only rational reason I can think of for QSC pulling their IMS is the lack of a market for it. Maybe they weren't able to get a launch customer who would go for several hundred, and therefore the cost of maintaining it in production and supporting the software and firmware was likely to exceed the benefit of other Q-Sys hardware sales its availability would have encouraged. And now that third party Q-Sys plugins for Dolby and GDC servers are starting to appear, easy integration with Q-Sys is no longer its killer app.