Sony 4K Projector Not Seeing DCPs

[ainsophaur]

This isn't necessarily a DOM issue, but since there are so many knowledgeable people in here, I thought I would mention it.

Last week we plugged our DCP CRU drive into two projectors, a Barco 4K and a Sony 4K (don't ask me the model, I don't have it atm). The Barco read the DCP on the drive fine. The Sony did not.

So, I took the drive back to the office, deleted the DCP on there, I copied two new ones over to it, reset permissions on the directories recursively to read-execute, then took it back to the theater.

Once again, the Barco could see the DCPs. The Sony could not.

We are going mad trying to understand why this is.

One of the projectionists mentioned that the Sony accepts EXT4 formatted drives. Could that be the problem? My drive was EXT3.

Could it be that the Sony only plays SMPTE DCPs? Mine was Interop.

Has anyone ever seen this happen? Thank you in advance for your help.

[Carsten]

It has nothing to do with SMPTE vs. Interop - the Sony plays both.

First, the Sony should always show the parent folder of a DCP - if you have more than one DCP on a drive, they must be in different folders, and as such, can you remember wether the parent folders of (all) your DCPs were visible at all on the Sony?


It would be interesting to know the type of the Barco - Barcos at first are projectors, not servers. However, many Barcos now have built-in servers. It would be good to know what server type it was - it could be Barco (ICMP), Dolby/Doremi (IMS1000,2000,3000), or GDC SX(something).

EXT3 is okay for all cinema servers. https://isdcf.com/papers/ISDCF-Doc3-Delivery-Recs.pdf

Servers are all different in the way they look for and present drive content. The Barco ICMP e.g. will scan all directories on the drive and immediately display just the CPLs it finds in a straight list, you will not see or have to navigate into any folder. The Sony will show the folder structure on the drive and will only show the DCP/CPL after you open that folder, and then only the DCP/CPL within that folder.

Currently I have no idea what caused this issue. I work with a Sony and Barco daily.
Did the Sony you used have a small touch screen, more like a smartphone or small tablet, or was it a real 15" color monitor mounted on top of the projector? Serverwise, Sony has only two types in the market currently, the older R320 with a small touchscreen, or the current R51x/81x with the separate S10 server and a large color touch screen.

What I did see is that a Sony will not see content in a folder if the foldername has special chars in it - I recently had a DCP in a networked folder that had an Umlaut 'ü' in it's folder name. The Sony would display that folder name correctly, and it looked as if we could open the folder and look into it, but there was no content shown in that folder. After I changed the 'ü' in the parent folder to 'ue', all content in that folder was shown.

In general, NTFS is safe for DCP ingest. Usually easier to accomplish at least when coming from a Windows or Mac machine.

- Carsten

[ainsophaur]

Both DCPs are in separate folders at the root level.

There are no special characters in the filenames of the folder except for dashes and underscores.

The Sony has a large 15" screen on it, but it looked like it was part of the projector as memory serves. I'm working on figuring out the models.

I'm at a loss. I'm talking with another DCP vendor today to see their thoughts. They make a lot of DCPs for this theater, so I want to see what their secret it.

[Carsten]

I have made hundreds of DCPs for our Sony (515), and ingested probably a thousand commercially mastered DCPs (features and trailers) into it both from ext2/ext3 discs through SATA or USB, and via networks. There is no secret. Out of all these ingests during the last 6 years, maybe two or three failed because of obvious disc related issues (no spin-up). I never had it that content on these discs wouldn't show up when it should have to, except for that last case with the german umlaut in the folder name.

I admit, I rarely use EXT2 for my own local transfers, as NTFS or network is easier for me. I regularly format ext2/ext3 discs and copy content over to them, though, never had issues with the Sony either. But I rarely do this from native Linux. I format using GPARTED, and then use either the export function of the server (native Linux), or use a windows based ext2/ext3 driver.

There must be something wrong with the format or copy process. Have a fresh go with a USB stick or a small portable USB drive.

You're doing everything in Linux, right? How large is that drive? Partition scheme?

If that Sony projector has the larger 15" color touchscreen mounted to it, then it's connected to an S10 server that I'm used to work with.

How do you use that CRU drive - in a PC, with a SATA or eSATA connection, or in a USB enclosure? Did both the Sony and the 'Barco' have proper CRU slots? The older Sony 220/320 do not feature CRU slots, just USB ports. The later/current S10 server features a real CRU slot plus dual USB 3.0 ports. Integrated servers in DLP projectors never feature real CRU slots due to the lack of space. You need a USB-CRU enclosure (a so called MoveDock) to connect the drive via an internal USB-SATA Bridge. Some few servers spot eSATA connections that may be used to connect to a MoveDock as well. The traditonal MoveDock offers USB as well as SATA connections.

- Carsten

[ainsophaur]

I'm taking the DCP to Deluxe today. They are going to debug/test the CPL to see if there is anything in the package that could result in it not showing up on a Sony projector.

I did not format this particular drive. But I do know that it was done using Ubuntu and GPARTED, inode size 128. The drive is 500GB.

How do you use that CRU drive - in a PC, with a SATA or eSATA connection, or in a USB enclosure?

I removed the HD from the CRU enclosure and put it into a thunderbolt 2-connected "toaster."

Did both the Sony and the 'Barco' have proper CRU slots?

The Barco had a proper CRU slot. The Sonys had a USB adapter hooked up to it that you could slide the CRU enclosure into.

I'll let you know what Deluxe says. I'm hoping this is as simple as fixing something in the cpl or pkl files.

[Carsten]

That's weird - the Sony S10/515 - the one with the large touch screen, does always have a real internal SATA connected CRU slot.

Maybe you saw a large screen with the R320 GUI, but it was actually the 'old' LMT 300. That one never has internal CRU slots and needs USB-connected MoveDocks.

Switching discs between native SATA and USB bridges etc. may cause issues. However, that shouldn't happen for 500GB drives.

- Carsten

[IoannisSyrogiannis]

Since I happened to read this, two things to note:
Yes, the small touch-screens for 320 series are not any more supported by sony and their replacements are the touch-screens that are used on newer models.
The CRU slots for S10 are actually optional. I never installed or came upon such a working server without one, but in all the 51X systems I installed, I had to add the DX115DC frames. I am trying to remember as I write this lines if the fact is mentioned on some manual or brochure, because I think it is, but either way, a fact it is.

P.S.
I wonder how the whole issue was resolved.
It's one of these posts that you never get to know.

[Carsten]

Yes, the CRU slots always come separate. I just replaced an S10 server at a local site, and the replacement came without a CRU - I was meant to uninstall the CRU from the malfunctioning server and install it into the replacement server. However - the CRU slot is standard for the S10, and not for the 220/320, LMT200/300 servers. Why they never come preinstalled, I have no idea. Maybe Sony wanted to be prepared for alternative media at some point. It is equally difficult to understand why the 220/320/LMT200/300 never received a direct CRU option.

Other than that, these Sonys operate flawlessly since the very beginning. Left aside the need for regular thorough cleaning of the optical system to maintain it's image quality.

- Carsten