Cinema Sample Walkthrough Part 1
Video Transcript
00:07
You have arrived! Welcome to the Cinema Sample Design walkthrough!
00:11
In this video, we’re going to take a nice slow sightseeing trip through the Cinema Sample Design file.
00:16
You can download this file below, or you could also get it in the Q-SYS Asset Manager.
00:21
Just go to Tools > Show Q-SYS Asset Manager, and search for Cinema.
00:28
Once you Install this design to your computer,
00:30
you can find it by going to File > Open Sample Design, and then select the Cinema sample.
00:38
This file may get renovated slightly from time to time,
00:40
so if the version you see looks slightly different than the one we show you, don’t worry.
00:46
And seriously – pause this video and download it right now!
00:50
You should have it open on your desktop while you’re going through this walkthrough!
00:54
Yeah!
00:54
That way, you can pause the video as often as you like
00:57
and poke at the design yourself rather than just watch us.
01:01
At first glance, this schematic may look pretty complicated,
01:04
especially compared to everything else you’ve learned so far in your Q-SYS training.
01:07
But I promise it’s not as scary as it looks,
01:10
once we give you a little tour of what’s happening.
01:12
However, this is going to take a little bit longer than our normal 5-minute videos,
01:16
so we’re going to throw in as many groan-worthy movie jokes as possible because... I said so!
01:23
So hopefully you’re ready and just like us, you feel the need.
01:28
The need … for sp-ending a reasonable amount of time
01:32
methodically exploring all areas of this inportant topic at a comfortable pace.
01:36
The first thing to notice is that this design is built for a single auditorium—one screen.
01:41
In fact, let’s edit this text field to indicate that this is Screen #1.
01:47
If you have multiple auditoriums in your venue as most theaters do,
01:51
then you could copy and paste this entire design to a new Schematic page.
01:55
You’d have to add new hardware devices of course,
01:58
but it’s a a good place to start the design of another auditorium.
02:02
Lookie there, Twins! …. Get Out!
02:06
But for now, we’re just going to focus on one auditorium, so we’ll delete this one.
02:12
Alright, let’s get going! We’re gonna dim the lights to get this show on the road, starting with … Inputs.
02:21
You might have already realized the majority of the inputs are entering Q-SYS via the DCIO peripheral.
02:27
As we mentioned earlier in this training,
02:29
the DCIO is an input/output device intended specifically for digital cinema applications.
02:35
You would typically have one of these per auditorium, located in the projection booth.
02:40
Let’s open up the DCIO’s control panel.
02:42
This peripheral can receive 16 audio channels,
02:46
which will typically arrive as AES3 audio from the media server.
02:50
While this is the standard method of receiving audio from the playback server,
02:54
the DCIO also has an HDMI input for alternative content.
02:58
On a running design or in Emulation Mode, like I am now,
03:02
you can engage HDMI input by selecting the “HDMI Enable” button,
03:07
and AES channels 9-16 will toggle to the 8 input channels of your local HDMI source.
03:14
AES channels 1-8 - they're still active, but if you need AES channels 9-16 again,
03:19
you’ll have to re-enable AES—which of course will disable your HDMI content.
03:24
So what are these 16 AES channels?
03:28
A standard digital cinema package (or DCP)
03:31
will always deliver the same type of content on each channel via AES/EBU,
03:36
based on the channel mapping of the upstream media block.
03:40
This chart shows the default channel assignment on the DCP according to SMPTE specifications,
03:46
but it’s not uncommon for people to reorder the channel mapping on the media server.
03:51
That would obviously rearrange these channels in Q-SYS too,
03:54
but don't worry, the software is plenty flexible enough for you to manage that.
03:58
By default, Channels 1-3 are the left, right, and center channels.
04:03
Channel 4 is the LFE—or Low Frequency Effects—channel, which is for your subwoofers.
04:09
Channels 5 and 6 are your left and right side surround channels.
04:13
Channels 7 and 8 are your assistive listening channels:
04:17
7 contains a mix for hearing impaired listening devices,
04:20
and 8 contains a narrative track for visually impaired audience members.
04:25
Tracks 9 and 10 are reserved for SDDS which is typically not used any more,
04:30
but may contain Left Center and Right Center screen channels in a five-channel screen system.
04:36
Tracks 11 and 12 are important to us, as they contain the left and right rear surround audio.
04:42
The rest of the tracks are used for motion seat data, Immersive Sound sync data, and sign-language video,
04:48
which we won’t really get into in this tutorial.
04:51
Mostly we just care about the 8 channels used in a 7.1 mix and the assistive listening channels.
04:57
So just like later sequels in a horror movie franchise,
05:01
you may be wondering why these these channels exist at all if nobody is ever going to want them.
05:04
But don’t forget that when we use the HDMI input,
05:07
you’ll need all 8 of these channels, which is why they’re wired in your design.
05:11
And again, it’s not uncommon for someone to remap their assistive listening channels to AES 15 and 16,
05:17
for instance,
05:18
which is why we provided these broken signal tags here so you can easily reroute them in Q-SYS too.
05:24
The DCIO also has some analog inputs – an XLR input for a local microphone with phantom power,
05:31
and a stereo line input for other content,
05:34
both of which might often be used for special events held in an auditorium,
05:38
like a high school presentation on history.
05:40
Excellent!
05:43
These local inputs arrive in Q-SYS via this “Analog In” block.
05:47
The stereo input actually gets delivered to a custom cinema component
05:51
called the “Active Matrix Surround Decoder”
05:53
which will “up-mix” a simple stereo signal into left, right, center, and surround channels,
05:59
so that your pre-show content (which is typically only stereo) can make use of all your cinema speakers.
06:05
We’ve also included a two-track Audio Player
06:08
which might be used for pre-show background music or announcements
06:11
This Audio Player is labeled NS, or “Non-Sync”,
06:15
meaning that this audio does not need to be in sync with the picture.
06:18
And finally there’s a Cinema Pink Noise Generator and Loudspeaker Monitor for testing purposes.
06:24
This may seem like an awful lot of input channels,
06:27
considering that this auditorium only has the typical eight output channels.
06:31
So when we look at these inputs,
06:33
let’s look at them with the caveat of realizing that they all get funneled through an Audio Router.
06:41
The Router will distribute each input to the appropriate output channel,
06:44
based on which format you need for your current content.
06:47
You can see these outputs are labeled left, right, and center for the fronts,
06:51
then Low Frequency Effects, Left Side Surround, Right Side Surround, Left Rear Surround,
06:57
and Right Rear Surround.
06:59
If you open up the Router,
07:01
you’ll see there are hundreds of buttons inside that manage the routing of the available inputs to the outputs.
07:06
Don’t worry, you don’t need to change these manually.
07:09
Let’s scroll down a bit and look at this Manual Control section.
07:13
This is a panel with the most common controls you’ll need to engage in this auditorium.
07:17
On the left there are eight Snapshot Load buttons which will route your inputs in different ways.
07:23
Let’s enter Emulation Mode to see these at work.
07:26
You’ll see that the first preset, “FEATURE 7.1”,
07:29
routes the first 6 AES channels to the Left, Right, Center, Sub, and Side channels, and also routes AES 11 and 12,
07:38
which are our rear surrounds, to output channels 7 and 8.
07:42
In “FEATURE 5.1” mode,
07:44
the only difference is that we duplicate the side surround channels for the rear channels,
07:49
since 5.1 doesn’t have dedicated Rear surround channels.
07:52
This is sometimes called “split” surround.
07:55
This same routing is applied to “TRAILER 5.1” mode,
07:59
but we’ve also dropped the master fader by 6 decibels to compensate for every overzealous trailer editor
08:06
out there who thinks their trailer needs to be the loudest thing that’s ever been heard.
08:10
In a world full of Events, someone has to handle them...
08:14
In “PRESHOW” mode we take those PreShow channels we mentioned from our analog stereo input
08:20
and send the left, center, and right channels appropriately,
08:22
and send the sides to all four of our surround channels, while muting our subwoofer.
08:29
“NON-SYNC” mutes everything except the left and right so we can play content from the Audio Player,
08:35
and “MIC” routes our microphone to every channel except for your sub, which we mute.
08:41
Finally, “HDMI 7.1” routes the 8 HDMI channels to their respective outputs,
08:48
and you’ll notice that this also engages the DCIO’s “HDMI Enable” button.
08:52
And of course, “HDMI 5.1” will duplicate the side surround channels into the rear channels,
08:58
just like our FEATURE presets did.
09:00
If we return to FEATURE 7.1, our DCIO returns to channels 9-16 to AES mode,
09:07
and we’re ready for our 7.1 digital cinema package.
09:10
After we’ve routed our inputs into the 8 channels we actually want,
09:14
we have a couple more things at play here in the design.
09:17
First, all 8 channels go through a Master Fader.
09:21
When I left you, I was but the learner, now I am the Master.
09:27
Only a master of level, Fader.
09:32
Don’t worry, Master Fader is just a standard gain block to make global volume adjustments.
09:39
You might recall that the the grey dots on these gain and mute buttons
09:43
mean they’ve been added to the Named Controls Bin for external control,
09:46
and we’ve also placed them in our Manual Control panel below.
09:50
After the Master Fader we have a Master Delay if you need to impose any audio delay,
09:55
and then a couple other options.
09:57
The Left, Right, and Center channels get sent through a Bypass Mixer.
10:02
This Bypass Mixer has no effect on the channels – you’ll notice that input 1 goes to output 1,
10:07
input 2 goes to output 2, and input 3 goes to output 3, with no gain changes.
10:12
But since these three tracks are the most critical,
10:15
we’ve built some snapshots that will remix them in different ways
10:19
in the event that a loudspeaker or an amplifier goes down.
10:22
So, if there’s a failure on that center output channel, which typically carries the dialogue for the film,
10:28
we can mix that center channel out to the left and right speakers instead.
10:32
Or if one of the left or right output channels goes down,
10:36
you can use this third snapshot to quickly mix all the channels together,
10:41
letting the show keep going while your technician can work on getting that hardware back up and running.
10:46
The last portions in this Processing section are down below. First, our Assistive Audio mixes.
10:52
We’re taking the Left, Right, and Center channels of whatever format we’ve selected
10:56
and combining them into a single channel that is slightly weighted favoring the center channel—
11:01
which again, usually has the movie’s dialogue.
11:04
This is delivered to our HI, or Hearing Impaired outputs, for viewers who are using an assistive listening device.
11:11
This router allows you to choose between using this track or the HI channel that comes from the DCP.
11:18
Keep in mind that alternative content and trailers often won’t have an embedded Hearing Impaired track,
11:24
which is why we’re providing the LCR mix as an option instead.
11:28
We are also delivering the AES8 signal,
11:31
which contains the Visually Impaired narration track, to our VI output.
11:36
Finally, we have some internal meters we can view for any of our channels,
11:40
and then one more Router that can deliver any of our eight output channels
11:44
to a local Monitor in the projection booth.
11:46
You’ll notice that the Hearing-Impaired, Visually-Impaired, and Monitor Outputs
11:51
are all analog outputs on the back of the DCIO,
11:55
which can be wired to your local assistive systems or a loudspeaker.
11:58
The monitor out is a 10 W powered channel, so you can use a passive loudspeaker like an AD-S32T or AD-S4t.
12:06
And we’ve taken the gain and mute buttons for this channel and placed it in the Manual Control section as well.
12:13
The last thing to note is that you can also choose to route the “Loudspeaker Monitor”
12:17
to your … monitor loudspeaker,
12:20
which might sound a little like word salad.
12:22
But you may remember from earlier training that every loudspeaker in the design has a “Listen” button
12:28
that will send that loudspeaker’s signal to the “Loudspeaker Monitor” component.
12:32
We’ve compiled all the “Listen” buttons in this design into this container here,
12:37
letting you quickly select an actual loudspeaker channel to route to your local monitor.
12:42
This is different than listening to the source,
12:44
because it also contains all the equalization, tuning, and loudspeaker filtering that occurs later in the signal path–
12:50
so this is a better indicator of what the audio actually sounds like in the auditorium.
12:56
Okay, so by now you should be comfortable with all the inputs,
12:59
the processing and most of the Manual Controls that come with this design.
13:04
But we’re only halfway through!
13:05
So let’s take a quick break, and then we’ll come back to look at the rest of the design.