Dolby DR-37P Standard Operating Procedures

This document describes Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that should be followed for the Brightside/Dolby DR-37P HDR display, located at the time of the first version of this document in ICICS X521, but later moved to ICICS X710, where it now resides. It should be updated as new information becomes available.

At no time should anyone other than the keepers of the display do anything with the display without the authorization of one of the keepers.

Anyone who has questions or concerns about this display should contact one of these keepers in the following order:

• Allan Rempel: ICICS X709, agr@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca, 778-999-3526
• Matt Trentacoste: ICICS X709, mmt@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca
• Wolfgang Heidrich: ICICS X639, heidrich@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca

How to give a demo

Use the following steps to power up and log in:

• 1. Power on the HDR display. The switch is on the right side of the unit near the power cord. Reach around behind the right side of the wooden box (used for sound dampening) for the rocker switch right above the power cord.
• 2. Log in to the computer. Ignore the "Illegal System DLL Relocation" popup error message by clicking OK. Ignore the "Monitor Selector" popup message by clicking Cancel.
• 2a. If the HDR display does not show anything during login, it's likely that the computer was recently rebooted without the display on, leaving it unrecognized. In that case, reboot the computer with the HDR display running and return to step 2.
• 3. Run DR-37P GUI V48.5.exe (a green icon on your desktop). Click OK when the software wants to connect to display 1106.
• 4. In the HDR Control Panel, click on 8-Bit+ Mode under Video Input.

Note that the DR-37P HDR display must be set to Primary for the HDR Viewer program to display on it. To check that, right-click on the desktop and go to Properties. Click the Settings tab. Right-click on the wider of the two monitor icons; its resolution should be 1920x1080. Click on "Primary". Click "Apply" or "OK".

If there are not 2 monitor icons in the Settings tab, then the HDR display was likely not powered on (and not recognized) when the computer was last rebooted. In that case, power on the HDR display and reboot the computer.

Note also that it is necessary for the HDR to be Primary when running the Brightside functions in psychtoolbox.

Running the demo:

• 1. Double-click on the dolby_ubc_celebration1.jag icon on the desktop; it looks just like the HDR Control Panel icon. This will start HDR Viewer on the set of images and videos that were put together for the Dolby Chair celebration.
• 2. Click Start Show to run the sequence of images and videos, or select an item first to run the sequence starting at that point. Stills are held for 5 seconds. Press N to move to the next item, or B to return to the previous item. Click Backlight (in the lower right corner) to toggle showing just the LED backlight. Move the mouse out of the control panel area (at the bottom) to make it go away, and move the mouse against the bottom edge to bring it back.
• 3. Press ESC to quit playback and return to the HDR Viewer Screen. Click Exit in the top right corner to exit the program.

Note that sometimes the HDR Viewer program gets stuck during playback. If that happens, press ESC to quit playback and then try to play again, or Exit the HDR Viewer program completely and restart it.

Powering down:

• 1. Close all programs and log out.
• 2. Switch off the HDR display.

Power up procedure

The display has shown a risk of overheating that could lead to automatic shutdown. According to David Tan, who was at Dolby until the end of 2007, this might be due to partial separation of the heat sink, which is apparently not uncommon in these prototype DR-37P units. These SOPs are designed to mitigate that risk.

Ensure that there is enough FC-77 (Fluorinert) liquid coolant in the reservoir of the display. Allan thinks enough means more than half full. You want enough so that (1) the hose connected to the bottom of the reservoir (which sucks coolant from the reservoir) is sucking coolant and not air, and so that (2) you can visibly see coolant circulating through the hoses when the coolant pump is running. More coolant can be added through the tube with the red plug near the top of the display. If you are out of coolant, you can get more at Dolby.

When powering on the display, do not wait long before logging in and running "DR-37P GUI V48.5.exe" (or some other version if you can't find this one). This control program allows you to monitor the temperatures in the display as well as control it. When you run it it should ask if you want to connect to display 1106 and you click OK. If it can't find the display, you will need to log out and back in.

Use the following steps to log in:

• 1. Power on the HDR display.
• 2. Log in to the computer.
• 3. Run DR-37P GUI V48.5.exe.
• 4. Click on 8-Bit+ Mode.

The default mode for the display upon power-on is a full-brightness mode, which can cause significant heat. For most uses, check the 8-Bit+ Mode box in the HDR Control Panel. This enters a lower-brightness mode which substantially reduces the risk of overheating. This mode is still suitable for full-brightness use of the display by HDR Viewer.

Magnetic liquid cooling pump

When cold, the temperatures should be in the mid-20s. Even in 8-bit+ mode, the temperature may climb into the 30s when not using HDR Viewer, or higher when using HDR Viewer. If the temperatures get still higher, the cooling pump might be stalled.

The cooling pump is often stalled when the display is powered on.

If you suspect that the cooling pump might be stalled, it can be restarted with the following procedure.

• 1. Check the "Manual Override" box on the HDR Control Panel.
• 2. Double-click on the "Pump %" box and set it to 0.
• 3. Double-click on it again and set it to 50.

This should restart the pump, and you should fairly quickly observe a decrease in temperatures. You will also likely hear an additional spinning sound as the pump spools up.

The pump is magnetically actuated but sometimes the magnetic field breaks down, or the pump doesn't even start when the display is powered on. Setting the pump to 0 and back to 50 restarts the magnetic field and gets the pump going again.

When the temperatures hit the 60s or 70s, exercise caution and keep an eye on them. When they hit the 80s, you should take steps to reduce the temperatures by either restarting or increasing the speed of the pump, setting the 8-bit+ mode, ensuring there is coolant in the reservoir, or terminating the display of bright images. If 8-bit+ mode is on and the pump is running, then terminating the display of bright images should cause a dramatic decrease in temperature. The last option of course is to power down the display.

There is probably a hard cutoff somewhere that shuts off the LEDs when the temperatures get too high. Wolfgang and Allan experienced this around Dec/06 - Jan/07 while looking at sequences of bright images for the SIGGRAPH paper. Allan doesn't recall seeing the temperatures get into the 90s, so the cutoffs are probably somewhere around 90. This happened prior to our understanding of the overheating problem, so it's likely that following these SOPs will help prevent such a situation from happening again.

Power down procedure

If you power down the display, do not simply power it back up and leave it. You will need to exit and restart the HDR Control Panel ("DR-37P GUI V48.5.exe") so that you can monitor and control the temperatures. You may also need to plug out and back in the USB cable connecting it to the computer, to reestablish that connection.

Use the following steps to log out:

• 1. Terminate all programs on the computer, including HDR Control Panel
• 2. Log out of the computer.
• 3. Power down the HDR display.

Powering down while remaining logged in

If the overheating risk mitigation policies in this document are followed, it should be safe to leave the display on unattended for extended periods of time such as a day or more. This can be useful if you're in the middle of a large task such that it is inconvenient to log out. However, if you wish to turn off the display but not log out, and come back later and continue to use the display, use the following procedure.

• 1. Terminate the HDR Control Panel program.
• 2. Power down the HDR display.
• (...time passes while you're out doing stuff...)
• 3. When you get back, power on the HDR display.
• 4. Restart the DR37-P GUI V48.5.exe program.
• 5. Click on 8-Bit+ mode.

Remote development with Dolby

Users of the display who also have active accounts at Dolby can access the Dolby SVN server (elmo.dolby.net) and do code development with the following process.

Prior to the move of Dolby Canada from 1310 Kootenay to 2985 Virtual Way, elmo was accessible as brightsidetech.dyndns.org which was easily accessible under a variety of platforms (PC, Mac, Linux) from a variety of locations. But since the move, access has been much more restricted. elmo is now elmo.dolby.net and is only visible when a VPN session with Dolby is started, which is now only possible on the PC platform. To start it, set Internet Explorer to vpn.dolby.net and log in with your dolby username and password. Now you can find elmo.dolby.net. It is not necessary to click the Start button for Network Connect in the Client Application Sessions section of the Instant Virtual Extranet page that comes up, and in fact if you do click it you will lose internet connectivity to anywhere outside of Dolby (e.g. you will lose all UBC access).

Prior to late Dec/07, it was possible to use Firefox to access vpn.dolby.net. At that time, after logging in, you would need to click "Allow" in a popup window that would come up in order to have access to elmo. But as of the beginning of Dec/07 it seems now that only IE will run Dolby's VPN.

When you are finished, click the Sign Out button on the top right of the Instant Virtual Extranet page to log out of the Dolby VPN. Also, the Dolby VPN will time out after a while (at least several hours, but less than 24 hours).

When the Dolby VPN is running, you can access the SVN repository by creating your local directory (e.g. thirdparty, code, brightview) and right-clicking on it to SVN Checkout... From there you can specify the URL of the repository as follows:

svn+ssh://username@elmo.dolby.net/srv/svn/repository

where username is your username on elmo (which might be different than your Dolby username) and repository is the name of the repository you want (e.g. thirdparty, code, brightview). E.g. regarding usernames, my elmo username is "allan" while my Dolby username is "aremp". This might only apply to employees with elmo accounts before Dolby bought Brightside, if all new employees are automatically given accounts on elmo that match their Dolby usernames.

It is also possible to map Dolby network drives such as \\van-file-01\Projects\bst_common and \\van-file-01\users\aremp (or other username) as local drives on carrey, while the Dolby VPN is running. This makes it substantially easier to copy files around.

It is further possible to map one's UBC CS home directory as a network drive as well. This can be done by using \\cs-smb.cs.ubc.ca\agr (or other UBC CS username). Be sure to use a different drive letter than the ones used for Dolby drives in order to allow both network drives to be active at the same time, which again facilitates data exchange. Note that mapping your home directory also allows you to follow any symlinks you may have defined to other disks or volumes, like Imager or PSM disks. For more information, see the UBC CS page on this topic at

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/local/computing/windows/files_directories.shtml#map_drive

DR37-P_HDR_Viewer_Software_Manual.pdf:

The Display Table

From the time the DR-37P HDR display was acquired until 2009.10.28 the display was mounted onto a regular ICICS-issue table with 4 bolts through 4 pre-drilled holes in the table. This was a pretty good solution, except that sharp movements could easily cause the display to sway, possibly causing stress on the display base, like trying to balance a baseball bat standing up on a table using only your hand to hold down the base.

For the experiments in the "Video Viewing Preferences..." paper [Rempel, et al., APGV '09], Dolby arranged to have constructed a wooden enclosure for the DR-37P, lined with acoustic foam, to reduce the fan noise from the display. In 2009, Dolby decided that they didn't want the enclosure anymore and donated it to UBC. Allan moved it to UBC, and on 2009.10.28 moved the display into it. It is of suitable size to fit into the experiment rooms...

-- AllanRempel - 29 Nov 2007