DXG Userguide Part I - MoreGuardian, MoreXperience

A. Get to Know Your Guardian

We will presume that you have completed the two previous steps with the guides: "DXG IP Set-up" and "Ceiling Installation". Now for the fun part.

B. Most Basic Overview of the Digital eXperience Guardian:

There are three basic steps for monitoring your audio and picture with the DXG:

  1. Take a reading of each after the room has been calibrated, then mark it as a baseline.
  2. Take subsequent readings.
  3. Compare those to the baseline.

C. Details - Readings

To take a reading,

  1. A DCP with audio and/or picture is played from the media server, through the projector and/or the sound system.
  2. The DXG is "Armed", in order to run a sequence file when the proper DCP is played.
  3. Play the appropriate DCP.

D. Details - Comparisons

When the DCP and sequence are complete;

  1. A human-readable file known as an "xml results" file is created and placed into an directory appropriate for the auditorium. This xml file contains metadata that includes - among other things - the date, time and auditorium name of the reading.
  2. This directory can be polled, and the data sent to an appropriate SQL database table.
  3. Alternately, the DXG GUI has the capability of analyzing and comparing two xml results files, showing the delta E of each reading. (Delta E, or ∆E, is a method of comparing two values. In the case of comparing colors, it is done in a manner that allows a number – for example, 3 – to mean the same in the green area as it means in the blue area.)

5. More Specific Details

First, The GUI:

DXG GUI Control Panel

Picture Tests

The picture above shows a Guardian user interface ready to take a reading of Auditorium Screen One at the Tijeras Cinemas 16 Multiplex. The sequence will run through white, red, green and blue slides in the Mid-range; that is, several slides of each color, from 80% saturation to 30% saturation will appear on the screen for 1 second each and a reading of their characteristics will be taken and stored for review.

In the standard DCP package, the colors are 16-bit TIFF images with the 12-bit color depth in the P1 color space as specified in DCI/SMPTE/ISO documents. For sync, every other slide is full black. The color slides descend in steps of about 5% of the 12-bit, 0 - 4095 step range. [Why is this important to know? Because, a satellite or cable or blu-ray system doesn't use this same color space or depth and it would not be appropriate to run the same DCP for evaluating those systems.)

There are 3 sets of color DCPs in the standard sequence sets; Low-, Mid- and High-. (Your DCPs may be different, and the standard set may change.)

  • The High DCP cover the top 15% in high detail - 1/2% steps. That is, one-half of 1% of 4096 steps is about 20.5 steps. Some slides sets will show numbers descending in that magnitude.
    • Because people are more familiar with seeing R,G and G numbers in units of 256, many slides sets will show the numbers descending in 8-bit nomenclature. In this case, the numbers descend in steps that appear smaller.
  • The Mid DCP descends in 5% steps from 80% to 30%.
  • The Low DCP descends through each color down to black, again in approximately 1/2% steps. The sync slides are white instead of black in the Low- set.

To run a sequence,

  1. choose a sequence file to run,
  2. load the matching DCP (or Playlist),
  3. Arm the DXG,
  4. Play the DCP.

Audio Tests

Audio sequences are much the same; three tones are played into each speaker at various frequencies – 250Hz, 1000Hz and 8000Hz, except for the LFE channel which has 50Hz, 100Hz and 250Hz. The L, C, R channels are played at 85dB when a properly calibrated Audio Processor is set at 7. The surrounds are played at 82dB and the LFE is played at 20dB down.

This DCP is played to establish audio level as well as THD (Total Harmonic Distortion).

This DCP also plays certain pairs of speakers to establish their phase characteristics.

There is a 2nd DCP that plays a 'click' to each speaker which establishes whether each speaker is playing from the correct source.

This User Guide continues with Part F at:


Topics Are:

Step by Step – The How To Guide

Preparation: Make DCP Playlists and load DXG Programs to your Windows computer.

Load DCPs into your system; Make Playlists

Load the DXG Program onto your computer (if it wasn't done before.)

Finally, let's run the thing, eh?

Options

 

And explains cools pictures like these:

DXG GUI Control Buttons

 

A/V Tool in DXG GUI

 

Success with the DXG GUI

 

DXG System Input Diagram

 

Home Documentation DXG Userguide Part I - MoreGuardian, MoreXperience

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Locations

1

Digital Test Tools, LLC, Chatsworth, CA

Tel: +1 818 877 61 49, Mail: [email protected]
2

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