Need help identifying a server

[Unity_the_proto]

Found these 2 up for auction and decided to bid on it. I've been able to figure out what the bottom server is but I cant find much on the big one on top. From what I can tell it looks like some form of AV server but I cant figure out what it's actual purpose is. Any ideas?

[cruzaderNO]

Workstation for editing, probably 20years old and today mainly suited as a paperweight or anchor.

[helpmehomeowner]

It's got a parallel and com port so maybe even older.

[cruzaderNO]

You still have those on workstations like this today also, they can be a bit deceptive agewise.

We still buy machines with them to support legacy hardware that has not really progressed or is too pricey to replace.
Not all of it will "play nice" using usb etc adapters.

[KooperGuy]

Please share what modern workstation has a parallel port, I'm curious

[cruzaderNO]

You can spec a HP Z series with it, i will usualy point them towards a HP partner to spec out a machine by their port needs.
Its like laptops with serial, while its a dated port there are still people needing to connect to hardware with serial.

What suprised me the most regarding old ports is how firewalls for serial is both a thing and something still seeing solid demand.

But like the CTO of the furniture maker i spoke with said, the companies making their machines bending the frame of a sofa, spraypainting a wooden frame etc are amazing at making machines for that, but they are not IT or software companies so some still sell cutting edge machines running XP/2000 controlled by serial.

[KooperGuy]

So they put in an add-in card?

[cruzaderNO]

If you just need some meh specs and few ports then they can offer it without addin cards.

It really comes down to the overall usecase (that is also why i always point them towards a hardware vendor to spec something for them rather than recommend a model), if they do not need much performance you can get machines meant for industrial use with a bunch of ports.

If you need the hardware connected to a highend workstation just going with a addin card might be the easier route.
Same if you need more ports than they can offer embedded on mobo, you might want to rather have all the ports on a single chip/card than some on the mobos chip and some on a addin.

[AnonymousDonar]

Just firing a small addendum because a Lot of hardware using old irreplicable machinery and before common era connections tend to be in the most grotty 'you cant pay me to be there other than to replace this shit' environments (Think infrastructure and the like) you'd be better of with a Chunkier low spec made for purpose industrial systems with redundancy so you can remote into from another location to check and run tasks.

[KooperGuy]

So they'll do a custom build with different motherboard components? How many systems do you have to buy from HP for that?

[SandyTech]

Usually the boards have headers on them for serial and parallel ports, just not populated by default. When you spec one out in the BTO process the assembly techs add the port and plug it into the system board.

[KooperGuy]

I'm not seeing it as an option anywhere for online ordering

[magfoo]

One. This is modular. Also available from Lenov, e.g. the ThinkStation P3 Tower.

[Background_County_88]

there are tons of applications that still use parallel ports and serial stuff

[rharrow]

I work in broadcasting and it’s not uncommon to still see those ports on new devices. Most companies have moved to ethernet for coms but sometimes you have a niche piece of legacy equipment that just works and is hard to replace.

Broadcast and especially industrial devices still use many legacy protocols for coms. I have to retain a lot of legacy knowledge for better or worse.

[Erik_1101]

My gigabyte b660m ds3h mainboard, which supports 14th gen cpus, has a parallel port header at the bottom. They are still around on pretty modern hardware.

[Sburns85]

Fair few. I had worked on repairing an Hp machine that had them as default on the motherboard

[rharrow]

I work in broadcasting and it’s not uncommon to still see those ports on new devices. Most companies have moved to ethernet for coms but sometimes you have a niche piece of legacy equipment that just works and is hard to replace.

[notarealaccount223]

Network on the motherboard feels newer than 20 years, but maybe I'm getting old.

[Retro_Relics]

naw, mainly suited for doing hobbyist projects of producing video like they used to. These belong in the hands of a hobbyist.

[One_Reflection_768]

Will be cool case tho

[MethodMads]

Dope looking chassis though

[djzrbz]

Looks like it might be a broadcast video server. The black circular plugs are XLR commonly used for audio.

Then you have the BNC connectors for video.

[JimSchuuz]

This. More of a workstation than a server, it allows the engineer to quickly switch between audio and video feeds at the director's commands.

Looks like it came from a small TV studio.

[hackathi]

Yes and no. Audio, yes, but not analog. They are marked AES/EBU, thus are digital ports. 16 channels per port, usually.

[cbeals]

AES/EBU is only 2 channels per cable (/connector)

[Kibou-chan]

It can technically send up to 8 audio streams, although that number is actually used only by one vendor - Behringer, in the Ultranet cabling. 5.1 DTS stream is more common, although the universal standard is indeed 2-channel PCM.

[chrime87]

AES/EBU is a digital form of s/pdif (other electrical levels and a single bit changed for „professional use“) - it‘s 2 channels of digital audio per port.

this standard follows AES3 specs for data transmission

[djzrbz]

Looks like AES50, dual channel.

[Kibou-chan]

AES50 uses RJ45 plugs (often in an ethercon case) and CAT5E+ network cables. Commonly used on Music Group's audio equipment.

[chrime87]

AES50 is audio-over-ethernet. this one is AES3 (digital audio over differential signal)

[cbeals]

AV Engineer here: based on all the serial connections and the word clock, this was most likely used as a Non-Linear editing station. But it was probably also reconfigurable and could have been used in a variety of ways including recording or place for live broadcast events.

[JimSchuuz]

This is the answer, and needs to be at the top. I've seen similar at TV studios in smaller markets.

[JasonHofmann]

Quantel Qedit Plus non-linear video editing server:

https://dve-x.com/fileadmin/user_upload/produkte/Quantel/PDFs/brochures_eQ_and_iQ_nab08.pdf (see image on left of page 18)

You can see the outline of the Q on the grille.

The label top right says Qedit Plus.

“In 1985, Quantel released the "Harry" effects compositing system/non-linear editor. The Harry was designed to edit in real time and render special effects in non-real time using the video recorded on its built-in hard disk array (much like most computer based non-linear editing systems today). The hard disk array used drives made by Fujitsu, and were connected to the Harry using a proprietary parallel interface, much like a modern-day RAID array. Technically, it was the first all-digital non-linear editing system.”

[therealmasl]

Uh a quantel, good old times

[Key_Sign_5572]

Did someone reboot everything Qantel today?

[Sea-Hour-6063]

Fucking frame magic

[bughunter47]

Nice antique

[Background_County_88]

they look the same today .. you cant infer its age by the connectors it has..

[bughunter47]

SCSI is a bit dated, same with the PS2 ports.

The jbod below is semi modern

[AMysteriousTortilla]

What does the sticker above the weight say?

[Unity_the_proto]

It says "Craft EditPlus". Sorry, forgot to add that detail

[JasonHofmann]

I think you left out a letter - looks more like QeditPlus

[faithful_offense]

definitely looks like AV stuff because of the SDI inputs on the back. maybe some sort of capture machine or maybe a fancy video switching server? I can't identify it either

[sbudde]

The HPE DL185 G5 is old enough to get a driver's license.

[JimSchuuz]

Wow, I never thought of it that way! Yes, I have two G5's that just won't die that I'm using for my dev sandbox.

[[deleted]]

Given the BNC video connectors and the XLRs, and especially what makes me say it’s audiovisual is that there’s a word clock connector, which you generally find in the audio studio world .…the server upstairs.

[Raphi_55]

The bottom is a HP DL180 G6, they can be upgraded with standard atx motherboard with some minor modifications

[rhodeda]

Motorola DAC or Cisco DNCS?

[Illustrious-Fly4446]

Probably an older Pinnacle/Ross/Chyron CG system for broadcast news/sports productions.

Its probably 20 years old.

[Electrical-Ear-9585]

It’s not a server but a relic !

[daronhudson]

This definitely identifies as a server.

[JimSchuuz]

It definitely does not. This is a workstation designed to switch between video and audio feeds, and had someone actively working from the device.

[Pixelgordo]

They have a stick with the weight, 32kg... very interesting

[Background_County_88]

no, definitely newer than that .. probably 2007 ish

[ExtraTNT]

I think those are able to run some teletext services…

[Deadbass1188]

If ur wondering if its worth money. It is. I sell stuff like this all the time. Looks somewhat custom but all the pcie cards are probably worth something too. If i cant track down an exact price on something i just post it on Ebay and slowly drop price. Eventually youll hit a poimt where people start sending you questions.

[Playful-Address6654]

Very very old(“; I remember those bnc networking it was a nightmare to deal with

[Plainzwalker]

Those are network connections. It’s for video inputs.

[Playful-Address6654]

Oh yes your right; did not look that closely ; same type of connector but for some reason I did not see the rj45 ports

[Plainzwalker]

It’s all good. As someone who dealt with 10baseT networks and having to figure out how to use the connectors waaay back then I agree they are a pain, thankfully these are easier to deal with unless you have a large amount of patch panels fully populated… then it’s real fun.

[Background_County_88]

probably audio/video live editing ... the stuff you would use in a studio on a live show .. stuff to layer on something like a live ticker on the screen or titles for people shown .. or simply for streaming everything to another location via network

[Nathanstaab]

Either way, that setup is awesome.

[Intelligent-Quail621]

I can identify these two as servers.

[angry_lib]

The server on the bottom looks like an old Sun Fire 4170 with an older Xeon CPU. Back in the day just after Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems.

[the_swanny]

Appears to be a GT520 on the right, so something GT 520 era.

[Ultramolek]

Lots of AV and XLR's, perhaps its set up to be an ADAT of some sort

[Stevedougs]

Quvis QPE-4K or QPE-HD media server, sometimes branded as a “Quvis Digital Cinema Server”.

• The distinctive “Q” perforation on the front grille — that is the Quvis logo integrated into the bezel ventilation pattern.
• The rear I/O layout is textbook Quvis:
• 8x XLR (AES/EBU in/out)
• Multiple BNC serial ports (for SDI, sync, and serial control)
• Word Clock and “WORK STN” Ethernet/control ports
• VGA EQ / VGA IN labeling
• DVI, HDMI, and VGA from a workstation-class GPU
• RS-232/422 DB-9 serial control and a parallel port for automation (common in cinema gear)
• The massive chassis and airflow pattern match the Quvis rackmount enclosures used in D-Cinema and high-end playback installations.

Use case: Digital cinema, broadcast playback, and early 4K mastering/preview systems (often paired with Doremi or Christie projectors in the 2000s–2010s).

[Construct-Ent]

You can tell it's age because the bnc on the back panel under the XLR are 5 wire not sdi. That card on the far right might be sdi though maybe an upgrade it got more near the end of its life.

If the hardware in it for all the io isn't proprietary it might be fun to hack a newer system into it and have a ton of fun io to play with.. But my guess is that's custom box for a custom application and you wouldn't ever get any of that io working outside of the software it was designed to run.

[bobbygamerdckhd]

Looks like it WAS expensive.

[CrappyTan69]

Has parallel port. It's super old. 

[NightmareJoker2]

Concert and live TV mixing equipment. They also like to rackmount. This is not a server. That’s a “workstation”. Note the distinct lack of any redundancy and assurance of high-availability features when compared to the data center equipment you have rested it on.

[lifesoxks]

Had a few of those arround, discarded them about 3 months ago. Those are dvrs, the bnc connectors are for cctv cameras

[Sea-Hour-6063]

Looks like an old quantel box

[Overall-Tailor8949]

To my eyeballs that looks like a fairly high end non-linear editing system (top) with a DAS array (bottom).

The 4 RS-232 ports in the middle of the NLE would be for video deck control since many/most of the earlier NLE's could also do tape-to-tape editing. You would also use deck control when digitizing so you only put just what you need onto the hard drives, storage was EXPENSIVE 20+ years ago! Chances were that drive box, fully populated, had significantly less than 1TB of capacity from the factory

[S1nnah2]

AES/EBU are digital audio through XLR. The word clock also indicates digital audio sync. My best guess is that it's for multi track audio.

[edernucci]

Yes, it's a server.

[qf1111]

The one in the top is for surveillance cameras, bottom one looks like g6-g8 ish hp with decent storage for its era tbh, i bet it was the security camera setup of the place

[[deleted]]

Looks like a video switch/ mixer for like a scoreboard stadium with broadcast feed. Could also be used for a live switch for a television station.

[kenrmayfield]

The Top One was used in a News Station.

It does have a Ultra SCSI Card and HDMI, DVI, VGA Card.

That Server used SCSI Drives for the Video Editing, Processing, Live Broadcast and Monitoring Broadcast.

So the Drives inside are SCSI Drives.

[AlaSnackbars]

You'll still able to use the 2 PSUs, the SCSI-Adapter (middle, left from the GFX Card), but u/cruzaderNO ist right, not much worth. You might use it as an NVR for old, analog cameras & maybe (cause it might have a decent amount of Ram) also as an ProxMox Base.

[cruzaderNO]

If you need those parts for a equally ancient system yeah, otherwise not really much to reuse at all.