Closer Look: Dataton Watchpax

Dataton released Watchpax at NAB 2013 earlier this year, marking Dataton’s entry into the hardware side of media servers. Watchout, the software side of Watchpax, is one of the industry standards, and it has a good market share when it comes to media servers. Many factors contribute to this status, two of which are its competitive price point ($2,249 USD) compared to other media servers and its quick learning curve.

I recently got my hands on a Watchpax. Straight out of the box, the tiny size of this device is impressive (see photo with my hand as a scale reference). Each device is designed to do one display output. The maximum supported resolution is 2,560x1,600 (WQXGA), which could theoretically be split into multiple displays with external hardware. The idea is one display per device, and you can keep stacking them together to your heart’s content. With how tiny the box is, you could easily distribute your media server system if you lack setup time or rack space.

Looking at the back of the unit, you have: audio in/out (both are ⅛” jacks, audio in supports SMPTE/EBU timecode), MiniDisplayPort, two USB 2.0 (not 3.0, but I can’t really think of why you would need 3.0 on this device), and Gigabit Ethernet.

The MiniDisplayPort is a little surprising. My biggest concern with the unit would be this connection coming loose, since there is no locking or screwing attachment as you would have with DVI or DisplayPort.

The system just turns on (though it took me an embarrassingly long time to discover that I didn’t push the power cord in all the way, and, in fact, there is no power switch). There is no user interface on board, but rather the system is controlled via your production computer.

Watchpax defaults to DHCP addressing or link-local if no DHCP server is present. To set a static IP address, you must communicate with the server through display cluster protocol. This can be done through a TCP/IP command or within the startup script on the device. When running Watchout on a normal computer as a display, you can edit the IP through Windows or locally in the startup script. Because Watchpax has a locked-down operating system, you can only change the IP either through a TCP/IP command or through a new feature in Watchout 5.5 that allows remote editing of the startup script. This isn’t a huge pain; it’s just different from my (and probably many other’s) workflow and necessitates some adapting. The startup script can also be used to run a show on startup without the need for a production computer. This would be great for installations or similar settings that just need Watchout to run.

All the content is stored on a 64GB SSD. This should probably be enough for must shows using Watchpax, but it is a limit you could easily hit. At its core is a 1.6 GHz AMD processor and 4GB of RAM.

The system’s performance was quite good. I was able to have several layers of video playing with no problems. Due to the size and nature of the device, I would imagine that the shows it serves well won’t be terribly complex and won’t run into a performance ceiling. The fire-power doesn’t compare to servers 20 times the size that Watchout is typically run on, but you do get bang for your buck.

The most surprising thing is the price point. Watchpax goes out for $2,249 USD, the same price as a Watchout license. While you lose the ability to do several screens, getting everything you need for a simpler show for the same price as a license is nothing to overlook.

For smaller shows or installations that have less than 64GB of content and not terribly complex programming, this product is for you. It’s small, compact, easy to set up and has the power these shows need at a fraction of the price of larger Watchout rigs (when Watchout already wins on many shows because of how reasonable it already is). I’m still troubled by the MiniDisplayPort connection, but maybe some gaff tape will fix that.