DCP on Mac for feature film

[Paul Lee]

There have been a number of discussions going on here about DCP creation tools so this is nothing new :beatdeadhorse5:

But... I have been really having a hard time finding a good solution for Mac for feature length material projects :banghead:

Obviously we can take it to established facilities, and we will when we are 'done,' but we want to start QC of our mix, etc., at actual DCP format.

We're a 2k, 2D project. Edited at 23.98.

Anyone out there having success? Thanks!

 

[jake blackstone]

EasyDCP. As the name implies, it's very easy to use.

 

[Paul Lee]

EasyDCP. As the name implies, it's very easy to use.

Have you used it yourself Jake? What are the encode times like? Thanks!

 

[mikeburton]

It's extremely simple as Jake pointed out. If I remember correctly I rendered a 100 minute feature on it in approximately 4 hours with a 2.66 dual quad core (16 total virtual cores) MacPro with a GTX 285. I'm sure though with a faster system is PC with a GTX 580 or a Quadro 6000 you could get realtime or almost realtime output or better.

 

[Saumene Mehrdady]

http://code.google.com/p/opendcp/downloads/list

 

[jake blackstone]

It's extremely simple as Jake pointed out. If I remember correctly I rendered a 100 minute feature on it in approximately 4 hours with a 2.66 dual quad core (16 total virtual cores) MacPro with a GTX 285. I'm sure though with a faster system is PC with a GTX 580 or a Quadro 6000 you could get realtime or almost realtime output or better.

Also, it can use virtually anything as a source, including Prores. And you can buy separate modules, so if you don't need a security certificate, you don't have to buy it.

 

[Peter Arnold]

EasyDCP from Fraunhofer
FinalDCP from Magnamana

Those are the two that pop into mind.
EasyDCP is a bit pricey but more less the industry standard.
And it's about your feature film and the software is here to stay afterwards.

That said I just did two features using OpenDCP from Google for free.
I put the clip into AfterEffects, changed the colorspace to XYZ and exported 170'000 single frame JPEG2000 pics.
The audio was split into 6 uncompressed PCM streams with 48kHz at 24bit in Audition.
Then I put the sequence into OpenDCP where the MXF files for audio and video were multiplexed.
In the end OpenDCP was used to build the final DCP folder with the appropriate file structure.
And bang ... feature film DCP.

Always works like a charm at least on the PC side.

my grain of salt

Peter

 

[Paul Lee]

Peter- do you recall how long it took to export from AE and how big it was?
SOunds pretty much like what this guy is talking about:
http://www.mattcameronfilm.co.uk/2012/04/digital-cinema-package-tutorial.html

 

[Peter Arnold]

Hi Paul

Matt Cameron sums it up quite nice.

But he creates an unnecessary amount of data by exporting the whole sequence to TIFF's first. Speaking Terabytes here!
The route via AfterEffects and the direct export to J2K's with XYZ colorspace is in my experience much faster and you can cancel one step in the production of the final DCP.
There is no need to convert again from TIFF to J2K in OpenDCP because OpenDCP can directly use the J2K's created in AfterEffects to wrap them into the final MXF file.
In other words. The J2K sequence created in AfterEffects will in the end run directly on the projector.
It won't be touched again in the process of producing the DCP.
The images are just wrapped into an MXF und put into a folder on a harddrive or USB-Stick.

There is also no need to change the speed from 25 to 24 fps.
25p is perfectly OK in the SMPTE DCP specifications.

I do DCP's on a weekly basis for the ads in our local cinema (in 25p)
From time to time I do longer stuff for other producers in the area, when they want a DCP for their clients.
A DCP typically runs with 125 Mbit/s for 2D and 250 Mbit/s for 3D.
A single frame is about 600kb.
So you'll end up at roughly 1GB per minute for 2D and 2GB/min for 3D DCP's

A two hour feature I did a few days ago was about 100 GB because J2K's are variable in size.
A full black picture for example is just 1kb.
It basically just says "I'm black from pixel 1 through to pixel 2211840"
The whole creation process took me about 6-7 hours.
The work itself was just like 10 minutes. The rest are render times.

I usually render on a HP Z400 Workstation with six 3.33 GHz cores.
Here I render out from AfterEffects at about 30% to 40% realtime.
You will need the j2k pluging for AfterEffects to export JPEG2000 files directly in XYZ colorspace: www.fnordware.com/j2k/

In OpenDCP you create two MXF files. One for Picture and one for sound.
That can take some time because 170'000 single files must be copied from a to b.
The deleting of these files in the end also takes quite some time.
First be putting them into the trash bin and then be empty out the trash bin.

In the final stop in OpenDCP the MXF files are moved in the DCP folder and some xml files are created so that the server can "see" and ingest the DCP on your harddrive or stick.

Now you're ready to go to the local cinema the see your masterpiece on the big screen. Don't forget to bring the popcorn from the candybar.

Hope that helps

Good night


Peter

 

[jake blackstone]

There is also no need to change the speed from 25 to 24 fps.
25p is perfectly OK in the SMPTE DCP specifications.

Not every older DCP players supports 25 fps, therefore, if you want bulletproof solution, you must do 24 fps DCP.

 

[Mark Toia]

We did a side by side Tiff, DPX, and PRO RES DCP conversion... 2k and 4k.
Ran it in the cinema side my side. cut in 3's, wiped it, zoomed in on it... pretty much wanted to see the worse.
Could not tell any difference at all from the 3 originating codecs.

PRO RES 4k was our end and best solution with 4k DCP out.

It's way easier than I thought it would be.

 

[Mark Toia]

EasyDCP from Fraunhofer
FinalDCP from Magnamana

Those are the two that pop into mind.
EasyDCP is a bit pricey but more less the industry standard.
And it's about your feature film and the software is here to stay afterwards.

That said I just did two features using OpenDCP from Google for free.
I put the clip into AfterEffects, changed the colorspace to XYZ and exported 170'000 single frame JPEG2000 pics.
The audio was split into 6 uncompressed PCM streams with 48kHz at 24bit in Audition.
Then I put the sequence into OpenDCP where the MXF files for audio and video were multiplexed.
In the end OpenDCP was used to build the final DCP folder with the appropriate file structure.
And bang ... feature film DCP.

Always works like a charm at least on the PC side.

my grain of salt

Peter

Thats good to know about the Audio.
I havent done a audio test yet.

cheers

 

[Phil McCarty]

This might be a horrifically dumb question --

why isn't there a service where you upload your (What file format?) and in a few hours download a DCP?

Would people go for this? It doesn't seem technically unfeasible, so my core thought is that there's no demand for it, but then these threads keep popping up...

--Phil

 

[jake blackstone]

This might be a horrifically dumb question --

why isn't there a service where you upload your (What file format?) and in a few hours download a DCP?

Would people go for this? It doesn't seem technically unfeasible, so my core thought is that there's no demand for it, but then these threads keep popping up...

--Phil

You need some kind of QC. Without it a DCP is useless.

 

[Phil McCarty]

You need some kind of QC. Without it a DCP is useless.

Well, what if the service came with a desktop based DCP player?

 

[Mark Toia]

It's easy to do guys... you can do the conversion in your laptop. Very simple software.
I did a 1 hour piece of test footage, which took 6 hours in my laptop.
The J2c files look perfect... exactly the same as our master footage.

 

[Terrence Meiczinger]

This might be a horrifically dumb question --

why isn't there a service where you upload your (What file format?) and in a few hours download a DCP?

Would people go for this? It doesn't seem technically unfeasible, so my core thought is that there's no demand for it, but then these threads keep popping up...

--Phil

A full length DCP is hundreds of gigabytes... that's a lot of data to store and bandwidth use. It could also be much more time consuming if things don't go right.

 

[jake blackstone]

Well, what if the service came with a desktop based DCP player?

Still not good enough, as the desktop player only would play your DCP as translated to Rec-709. You need to see your finished DCP as it is intended in XYZ space and with calibrated projector. Everything else is just an approximation.

 

[Garrett Sergeant]

DCP with Simple DCP

DCP with Simple DCP

Paul,

We'd be happy to help you out with an affordable solution if you need multiple versions over time. Check out our website:

www.simpledcp.com

We use the EasyDCP toolset. Give us a call if you have any questions. We are local to the Los Angeles area.

-Garrett

There have been a number of discussions going on here about DCP creation tools so this is nothing new :beatdeadhorse5:

But... I have been really having a hard time finding a good solution for Mac for feature length material projects :banghead:

Obviously we can take it to established facilities, and we will when we are 'done,' but we want to start QC of our mix, etc., at actual DCP format.

We're a 2k, 2D project. Edited at 23.98.

Anyone out there having success? Thanks!

 

[Paul Lee]

Hi everyone, this is a bit off topic but has anyone had experience creating, or renting/buying, a DCP 'test' for making sure that a particular theater is set-up correctly? Sort of like the THX DVD that has color charts and audio tones and such. Thanks!