Making DCP 2k and 4k - Wraptor Pro?

[Jarek Zabczynski]

So I'm looking into making a DCP for film festivals. I did notice that Adobe comes with the Wraptor lite encoder that does up to 2k. Has anyone used this for DCP? Seems simple enough, albeit no way of seeing the DCP without buying more software, and then the colorspace playback issues I might have.

 

[Marcus Struzina]

I've had success using https://www.opendcp.org

But the secret is testing. Also as scary as it is, going without a security key eliminates a lot of compatibility problems. Good luck.

 

[Kristin Stewart]

The Adobe included DCP encoder is just a joke ;-)

It's gonna be more reliable to do it with EasyDCP, we can do it for you if you need some help.

 

[Peter Arnold]

Hi Jarek

DCP-O-MATIC is a free, simple to use and imho very reliable tool for making DCP's
I use it on a weekly basis for the advertising reel for a local cinema but I also used it in the past to do features.
Usually I export DNxHD 444 quicktime movies from my AVID to go into DCP-O-Matic.
But it will eat almost anything.
It's not the fastest encoder out there, but it does the job when you want to make a DCP every once in a while.
You can test if a DCP is running via the free version of the Easy DCP player from Fraunhofer (it just plays for 15 seconds though, but you can check the hashes with it.
If it runs with the EasyDCP Player it will almost certain also run in the cinema.
Another imho good playback option is the NeoDCP player which is very good and not too pricey (cheapest version with some limitations 79$)
I always check my DCP's with both of the above options.

Funny enough, DCP-o-Matic is running right now with the weekly ad-reel.

Hope that helps

Peter

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Great info! DCP-O-MATIC looks like the ticket!

 

[Kristin Stewart]

DCP-O-MATIC doesn't have a perfect X'YZ' color conversion, but it's a nice tool if you're not very picky about the result ;-)

Kristin

 

[Steve Johnson]

Jarek
i recently used the Wraptor DCP in Adobe for two short films. Both films looked fine on the cinema screen. Maybe a touch more desaturated than I graded too, but only by a small amount. I found the process simple and easy. It might hell
if you use it and go to you local cinema and and them to load the DCP into their server and check it out. I've done that will all my films and they've been great!
Steve

 

[Kristin Stewart]

One of the best results, with EasyDCP, is given by CuteDCP : www.fandev.com . For dirty cheap.

 

[Chris Henze]

Just went through the whole DCP thing. Spent the money on Wraptor DCP and it didn't work. Almost blew my premiere, very stressful. I've had success with OpenDCP even though the files will be a bit bigger than the packages you buy. Make sure you pay attention to the DCP naming conventions, Interop will work on more projectors than SMPTE but SMPTE is more modern.

 

[Peter Arnold]

One of the best results, with EasyDCP, is given by CuteDCP : www.fandev.com . For dirty cheap.

Hi Kristin

I agree CuteDCP is a easy tool. But it's painstakingly slow.
And it is a plugin for either After Effects or Premiere not a standalone version.
After effects does not allow surround sound export so you have to take an additional step here.

Wraptor is rubbish, I totally agree.

One of the other tools I have is Qube Xpress from Qube Cinema
This is extremely easy to use.
Drag and drop the file, choose 2K or 4K, and hit enter.
And just had a massive price drop. Since NAB you can buy the entry Qube Xpress for just 299$

But I have to disagree at DCP-o-Matic not beeing accurate.
I am a very picky guy and my clients are some very picky advertising agencies.
I never had a problem with colors coming from DCP-o-Matic.
You can even enter your own color matrix in the output panel.
And it's free!
EasyDCP is a 2000€ software.

Peter

 

[Kristin Stewart]

Hi Peter,

Yes, CuteDCP is slow, but the result is on-par with EasyDCP. We're in fact mastering DCP's for feature films here in France and we had the pleasure of testing most of the softwares available, Clipster included. I wouldn't trust DCP-O-Matic for a national theatrical release, but it's just me ;-) We don't like to be called by projectionists afterwards ;-)

To be honest, I have never understood the people who have spent $50K on the camera gear, plus the rest in post-production and when it comes to mastering, are finishing the whole thing with free softwares made for the amateurs ;-)

Kristin

 

[Marc Wielage]

To be honest, I have never understood the people who have spent $50K on the camera gear, plus the rest in post-production and when it comes to mastering, are finishing the whole thing with free softwares made for the amateurs ;-)

That confounds me, too. In LA, I can think of a half-dozen companies that will give you a finished DCP (with a guarantee) for $5/minute. $450 for a 90-minute DCP is not a big deal, and if there's any issues, it's the company's fault -- not yours.

 

[Peter Arnold]

Hi Kristin
Hi Marc

I agree with both of you.

But Jarek was talking about making a DCP for festivals, not theatrical releases in his first post.

For a theatrical release it's sometimes even demanded to use tools like EasyDCP.
But for festivals with your own litte selfmade film I'd say it's perfectly OK to try a different road.

That's why I suggested DCP-o-Matic to Jarek.
I know it works and therefore I'm only talking about tools I use myself and be sure they work on Doremi, SoloG3 and Dolby Servers.
I tested all my workflows in local cinemas several times!

But yes, if you have the money go with EasyDCP.
Although to be fair that means usually a little bit more than just the software.
You need a complete postproduction studio with a DCP compliant workflow, not just a laptop with a little software.
I export DCP from Resolve via the EasyDCP Plugin. But that workstation is not alway available for transcoding.
Therefore I use DCP-o-Matic.

Is EasyDCP a Pro-Software? Yes.
Is DCP-o-Matic an amateur software? That is completely up to you. I'd say No.
It could easily sell for severar hundred dollars.
Would the price make it Pro then?
I wouldn't call REDcine-X an amateur software either, just because it's free.
But that's just me ;-)

Plus I know of more than one DCP Player software that comes with a hefty price tag and still the colors are completely off, I mean really off.
But still they call it Pro.

By the way. The DCP I did yesterday with DCP-o-Matic while chatting with you guys runs since yesterday evening in three cinemas from three different servers without a hickup, like every week ;-)

Peter

 

[Stefan Scherperel]

I use a combination of After effects with JPG2000 DCP plugin and convert the color space to xyz. them export jpg2000 sequence to folder.
I use premiere to re time the audio to 24fps and export out 5.1 stems
I then use Open DCP for creation of MXF and xml files
Finally I check everything with NEO DCP player (very accurate colors and the free version will let you check the whole film, 15 seconds at a time)
I then use Mini Tool Partition wizard to create an EXT3 drive and bring everthing over to a local theater for QC.
Sure there may be easier ways, but this process gives exact and repeatable results every time, no guessing.

 

[egon touste]

Hi Kristin
Hi Marc

I agree with both of you.

But Jarek was talking about making a DCP for festivals, not theatrical releases in his first post.

For a theatrical release it's sometimes even demanded to use tools like EasyDCP.
But for festivals with your own litte selfmade film I'd say it's perfectly OK to try a different road.

That's why I suggested DCP-o-Matic to Jarek.
I know it works and therefore I'm only talking about tools I use myself and be sure they work on Doremi, SoloG3 and Dolby Servers.
I tested all my workflows in local cinemas several times!

But yes, if you have the money go with EasyDCP.
Although to be fair that means usually a little bit more than just the software.
You need a complete postproduction studio with a DCP compliant workflow, not just a laptop with a little software.
I export DCP from Resolve via the EasyDCP Plugin. But that workstation is not alway available for transcoding.
Therefore I use DCP-o-Matic.

Is EasyDCP a Pro-Software? Yes.
Is DCP-o-Matic an amateur software? That is completely up to you. I'd say No.
It could easily sell for severar hundred dollars.
Would the price make it Pro then?
I wouldn't call REDcine-X an amateur software either, just because it's free.
But that's just me ;-)

Plus I know of more than one DCP Player software that comes with a hefty price tag and still the colors are completely off, I mean really off.
But still they call it Pro.

By the way. The DCP I did yesterday with DCP-o-Matic while chatting with you guys runs since yesterday evening in three cinemas from three different servers without a hickup, like every week ;-)

Peter

well said . a significant proportion of the most advanced , well written, and most thoroughly tested software on the planet is actually free, and made in the open source community..by amateurs

what do you called the mpeg4 codec if you want to use only a subset of the specification, and functionality, but then charge people for the privilege of using those settings? answer: Prores .. feels more professional alreadly.. where do i get my members pass?

ive nothing against that, what the author of ffmpeg did with the jbig format (a subset of hevc he created/specified, for storing images at much much higher quality and lower file size than jpeg, or jpeg2000) is mind blowingly

what people really mean when they say: "its ok, but not professional, ..but what do you expect, it free etc" ..according to my understanding of game theory, is: "hey, i dont like hearing that i spent money on software functionality that others are getting for free, how else can i dampen my feelings of professional insecurity if i cannot percieve that i have an advantage?"

bbmpeg was a classic mpeg2 encoder that was better than most, if not every other solutions. it was written by a single guy, for free. handled every part of the mpeg2 spec, and had high precision DCT ..

 

[Marc Wielage]

But Jarek was talking about making a DCP for festivals, not theatrical releases in his first post. For a theatrical release it's sometimes even demanded to use tools like EasyDCP. But for festivals with your own little selfmade film I'd say it's perfectly OK to try a different road.

Given that showing the film at a festival is the best chance to give the film publicity and even get it sold, I think you can't underestimate the importance of getting the DCP right. A DCP may well be an important deliverable for the distributor in terms of files necessary to get paid for the film. Don't assume the DCP will only be seen once and then thrown away, even for a very small film. Even making the deliverable files (ProRes, H.264) is not trivial and could involve some complications, particularly with unusual audio requirements and formatting. I've seen an awful lot of stuff get rejected for relatively minor things, and I've also seen DCPs that simply won't play due to bad authoring.

 

[Kristin Stewart]

I'm 100% with Marc. Sure, you can do it with DCP-O-Matic, but if your movie has the chance to be selected by an international film festival, it's still better to do it right and not to take more risks. Believe me, it can happen, even with DCP made with EasyDCP, we have some calls too ;-) The difference ? Peace of mind.

CuteDCP for Premiere is 149 euros. Quite cheap for mastering your beloved movie at 4K if you wish. The picture quality is great. Same for the sound. Christer is a nice guy, we've been beta testing his software. You can't go wrong with that.

Same thing goes for color grading. It's still cheaper to hire a good pro for 3 or 4 days, even if it's not enough, of course, than messing around during 2 months ;-)

Kristin

 

[Peter Arnold]

Mark, Kristin

As I said before, I agree with both of you.
I'm just saying that there are different options.

My point is, that you should have a choice.
Can you do a DCP on your own?
Yes you can, this is 2015.
Four years ago you paid 2500€ for a 30 second commercial to transcode, just because there were no options.
I still have that pricelist from a vendor.

Is it easy to do a DCP on your own?
Yes. And no.
It's definitely not done with just the push of a button.
Your footage has to be prepared, checked, leveled and checked again.
That goes for Picture and Sound.
All levels have to be correct and then double checked. Twice!
After the transition you have to check the DCP too.
The easy way is to do it with the free versions of EasyDCP and NeoDCP.
Then you check it in your local cinema.
And only then it goes to the festival.
I'm completely aware of all these point, believe me.
Been there, done that.

But again, my point is; It's not just EasyDCP and period.
There are other options, cheaper ones and free ones.

And Kristin; I know Christer too, I'm beta testing his DCP player.


Peter


P.S. The by far fastest conversion tool I know for DCP's is FinalDCP from Innovative Pixel.
A 1350€ tool that puts EasyDCP to shame when it comes to options and encoding speed.
It runs at about 20 frames per second on a rather old HP Z400 Workstation while EasyDCP just reaches 7-8.

 

[Carl Hetherington]

DCP-O-MATIC doesn't have a perfect X'YZ' color conversion, but it's a nice tool if you're not very picky about the result ;-)

Kristin

What is wrong with DCP-o-matic's colour conversion?

Regards, Carl

 

[Kristin Stewart]

I agree, Peter. FinalDCP will probably be a software to look into, but right now it doesn't seem to handle SMPTE DCP's, at 25 fps for example. But I may be wrong.

It's great that Christer his working on a DCP player, I didn't know, how is it ?

Of course I didn't say that there is EasyDCP and nothing else. I'm just saying that, for ethics reasons and peace of mind we prefer to use professional software for clients who are paying for that.

Carl, I can't say what's really wrong, we found the EasyDCP/CuteDCP more accurate, if you start with a file graded in Rec709. But as long as you're satisfied...