Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What happens to old DCP's

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Digital Cinema Forum » What happens to old DCP's (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Author

Topic: What happens to old DCP's

Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 02-18-2013 05:58 PM

And it's "junk data" without a valid key.

I don't see the point, myself.

| IP: Logged

Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 02-18-2013 06:15 PM

quote: Frank Cox
And it's "junk data" without a valid key.

I don't see the point, myself.

It's only useful if you consider playing the movie in the future and the new KDM they send you is actually based on this DCP and not some other DCP, containing the same movie.

And... It might also be useful in the far (?) future. If, besides all good intentions of preservation of the studios, all official copies of a certain feature have gone the way of the dodo and you also kept your KDMs and the media block that somehow preserved its own certificate and private key unharmed... Or maybe we have working quantum computers by then that can brute-force 128-bit AES in a matter of seconds.

But of course, why are we worrying? It's not like any studio EVER lost an important movie in the past, isn't it..? [Wink]

| IP: Logged

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 02-19-2013 01:58 AM

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Or maybe we have working quantum computers by then that can brute-force 128-bit AES in a matter of seconds.

Believe it or not, there is at least one national, taxpayer-funded film archive in Europe which is collecting encrypted DCPs, without the keys, on the assumption that brute-forcing the encryption will one day be possible and that once the copyright term in the content has expired, this will enable it to provide access to this material as public records. Needless to say, the decision of its director to pursue this policy has proven controversial in film archiving circles, to put it mildly.

I suspect that we'll see studios and public sector archives take markedly different approaches with 'born digital' and 'born analogue content'. In terms of the latter, the cost of scanning and basic post-scanning image restoration is plummeting (scanners that will do 2K in real time are already available for around the $150k mark). Given that large film archives have for half a century now been investing in a passive conservation approach to film preservation (i.e. building and maintaining cool, dry vault facilities), I suspect that many will regard DCDMs and DCPs derived from film originals as essentially disposable items, because they can just scan the film again.

The preservation of born digital content is a different issue. The bottom line is that there is no known offline storage medium that can match the proven reliability of the long term storage of film in an atmospherically controlled vault. Unlike with content originated on film, you don't have a film to go back to if you lose your digital asset, and at the moment the only known way to ensure its survival is either a program of regular copying from legacy data storage media to current ones, or an always on solution such as a RAID or MAID. Presumably for master storage the studios and archives will regard the DCDM as the preservation master and the DCP as being of secondary importance (given that the latter can be recreated from the former at any time), but realistically they are looking at spending more per hour of footage per day looking after it than they would have been with film.

| IP: Logged

Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-20-2013 03:47 PM

I'm personally in favor of archiving to film.

Every "born digital" movie should be archived as YCM separations, a color internegative made from the YCP's and a positive made from the IN. That way there is a "hard copy" and there is proof that every link in the chain is good. For added measure, a plain-old DI wouldn't hurt.

You may recall that part of the "Star Wars" problem was that the color negatives had faded and the Yellow sep was overexposed.

And I've run a few movies where there seemed to have been registration issues between the sep's or, perhaps, registration issues in printing.

Now, don't get too excited. Because despite my "pro-film" stance on the issue of archiving/preservation, I remain a realist -- and it's not looking like film will be around for ANY (motion picture) purposes in the not-too-distant future.

This issue probably won't become important enough to appear on the industry's corporate radar until an important film is lost.

Which reminds me of this quote from "Airplane!"

quote:
They bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash!

| IP: Logged

Lincoln Spector
Film Handler

Posts: 46
From: Albany, CA, USA
Registered: Mar 2012

posted 03-01-2013 06:30 PM

DCP is a distribution format, not an archival one. When a DCP comes back to the studio, I'd imagine the hard drive is formatted and used to distribute another movie.

I believe that the DCP masters are all kept on the company server, so that they can easily make another DCP when a theater asks for one.

As far as long-term archiving goes...who knows at this point. If it was up to me, everyone would agree on an unencrypted standard using M-Disc media, AND they would preserve everything on film.

But it isn't up to me.

Lincoln

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.