Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Converting a Blu-ray (or DVD) to DCP

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Topic: Converting a Blu-ray (or DVD) to DCP

Alan Gouger
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 501
From: Bradenton, FL, USA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 10-30-2013 03:50 PM

quote: Michael Kurtzke
Alan, with our 515's we just use a Western Digital My Passport portable hard drive using the NTFS Format.

Just placed an order Ill give this a try. I will follow up.

Thanks all.

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Jordan Older
Film Handler

Posts: 7
From: Ventura, CA, USA
Registered: Oct 2013

posted 11-05-2013 05:09 PM

I have some questions maybe someone can answer. I'm trying to make the DCP correctly the first time so I don't have to make many trips to the theater to test it.

1) what "format" screen ratio is used to convert a DVD mkv file that is 720:480?

I think the best options are flat without stretch or scope without stretch, but not sure between the two. Does it depend on the type of screen being used? I am planning to project at a Cinemark theater that uses Doremi ShowVault server and Barco projectors.

2) When using dvd-o-matic do I just click "Make DCP" and it does the job or do I have to be playing the video at the same time?

Here are my settings:

http://venturait.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Screenshot-from-2013-11-05-150204.png

3) Do I need to pad the audio with silence to 6 channels like I've read?

http://venturait.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Screenshot-from-2013-11-05-150856.png

4) I'm using a starndard USB thumb drive. Do I format it to ext2 or ext3 for Doremi ShowVault so it will automatically ingest?

Thanks everyone!

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Carl Hetherington
Film Handler

Posts: 93
From: York, North Yorkshire, England
Registered: Jul 2012

posted 11-05-2013 05:26 PM

quote: Jordan Older

1) what "format" screen ratio is used to convert a DVD mkv file that is 720:480?

What aspect ratio should your file be presented in? Does it need to be stretched from its current 1.5:1 ratio?

quote: Jordan Older

2) When using dvd-o-matic do I just click "Make DCP" and it does the job or do I have to be playing the video at the same time?

Just click "Make DCP" and leave it to its own devices.

quote: Jordan Older

3) Do I need to pad the audio with silence to 6 channels like I've read?

I would suggest doing that, yes. There's almost no disadvantage and it will improve your chances of the DCP working.

quote: Jordan Older

4) I'm using a starndard USB thumb drive. Do I format it to ext2 or ext3 for Doremi ShowVault so it will automatically ingest?

Either should work, but I'd plump for ext3.

Regards
Carl

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Jordan Older
Film Handler

Posts: 7
From: Ventura, CA, USA
Registered: Oct 2013

posted 11-05-2013 05:34 PM

Thanks Carl.

I'm not sure what the film should be presented in. It's shot in 720:480 based on the DVD I have but there is no option for 1.5:1 in DVD-o-Matic.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 11-05-2013 05:38 PM

NTSC is 720x480 (rounded numbers). Remember, this is an analog thing and we are referring to lines, not pixels so things are NOT linear. It is a 4x3 ratio image. If they were, it would be 640x480.

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Jordan Older
Film Handler

Posts: 7
From: Ventura, CA, USA
Registered: Oct 2013

posted 11-05-2013 05:53 PM

It's not 4:3, its 1.5:1. It's either scope or flat (not stretched).

I'm not sure what the difference is between scope and flat since I think they are terms left over from analog projection.

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Carl Hetherington
Film Handler

Posts: 93
From: York, North Yorkshire, England
Registered: Jul 2012

posted 11-05-2013 05:59 PM

quote: Jordan Older
I'm not sure what the film should be presented in. It's shot in 720:480 based on the DVD I have but there is no option for 1.5:1 in DVD-o-Matic.

If you want it to stay in 1.5:1, stick with Flat without stretch in DVD-o-matic. If you don't know what the ratio should be you may need to look at clocks and/or wheels in the image to check that they are circular [Wink]

If it's from DVD there is a reasonable chance that the pixels are not square (i.e. there should be some stretch on playback).

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Jordan Older
Film Handler

Posts: 7
From: Ventura, CA, USA
Registered: Oct 2013

posted 11-05-2013 10:08 PM

What's the difference between scope and flat?

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Carl Hetherington
Film Handler

Posts: 93
From: York, North Yorkshire, England
Registered: Jul 2012

posted 11-06-2013 03:06 AM

Flat is 1.85:1, scope is 2.39:1.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 11-06-2013 06:08 AM

DVDs can be a bit of a nuissance. They could be:

'plain' 4:3

4:3 with letterboxed 16:9/BW or CS content (ouch, I have StarWars CS letterboxed in 4:3...)

16:9 'anamorphic' (stretched) with 4:3 pillarboxed, 16:9 'native', or letterboxed BW or CS content. It will usually tell you about the format on the box, but not always. You will have to find out about it yourself.

- Carsten

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Jordan Older
Film Handler

Posts: 7
From: Ventura, CA, USA
Registered: Oct 2013

posted 11-06-2013 01:59 PM

The DCP preview was looked correct at either scope unstretched or flat unstretched setting in DVD-o-Matic. These settings simply put the DVD vidoe in the center of a black screen. The difference between the two are that the flat seems to be for a more "boxy" 4:3 screen and the scope seems to be for a wider screen. The Cinemark theater that I use has 10 screens and I think that two of the screens have "scope" format and the rest are "flat" but I'll take the DCP I made and test it soon. I did not "pad" the 6 channel audio with silence so we'll see if Doremi ShowVault can handle 2 channel audio. It took about 15 hours to make the DCP in DVD-o-Matic.

BTW, the DCP files total over 80GB for a 2K DVD, is this normal? What kind of hard drives are recommended for this?

Is there a way to remotely transfer (over the Internet) to the ShowVault the file for ingestion into the system at the theater instead of using a USB drive?

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Carl Hetherington
Film Handler

Posts: 93
From: York, North Yorkshire, England
Registered: Jul 2012

posted 11-07-2013 08:44 AM

quote: Jordan Older
The DCP preview was looked correct at either scope unstretched or flat unstretched setting in DVD-o-Matic. These settings simply put the DVD vidoe in the center of a black screen.

Yes. These options put your image (at its current aspect ratio) in the centre of either a 1.85:1 frame or a 2.39:1 frame.

All projectors will be setup to display 1.85:1 and 2.39:1 frames correctly, since those are the two common ratios for feature films.

quote: Jordan Older
BTW, the DCP files total over 80GB for a 2K DVD, is this normal? What kind of hard drives are recommended for this?

Depends on the J2K bandwidth you chose and the length of the content. At 200MBps the DCP will be about 24Mb per second of content.

quote: Jordan Older
Is there a way to remotely transfer (over the Internet) to the ShowVault the file for ingestion into the system at the theater instead of using a USB drive?

I don't know. You are going to need a fast internet connection to get 80Gb across in any reasonable time.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 11-07-2013 10:30 AM

quote: Jordan Older
The Cinemark theater that I use has 10 screens and I think that two of the screens have "scope" format and the rest are "flat" but I'll take the DCP I made and test it soon.

NO! You do not adjust the aspect ratio to the target screen. The DVD footage has it's own native aspect ratio and you should choose the settings within DVD-o-matic so that exactly this aspect ratio is preserved.
The difference between the common aspect ratios is big enough for you to find out from viewing the intermediate VOB/MTS main feature file on the computer.
DVD image width should be scaled to 1998 pixels, into a flat container, so that if there IS screen masking, it will fit to this common format.

quote: Jordan Older

I did not "pad" the 6 channel audio with silence so we'll see if Doremi ShowVault can handle 2 channel audio. It took about 15 hours to make the DCP in DVD-o-Matic.

Stereo should be technically okay. If there is multitrack audio on the DVD, you should be able to extract that. Stereo is okay for a TV set, but in a cinema environment, it can cause trouble with the dialog. DVD-o-matic has no trouble using multichannel DD/AC-3 or dts audio.

quote: Jordan Older

BTW, the DCP files total over 80GB for a 2K DVD, is this normal? What kind of hard drives are recommended for this?

That's normal. You can use any USB 2.0 drive for the transfer. Depending on your server, it should be self powered, or at least should have a Y-cable for dual-power if it is a USB powered 2.5" drive. Most servers can read NTFS now, which is probably easier to use for you, unless you use LINUX anyway. You mention a ShowVault, that is a Doremi and it can read NTFS.

quote: Jordan Older

Is there a way to remotely transfer (over the Internet) to the ShowVault the file for ingestion into the system at the theater instead of using a USB drive?

Not easily. Trailers are roughly 1-3Gbytes, these can be transfered with DropBox or other similiar tools. But 80GByte is too much for these tools unless you can use a paid/commercial service. Even then it would take quite a while to transfer, depending on your and the cinemas internet connection, the up- and downstreams involved, etc.

If you can't go there yourself, maybe get a large USB-Stick or SSD and send it by mail.

- Carsten

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 11-27-2013 01:59 PM

What does this error mean:

"Could not set content: Cannot handle pixel format 30 during components ()"

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Carl Hetherington
Film Handler

Posts: 93
From: York, North Yorkshire, England
Registered: Jul 2012

posted 11-27-2013 02:39 PM

quote: Dennis Benjamin
What does this error mean:

"Could not set content: Cannot handle pixel format 30 during components ()"

If you are on DCP-o-matic (rather than DVD-o-matic), upgrade to version 1.28 or higher and it should be fixed.

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