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

Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 12-08-2013 01:26 PM

quote: William Kucharski
I certainly hope that when you convert this way you let audiences know, if they ask.

I would feel severely ripped off if I were to see a film in a theater converted from DVD or BD, ick.

I understand why YOU would feel that way, and that's OK. I feel cheated whenever
I see ANY digital presentation of a movie, but that's just "me".

But most Bozos who go to the movies today don't have a friggn' clue as to how
the picture gets onto the screen. From my experience, a large number of them
assume we're running the show from some sort DVD or blu-ray anyway.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-08-2013 03:41 PM

Jim is right that a lot of people already think we're just playing some sort of DVD already. I had people thinking that even in the film days. Another consideration is that Blu-Ray played through the digital system looks about 98% as good as real DCP to my eyes.

So it would definitely be good to tell a patron "the truth" if they ask. But if they don't, I would prefer to stay on the side of "preserving the magic" and let them think that the giant mysterious machine upstairs is dong all the work, not some random disk player.

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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 12-09-2013 04:25 PM

I think that's the best way to handle it, Mike.

Those for whom it matters will seek out the answer, and the majority will just sit back and enjoy the movie.

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William Kucharski
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 244
From: Louisville, Colorado, United States of America
Registered: Oct 2012

posted 12-11-2013 02:07 AM

The issue is now every time I see a local theater is showing catalog content, I have to call the theater to find out what the source is (and for that matter, hope someone there who answers phones what a DCP is. ;-))

While BD to DCP isn't absolutely horrific, I'll never forget driving an hour away, blowing $15 on concessions, and sitting down to see Goodfellas only to see pixel structure and black levels inferior to those in my home thanks to it being presented from DVD (not even BD, but DVD.)

"Come see your favorites on the big screen" indeed. [Frown]

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Donnacha Kenny
Film Handler

Posts: 8
From: Oak Forest, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2011

posted 09-21-2014 04:40 PM

It's absolutely fair to feel disappointed when consumer products are used for professional exhibition. However, in my experience, having Blu-rays (NEVER a DVD) and/or 1080p video files is perfectly adequate for enjoying a film. Currently our theatre is running a retro movie series, and I've made sure there's a Blu ready for each screening - so far Fox were the only distributor to have a DCP of one of our choices, and no-one had any 35mm they were willing to share.

I've used OpenDCP for my homemade trailers and ads in the past, and recently started using DCP-o-matic to more quickly process existing movie files to DCP; we had Fight Club on DCP a little while ago, and it was a kick to get the unused before-movie PSAs from the DVD processed to DCP to precede the film!

I'm curious to see how DCP-o-matic will behave with some converted Blu-rays, as our current use of discs impedes the easy use of our regular preshow and automation cues. How long does it normally take you to convert full-length 1080p features on your current setups? I had to do the one minute of Fight Club PSAs on a 2008 computer and it took two bloody hours. Can't see myself using the same computer for The Godfather!

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Carl Hetherington
Film Handler

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

posted 09-21-2014 04:51 PM

Hi,

You can get some idea of encoding speed on various computers from http://dcpomatic.com/benchmarks/fps. It depends almost entirely on the CPU that you use.

Work is happening (though not by me!) on open-source acceleration of JPEG2000 encoding using graphics cards (CUDA). It hasn't seen the light of day, yet, though.

Carl

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 09-21-2014 05:18 PM

I run Blu-Ray direct from the disc, but I do use DCP-o-Matic for trailers and various shorts, and for students' work to be shown in cinemas. On a Macbook Pro with 2.9 GHz Intel i7 I can get about 2 fps. At work, using four brand new top of thr range iMacs, I'm not sure what the processor speed is, and running 8 threads on each machine, I usually get about 17-21 fps, so not that much below real time. The percentage utilisation of the Gigabit Ethernet on the switch from the master machine is in the low to mid 90s, so I'm going to need a faster network to go much better.

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Alan Gouger
Jedi Master Film Handler

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

posted 09-21-2014 06:11 PM

Ive had bad luck converting BDs to DCPs somehow the conversion raises gamma. Not sure if the program is still work in progress or if there is a feature request list it would be nice to have a few pre gammas to choose to offset the increase taking place.

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Carl Hetherington
Film Handler

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

posted 09-21-2014 06:19 PM

Hi,

quote: Alan Gouger
Ive had bad luck converting BDs to DCPs somehow the conversion raises gamma.

If you are talking about DCP-o-matic, feel free to tell us about it:

DCP-o-matic forum: http://dcpomatic.com/forum
DCP-o-matic mailing list: http://main.carlh.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dcpomatic

quote: Alan Gouger
Not sure if the program is still work in progress

Yes, it is: http://dcpomatic.com/old-news

quote: Alan Gouger
or if there is a feature request list

Yes, there is: http://carlh.net/mantis/project_page?project_id=2

quote: Alan Gouger
it would be nice to have a few pre gammas to choose to offset the increase taking place.

Choose as many as you like. Here's the manual to tell you how: http://dcpomatic.com/manual/html/ch05s03.html#idp148864

Best,
Carl

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Alan Gouger
Jedi Master Film Handler

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

posted 09-21-2014 06:55 PM

Carl thanks for the fast reply and for pointing out the gamma selection,for my needs this takes an already outstanding program to the next level. Thanks for all your hard work.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

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

posted 09-21-2014 07:58 PM

quote: Donnacha Kenny
However, in my experience, having Blu-rays (NEVER a DVD) and/or 1080p video files is perfectly adequate for enjoying a film.

This is the type of statement that shows where a little bit of knowledge can be a bad thing. While yes 1080p is certainly a minimum requirement it does not tell the whole story with BluRays and other consumer media. There is more to it than the HD versus 2K difference...there is the fact that BluRay does not use 24 unique frame and may not even have been encoded/converted at 24 p so you will get motion artifacts. 1080p does not tell you what the color bit depth is (8-bit typically on BluRay and other HDMI/DVI sources with single-link). It does not tell you that things get VERY blocky as the luminance levels start to drop either.

All of that, in a typical home environment is not such a big issue as the screen is notably smaller and the lighting conditions are typically not similar to cinemas and it is, after all, the home environment.

Truth in advertising though...much of the DCPs of classic titles are pure BS and little better, if not worse than DCP O Matic versions of commercial BluRays. It all depends on where they got their source from and what sort of time they put into getting the DCP of the title right. From what I can tell...they "auto-pilot" most of it.

Even the much ballyhooed 4K conversions of big titles that were sourced in 70mm and transferred at 8K...and blah, blah...end up looking like such pathetic versions of the 70mm version. I've YET to see a good DCP of a classic title where the film version didn't look TONs better. Thus far, the best I've personally seen was Oklahoma!. The colors were nice but the resolution was SO not 70mm it was almost painful to watch. It also took on that 80s video look as they retained the 30fps of the original but in transfer must have run it through an '80s filter to give it an unnatural quality. The 70mm version, which I've run numerous times, didn't look like that. They also seem to give a mediocre attempt at being faithful to the sound of classic titles too. Again, Oklahoma! did not have an original ToddAo sound mix Version File available...so it is a 5.1 version of a 6.0 movie and sounded poor. You can't pan dialog on 3 stage speakers well...too much action happens where LC and RC should be...it just isn't convincing.

Carl (if I haven't lost your attention)...have you been able to incorporate the means to convert back to 24fps material that had gone through the 3:2 pull-down for video? That is, to convert (at the proper timing) a 30fps back to 24fps to get rid of the motion artifacts.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-21-2014 09:26 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
This is the type of statement that shows where a little bit of knowledge can be a bad thing. While yes 1080p is certainly a minimum requirement it does not tell the whole story with BluRays and other consumer media. There is more to it than the HD versus 2K difference...there is the fact that BluRay does not use 24 unique frame and may not even have been encoded/converted at 24 p so you will get motion artifacts. 1080p does not tell you what the color bit depth is (8-bit typically on BluRay and other HDMI/DVI sources with single-link). It does not tell you that things get VERY blocky as the luminance levels start to drop either.

Bit rates are another big issue. In general Blu-ray will have a higher video bit rate and less compression than 1080p video from other consumer sources. The imagery consistently just looks a whole lot better. The difference is even more noticeable on bigger TV sets.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 09-22-2014 08:26 AM

quote:
While BD to DCP isn't absolutely horrific, I'll never forget driving an hour away, blowing $15 on concessions, and sitting down to see Goodfellas only to see pixel structure and black levels inferior to those in my home thanks to it being presented from DVD (not even BD, but DVD.)

And for that very reason, if you are an art house and want to keep your reputation and not have people one by one stop coming to see titles in your theatre, you best be upfront about the source before everyone realizes they can do better (and cheaper) watching their home HDTV.

However, I would ALWAYS make sure I preface any reveal about using BR with the statement that the presentation that you are providing is from the BEST source material made available by (studio's name goes here). Make sure you let everyone know it's not by YOUR choice that they are seeing this half-ass presentation, it's Paramount's...or Warner's ...or whatever studio's fault. Place the blame squarely where it belongs. YOU didn't choose to rip out your film system. YOU didn't ask the studio for some BS copy of a LaserDisc master that they ripped to a DCP. And you certainly would rather show the original 70mm or even 35mm if you could. It's not your fault that you've been reduced to nothing more than a landlord who's running concessions operation and who happens to have the ability on the side to show consumer versions of classic "films" in quality that anyone can get by renting a BluRay disc for a buck.

All I can say -- do the best you can do...focus your efforts on making the best popcorn in town, focus on keeping your theatre clean and vermin-free because that's all they've reduced you to. As I have said in the past, the classics, except for maybe a few of the really big titles where they have taken the time to do high quality transfers at high bitrates and color depth that the existing DCP/video projection technology is capable of delivering (which is nothing to shout about in the first place), the classics as we have experienced them on film and certainly on 70mm, are pretty much gone to future generations. It's as simple as that and the young turks who now run the studios and who more than likely never even experienced 70mm TODD-AO like we did, they couldn't give a flying puck about giving new audiences, new generations, our collective cinematic history with all its beautiy and rich film nuance. They think a digital reproduction of a Monet painting is "just as good" as looking at the real thing. And that is why they are Philistines pigs.

When a studio can tell an arthouse to run a BR or who could themselves offer a DCP that even a layman can tell was copied from a consumer release master and tell you with a straight face that it's "good enough," you know we are doomed.

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-22-2014 09:32 AM

Just a correction to Frank's otherwise spot on critique:
When a studio can tell you to run a DVD…

Not everything has been migrated to BluRay. For that matter, not everything even migrated to video, but that's another problem.

Not every theatre has access to private collections who have the prints of the films the studios no longer care to maintain.

Not every available print is better than the available digital version (magenta anyone?)

Remember, with the studios, it's not about art, it's about money. With the smaller distributors it is about art, but they don't have the money.

Not sure how much you really need to tell your audience, but at least in the arthouse world, education is part of the mission.

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Carl Hetherington
Film Handler

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

posted 09-22-2014 05:44 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
Carl (if I haven't lost your attention)...have you been able to incorporate the means to convert back to 24fps material that had gone through the 3:2 pull-down for video? That is, to convert (at the proper timing) a 30fps back to 24fps to get rid of the motion artifacts.

Not yet... it's on the (quite long) list...

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