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Topic: Picture cut-off in scope

Gavin Lewarne
Master Film Handler

Posts: 278
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 10-31-2014 03:56 AM

I have come across a number of titles where the subtitles are rendered literally to the very bottom pixel of the scope container.

This causes a problem at our screen, because we physically cannot have the projector squared off to the centre of the screen, we have a little "skew". We are able to set our scope image to only have about 3 pixels masked off on each side to hide it, but for those titles with the subs at the very bottom I have to compromise a bit and have created a preset on our barco where the entire scope container is visible on screen, but it leaves the skew slightly visible.

If anyone has a workaround for that I would be interested to know it.

My normal procedure for setting the image formats to deal with the skew is to zoom the image so the border of the format is just-barely-touching the masking on all four sides then mask it.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

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

posted 10-31-2014 04:36 AM

Hmm, strange, it's a 4k projector, and a Scope DCP, and 2k I guess. I wouldn't understand how the subtitles can get below the container bottom in that scenario, at least if the cropping hasn't been completely over the bottom ;-) But you certainly would have noticed that before. Maybe it's really a production issue. Can you check picture properties of that feature, e.g. container size? Is the scope image falling into the proper masking?
Is the NEC running on current software? Maybe there is still something wrong with the PCF files/4k/2k/IMB settings.

The Doremis have options to do their own subtitling and also configure feature specific offsets. I have never heard the GDC can do that as well.

I think it is bad the subtitle offset can not be adjusted for projector generated subtitles. At least the offsets should be corrected by the projector automatically based on the crop setting, not the image container geometry. But as has been shown in many cases, TI is just not interested in doing real improvements on the subtitle engine. Sometimes I think they are deliberately sloppy on this so that server manufacturers pick up the issue so TI get's rid of that duty completely.

- Carsten

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Marco Giustini
Film God

Posts: 2713
From: Reading, UK
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 10-31-2014 05:43 AM

As Carsten says, open the XML files and check where the subs are supposed to be. If they are at the bottom of the picture, report it back.

I remember having the same issue with subs on 35mm prints sometimes.

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 10-31-2014 09:38 AM

quote: Marco Giustini
I remember having the same issue with subs on 35mm prints sometimes.

Yea- but whenever I ran into that issue in 35mm, I'd run the print with the
1:85 aperture plates but use the 1:66 lens. It gave a slightly smaller
image on screen, but it at least kept the cinematographer's composition
intact, and you didn't have to come up with some framing compromise
between seeing the subtitles or cutting off the tops of people's heads.

Steve G gave an excellent explanation of the 4k output/2k projector
issue. Last time I ran into it was at the Telluride Film Fest this year,
where the subtitles on one of the films were off from where they
should have been.

For a number of reasons, we didn't have time to work out the issue
before showtime, so we screened that program off of an HDCAM
backup tape that had burned-in subs.

I couldn't tell the difference between the HDCAM & DCP on the 30ft screen.

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