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Author Topic: Technicolor Acquiring Cinedigm's Digital Cinema Delivery Assets Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 08-19-2011 10:56 AM                     There is that whole DCI thing...it would be hard for the Studios to have made such demands for DCI compliance in order to get VPF deals and then spin on their heels and drop the JPEG2000 part and revert back to MPEG for the sake of download speeds. It seems that WB has been able to get their file sizes down! -Steve  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 08-19-2011 11:25 AM                     I'd like to know what WB is doing to shrink those DCP file sizes. It seems like 2 hour movies from most major Hollywood studios weigh upwards of 200GB or more. I saw one posting on Facebook about a Scarface DCP weighing in at 248GB. Yet WB sends out a Harry Potter installment with a file size almost small enough to fit on a 50GB Blu-ray disc. The only thing I can figure is WB has turned the knob on JPEG2000 compression, possibly past levels that are truly DCI compliant. A couple of the technical things I remember seeing in the white paper involved specific limits on the number of transform blocks per movie frame. The master can have only 1. The DCP should have no more than 3. As compression levels increase more transform blocks are required. At a severe enough compression level issues like macro-blocking, mosquito noise on edge detail and general softening of image detail becomes more and more visible. I don't know how far one can take JPEG2000 compression levels before breaking rules in the DCI spec, but I have a feeling it doesn't take much.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 08-19-2011 11:36 AM                     quote: Steve Guttag So long as they make the titles available early enough to deal with problems, I don't see the problem with satellite. I've said it before and I will say it again. We get our satellite content at least a day before physical hard drives, and often 2 days ahead.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-19-2011 11:37 AM                        I would think that satellite distribution would be a win for major releases, but I don't see how it could possibly make economic sense for smaller releases or repertory bookings. For titles that would open in only one or two (or even a handful) of theatres, physical media or Internet downloads would make more sense. What size is the average DCP, anyway? Is it something that could be downloaded over a DS1 circuit (1.544Mbps), or is that still not practical?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-19-2011 12:35 PM                        Satellite delivery sounds great. But two questions I never see answered: 1. How much does the equipment cost for a cinema? 2. How much does the average download cost? I have a feeling it'll be $1000 worth of equipment that will cost $10,000. (Kind of like the servers.)  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-19-2011 01:40 PM                        As a followup to Mike, does DCI address satellite standards? Would the theatre be subject to forced upgrades? Can the studios set proprietary software and hardware standards? One of the problems in the non-DCI alternative digital world is the lack of standards and proprietary systems. I can see theatres being forced to buy more and more stuff just to appease the studios.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-20-2011 12:11 AM                     quote: Bobby Henderson It takes a long time to download a 200GB movie file. ~15 to 20 min. on the GDC. Longer if you're playing back at the time. You can also live play on the GDC and Dolby if the DCP happens to show up at the last min. or if there is a RAID issue on the GDC. @ Mike... Good satellite gear IS expensive! HIgh bandwidth time on a satellite is even more expensive. Thats why it takes ~8 hours to download a 2 hour show. Studios are sending it over limited bandwidth but usually the download starts many days in advance of when it's actually needed. If you have a TMS it will automatically be placed in the content file when the down load is complete. Mark  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 08-20-2011 07:53 AM                     It has become complicated to judge on DCP sizes and stream bitrate. Because features very often contain additional tracks, so, a DCP may contain twice as much data than actually being played. As a matter of fact, it seems that most features I came across so far not nearly maxed out the allowed bitrate. Net sizes of 100-200GBytes seem to be common. 3D and 4k do not add to the size due to DCI bitrate restrictions. The satellite distribution schemes I know of so far bring no additional cost to the cinemas - equipment is rent-free, and distribution companies usually lay out cost so that satellite costs the same as hard drive shipment. So the benefit for the cinema is just in reduced shipping and handling logistics, not directly in cash. But as others mention - timeslots on the dishes are limited, and we all know that digital doesn't mean the studios get their bit's and pieces together in time. So with upcoming releases, it get's harder to find a slot for your feature. And what happens to second run houses - who will spent the money to retransmit a package 4 weeks after it's initial release? For the large multiscreens houses, no big deal, they will have a large NAS or TMS storage and grab everything that's on air. Some service companies also sell the option to receive live broadcasts using the same equipment/dish, so that's another benefit. One german service company I spoke to says, they have constant monitoring on the receiving end and if there is a problem with reception, they detect it early enough to send out a hard drive in time. Because if you find out too late that your DCP is corrupt, there is not enough time for a retransmit. Or to be more precise, something like 'retransmission' will not happen anyway due to cost/time constraints. @Martin: DCI at least was smart enough to not specify ANY distribution scheme, not even the hard drives currently in use. With the satellite it seems to be rather easy - if a studio or service company forces you to comply with a single distribution scheme - they have to fulfill. As bandwith currently is more limited on the satellites than on the roads, it would not be wise to try something like that. The whole TMS, NOC, etc. business for the large chains of course is ideally suited for fully automatic distribution as well, so sooner or later, either by satellite or wire, it will be more and more common. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 08-20-2011 11:49 AM                     quote: Bobby Henderson It takes a long time to download a 200GB movie file. quote: ~15 to 20 min. on the GDC. Longer if you're playing back at the time. You can also live play on the GDC and Dolby if the DCP happens to show up at the last min. or if there is a RAID issue on the GDC. Mark, this thread is about discussing satellite downloads. A CRU bay isn't really a "download" anyway, it is a transfer or ingest. Regardless, GDC is nothing special. A CRU drive is the same in ANY server. There is no increase in speed with GDC. Because of their 3 drive RAID, if you are doing other things with the server instead of letting it sit idle, the Dolby, Qube and Doremi DCP2K4 are FASTER than the Doremi DCP2000 or GDC anyway.  |  IP: Logged Jake Spell Master Film Handler Posts: 294 From: Johns Island SC Registered: May 2009 posted 08-20-2011 06:35 PM                     I know our local Carmike has 3 satalite dishes on their roof after the switch to digital. The first and largest is a movable dish with a polarizing filter (or so I was told) on the receiver. The other two came several months later and appear to be microwave receivers. They are much smaller and have red lightning bolts on them. They are also pointed very close to the horizon. I believe these smaller dishes are used for live broadcasts like wrestling and opera, and the larger dish is used for DCP distribution  |  IP: Logged

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