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Author Topic: Shipping out DCP drives after ingestion but before the show - a cautionary tale Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-04-2016 02:55 PM                        quote: Frank Cox If this was an issue of safety then nobody would allow it to continue. Again, it all boils down to frequency of problems. Take stairs, for example....people can and do fall down stairs and get injured, but it doesn't happen too often, so there are still stairs everywhere. If there was a 25% chance that anybody using a stairway is going to be hurt, you'd see a huge increase in elevator installations and/or flat buildings.  |  IP: Logged Dustin Mitchell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1865 From: Mondovi, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-04-2016 04:30 PM                     Let's remove the 'digital' word from the equation. The same arguments can be made for previewing film prints. Say you receive a 35mm print with just enough time before the show to platter it, do you cancel the show because you won't have the opportunity to pre-screen it? In the case of festivals and special venues, the pre-screenings aren't happening because things are (mostly) digital now; pre-screenings of film prints were also impractical for the reasons Leo and others have listed here. As for mainstream product, it's been a few years since I left the biz, but I distinctly remember a lot of those Thursday night openers not having their keys good until just before the first show. Sometimes we'd get a special key to test part of the file (one 'reel' I guess), but this doesn't meet your standard for previewing the entire file. So what's your solution when this happens? Do you demand a key that is valid early enough for you to screen the show? What do you do if the distributor refuses, refuse to paly the movie? Finally, is it satisfactory to preview just one screen, or if you owned a multiplex would preview every screen a movie was sent to, on the theory that something could go wrong with the transfer? If you have 6 screens worth of new movies opening on Friday and your employer won't authorize the necessary staff to preview all of them Thursday night/Friday morning, what do you do, quit? It's perfectly fine, and admirable, to adhere to the highest standard possible when you are your own boss, open one movie per week, and always get keys in plenty of time to preview. But to call others unprofessional because it is physically impossible to do pre-screenings (festivals and special venues) or because the people they work for won't authorize it, well, that's just insulting. It's really easy to say that you would quit such a job, the reality is we all need to earn a living, and as compromises go, not prescreening content that is error free 99.99999% of the time isn't a really big one. Just my $0.02.  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 05-04-2016 05:14 PM                     Leo: There were three aspects to testing implementations. Conformance, Performance and Interoperability. There was never any requirement for a manufacturer to adhere to anything, but if they wanted to sell their equipment they'd give due consideration to the appropriate standards. Interoperability was probably the least tested because if a service provider wanted to live with a single vendor solution, it was meaningless. However, public providers did give due consideration to interoperability because they would never know for sure what "standards compliant" equipment a customer would be using. The universe is somewhat smaller for the exhibition industry and the equipment providers somewhat limited. Therefore I can assume that strict adherence to standards is less of an issue. Still, I find it somewhat perplexing that a DCP may work on one vendors equipment but not on another's. I'd hate to be in the position to have to deal with these issues today.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-04-2016 05:46 PM                        I think that the ideal solution would be to have a "strict mode" and "permissive mode" on each server. The default should be to refuse to play an invalid DCP, but this should be able to be overriden by the operator to play a nonconforming set of files. That way, the operator has a warning when something is not correct, but can still play the video.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-04-2016 06:17 PM                        I can see where the security goons at the studios would have a big problem with that idea though.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-04-2016 07:36 PM                     When the Hunger Games series came out, there was a 'screening key' issued that let the content run for 20 minutes and the key was good for four hours on that screening day.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 05-04-2016 08:30 PM                     quote: Rick Raskin Still, I find it somewhat perplexing that a DCP may work on one vendors equipment but not on another's. As I wrote before: All servers are able to play DCI/SMPTE compliant DCPs. An export from a Dolby DSS server is not a real 'DCP', and not meant to be one, as it lacks assetmap and packing list. It is only meant to be ingested into another Dolby DSS server. This is not a question of interoperability. If you know about this issue, you can easily recompose the original DCP by adding assetmap and packing list, in order to ingest it on non-Dolby DSS servers. And if I remember right, Dolby is about to fix this issue anyway. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 05-04-2016 09:06 PM                        I disagree that this issue is in any way comparable to playing movies on film. With film you can see what you have; there's film on the platter that can be inspected as needed. And in the worst case scenario, say an out-of-frame splice that you don't have time to find, you can ride the framing knob if you have to. Bad section of film? Cut it out. It broke? Time for a quick splice job and get it back on screen. With digital, there is nothing and no way to inspect the movie or fix any problems without watching it since all you get is magic ones and zeroes on a disk. So yes, it's perfectly possible to put on a show if you just have time to get it in the door and get the film on the platter -- if it's in uncertain condition then sit on the projector and watch the wheels turn; if a problem arises, fix it right now. It's just not possible to do that sort of thing with digital. It either works or it doesn't and if it doesn't, there's not much you can do to fix it while an audience is waiting. I'm sure that you already know all of this. This is why I would rather solve any problems without any audience present, and the only way that I know of to do that is watch the movie in advance since there's simply no other way to know what you have. I understand that some of you work in environments where this isn't possible. In my opinion, this is less than ideal and I think most of you agree with me in that some of you have said that you will do test screenings in advance of a show where a VIP is present, Sadly, it appears that an Unimportant Regular Person isn't entitled to attend a show with that same level of care, attention and service. As for myself, if someone told me that the Grand Poobah of Frobnitz was going to be attending one of my shows, I can't think of a single thing that I would do differently than what I do every night anyway. What should you do about it in your situation? I can't advise you on that since I don't work in that kind of an environment. It appears that the answer to that question on the part of most of you is "nothing", and perhaps that's the right answer. Or maybe it's not but again, I'm not in a position to say.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-04-2016 09:31 PM                        quote: Frank Cox What should you do about it in your situation? I can't advise you on that since I don't work in that kind of an environment. It appears that the answer to that question on the part of most of you is "nothing" I guess one other advantage a large multiplex has, in the case of a problem they can often move that audience over to a different screen or maybe another showing starting in a few minutes, where you (and I) don't have that option. Frank, you've had digital a few years - how many problems would you say you've uncovered via pre-screenings? (Meaning -- problems that would have lost you a show or a weekend had you not done the pre-screen.)  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-04-2016 11:32 PM                     Carsten, you are correct. Look for that feature in System 4.9.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 05-05-2016 05:02 PM                        Having given your question some thought, I think the answer is either three or four. Once when the movie played out of order, and either two or three times when the key simply wouldn't play the movie even though it showed up as playable. In those situations, the powers-that-be issued me a new key in a different format(?) that worked and that took a while to get past the inital "What the hell?" to the phoning in to report a problem, then wait for the newly issued keys to show up, ingest and see if it works now. I wouldn't want to try any of that while people are sitting in the auditorium here. I just checked and the paper that came in the box with the movie that arrived this morning does indeed still say "Ingest the contents as soon as possible and schedule a quality check screening after the keys unlock the feature." Based on what you folks are telling me here, I guess that requirement isn't actually being enforced any more even though it's still listed on the paper. I remember when I first got my digital setup some movies came with a form to fill out and fax back to Technicolor: "Quality check screening for (name of feature) completed on (date) by (name) at (theatre name and address)." And some others had a note saying to complete the screening and email a report saying that it's ok (or not ok) upon completion. I haven't seen one of those for a while -- now it's apparently just report in if there are any problems -- but again, the paper still tells you to do it so the movie companies do still expect you to do it.  |  IP: Logged Manny Montes Master Film Handler Posts: 270 From: United States Registered: Feb 2010 posted 05-05-2016 08:06 PM                     While in an art house environment it's almost impossible to do screenings especially during film festivals, I blame this on the distributor and studio more so than the exhibitor. If you want me to have a perfect presentation, you send me your drive and key ahead of time, even with a last minute booking you can always overnight the drive and email the key. The laziness that digital has allowed for studios is absolutely annoying and has lead to worse presentations. Also for your mega/multiplexers, saying "well we have too many screens and payroll, etc is no excuse". What I usually do is run all the movies, then walk from aud to aud to check them and ensure the presentation is good. With the exception of VERY few problems, you will notice any issues because they prevent the playback completely or will cause issues once they hit a certain point. I have only ever seen one issue (Amazing Spiderman 2) where for some reason the DCP turned green for 5 seconds in the middle of it, then went back to normal. Other than that you can usually catch it just by running around and checking each auditorium every 15-20 odd minutes.  |  IP: Logged Dustin Mitchell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1865 From: Mondovi, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-05-2016 09:43 PM                     Well, Frank, by your own admission then, your full run-through policy has only caught a problem with a DCP once that other methods wouldn't have caught. Again, I don't think anyone is saying your method isn't the ideal; it's more that your attitude seems to be the lack of adhering to that method is a reflection on the operator, that any operator that runs a movie without first pre-screening it in it's entirety - no matter what the reason - is somehow sub-standard.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-05-2016 10:13 PM                        The other thing to remember about Frank is that his theater is run solely by him -- so I agree with him, it wouldn't be good to have to leave the downstairs just hanging there, while he was up in the booth trying to figure out what the hell happened. I don't know how he does the solo-thing, quite honestly. I've had a couple of occasions over the years when an employee didn't show up and I've had to run the whole place myself. It was maddening. But, I guess there are two considerations -- we're not set up for that, so it makes it really hard to do, where his place is built to run that way; and, I am not used to working in the concession. I try to stay outta there as much as possible because I just get in the way!  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 05-06-2016 01:57 AM                        Frank, if you don't mine me asking, how many seats do you have? How many showings do you offer in a typical week?  |  IP: Logged

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