Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Key is valid but movie won't play

This is topic Key is valid but movie won't play in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 11-23-2012, 01:16 AM:

A whole new adventure tonight.

I'm playing Breaking Dawn 2 tomorrow night and got the hard drive this afternoon. I ingested the feature and the key onto my GDC server and set up the playlist late this afternoon. The movie showed in green as playable. Ok, I'm happy.

After tonight's show was over and everyone was gone my intention was to watch this movie. When I loaded the playlist I checked once again and this time the feature was listed in red and marked not playable. Wha??? This key is supposed to be valid for two weeks according to the email that came with it and what the server tells me.

OK, reboot the server and see what happens. Now the movie is green and playable again. Fine, must be a transient glitch. Hit Play and start watching. Trailers play through, time for the feature to start. And I see a lovely blank screen and no sound.

I hoof it up to the projection room to see what's going on and there is an error message on my server. "CPL is not playable." I check the content listing the feature is still green and marked playable. So it's playable but not really.

I called Deluxe and the person who answered the phone said that the key they sent me is definitely valid but she will send me a new one in a different format, which she did. And this one works, the feature plays.

So, new experience for me: A feature that's marked as playable on the server that won't actually play. And apparently there are at least two different formats for the keys for these things.

The lesson here seems to be to ask for a key in the "other format" (whatever that is) if this situation occurs.

This also reinforces my intention to continue to watch every minute of every movie that I play here before showing it to the public. I'll be packing 'em in and tamping 'em down for this thing tomorrow night -- the last thing I need is a key that's sort-of-but-not-really valid. I would never have known that if I hadn't tried to watch it since the server said everything was fine and the feature was playable, even though it wasn't.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-23-2012, 01:53 AM:

Is your GDC on 8.01 software?

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 11-23-2012, 01:55 AM:

It's 7.something-or-other.

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 11-23-2012, 09:20 AM:

Oh boy!!!!!!!

Posted by Kris Verhanneman (Member # 5562) on 11-23-2012, 11:04 AM:

I've lived the same situation (and felt like an idiot) but on another brand of server.

Removed twice all the content from that server and reingested. Got it running after that.

The other key they are talking about is the SMPTE version.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-23-2012, 11:57 AM:

By the way, what does "CPL" stand for?

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-23-2012, 12:28 PM:

Whipping out the Hitchhikers....er DCI definitions....

Composition Play List

quote:
5.4.
Composition Playlists
5.4.1.
Introduction
Composition Playlists (CPL) are textual lists that define how elements of Digital Cinema Compositions are played back in a presentation. The content owner creates the Composition Playlist in a post-production environment. For encrypted essence, the Composition Playlist shall be digitally signed such that modifications to the Composition Playlist (and/or the associated composition) can be detected.

BTW...if you are not on 7.83...I would suggest migrating to that. It fixes most all of the bugs on the pre-DCI stuff.