This is topic Converting a Blu-ray (or DVD) to DCP in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=001643
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-25-2013, 11:57 AM:
To make matinees easier (since we often can't get DCPs of them) I'm experimenting with converting movies from Blu-Ray. First I tried doing "Apollo 13" from a DVD, and then "The Blues Brothers" from a Blu-Ray. (Figured if I'm going to experiment, might as well do it with movies I like.)
I used "MakeMKV" to convert the video files, and then "DVD-o-Matic" to convert to DCP. The various channels come through fine and the picture looks great, but there is an issue with the sound. The center channel gets overdriven on very loud bits (like the launch scene in Apollo) to the point where the speaker makes a "crackling" distortion sound. I tried lowering the volume even to below "movie-watching" level and the sound is still there, so it seems like it's gotta be with the source material somehow. The problem is MUCH worse with Apollo 13....maybe because the source is a DVD(?)
I did not notice this when playing the same movies directly from the discs...but, I don't think our system decodes the sound the same way when playing DVDs or Blu-Rays. (The player (Oppo) is connected with an HDMI cable and just a left/right patch cord for the audio.)
What's strange is, this distortion sound only seems to come from the center...when there is big-time noise on the left/right or surrounds the problem isn't there.
I also notice a kind of stridency in the sound (harshness) that's not there with a regular cinema DCP....could that be the ever-popular "home" mix coming through?
I thought maybe there was a problem in our center speaker (QSC 3-way) but regular movies sound great and I don't notice any of these problems with them.
I've pretty much left the defaults alone in everything during my conversion process, so is there something I ought to be changing to improve on this?
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 09-25-2013, 12:06 PM:
Hi Mike,
Try dropping the audio gain in DVD-o-matic (audio tab) to something like -12dB. I'm not entirely sure why, but quite a lot of DVD/BR material ends up with very hot audio which clips somewhere inside DVD-o-matic.
If you still have the DVD-o-matic "films" (projects) that you created those DCPs with, you should find that if you drop the audio gain and re-run "Make DCP" it will skip through quite quickly (just checking that the video is right, and re-creating the audio part).
Best
Carl
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-30-2013, 03:43 PM:
Thanks Carl, I'll give that a try. Sounds like a fix.
Posted by Matthew Philp (Member # 7132) on 10-02-2013, 12:08 PM:
Hi Mike,
Did this work for you? I'm in the process of converting a few shorts (113) for our regional film festival and have noticed the same problem on a few of the files I have converted.
Thanks
Matthew
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-02-2013, 12:21 PM:
I had deleted all the files of the movie I was working on to save disk space so I need to start from scratch on it, and I've had to be out of town a few days lately so time hasn't permitted. It's on my to-do list for this week though. I'll let you know how it comes out.
Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 10-02-2013, 12:42 PM:
If re-encoding Blu-Ray to a DCP does DVD-o-Matic convert color space and bit depth.
Thank you.
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 10-02-2013, 03:42 PM:
quote: Alan Gouger
If re-encoding Blu-Ray to a DCP does DVD-o-Matic convert color space and bit depth.
Yes, it attempts to give a reasonably "straight" encoding (converting to the XYZ colour-space in 12-bit).
Carl
Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 10-17-2013, 09:47 PM:
I've considered doing this to make our classic midnight showings easier.
Does DVD-o-Matic retain 5.1 sound from an MKV with a Dolby Digital or DTS track? If so, is there anything special you're doing to achieve that? Also I'm curious, what's your JPEG2000 bitrate of choice?
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-18-2013, 03:02 AM:
Yes, DVD-o-matic will transfer AC-3 or DTS encoded multichannel audio to discrete PCM channels.
The compression ratio does not influence encoding speed. So if there is enough space on the disc or server, just use higher datarates, that is, 150-200 MBit/s.
'grainy' old style footage may need a higher rate than animation style footage, and flat would need a higher rate than scope. I usually just leave it at 200 for BluRay conversions. Recompression is always 'bad', so, use higher rates as much as possible.
- Carsten
Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 10-26-2013, 10:17 PM:
Thank you! I used DVD-o-Matic to transcode our midnight screening of Friday the 13th... worked like a charm and even retained the 5.1 audio.
Is there currently any support for Dolby TrueHD and/or DTS-MA? When I ripped the Blu-ray I only extracted the "core" audio so as to not cause issues.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-27-2013, 09:53 AM:
No problem to my knowledge. These things are handled internally by FFMPEG, which is able to deal with TrueHD and DTS HD-MA.
I regularly extract DTS-HD MA for DCP conversions.
- Carsten
Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 10-29-2013, 11:15 PM:
Just finished my first movie using DVD-O-Matic. When ingesting to the Sony 515 it does not show up. Does the drive have to be formatted to EXT2 or EXT3?
Thank you.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 10-29-2013, 11:39 PM:
Don't the DCI specs say that the distribution format for the hard disk be either EXT2 or EXT3? I believe support for others, such as NTFS were hit or miss.
Though if you are using a disk that you've successfully used before, I'd think it's not due to the file system.
Posted by Michael Kurtzke (Member # 7512) on 10-29-2013, 11:50 PM:
quote: Alan Gouger
Just finished my first movie using DVD-O-Matic. When ingesting to the Sony 515 it does not show up. Does the drive have to be formatted to EXT2 or EXT3?
Thank you.
Alan, with our 515's we just use a Western Digital My Passport portable hard drive using the NTFS Format.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-30-2013, 06:39 AM:
The Sony supports NTFS.
Alan, try to copy e.g. a DCP trailer etc. on that same drive and see wether it is visible for ingest. If it is, simply create a short DCP with DVD-o-matic, any video file from the internet. Copy the whole folder of files to the drive. Try of that works. Then go ahead with a full BluRay conversion.
- Carsten
Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 10-30-2013, 03:50 PM:
quote: Michael Kurtzke
Alan, with our 515's we just use a Western Digital My Passport portable hard drive using the NTFS Format.
Just placed an order Ill give this a try. I will follow up.
Thanks all.
Posted by Jordan Older (Member # 7948) on 11-05-2013, 05:09 PM:
I have some questions maybe someone can answer. I'm trying to make the DCP correctly the first time so I don't have to make many trips to the theater to test it.
1) what "format" screen ratio is used to convert a DVD mkv file that is 720:480?
I think the best options are flat without stretch or scope without stretch, but not sure between the two. Does it depend on the type of screen being used? I am planning to project at a Cinemark theater that uses Doremi ShowVault server and Barco projectors.
2) When using dvd-o-matic do I just click "Make DCP" and it does the job or do I have to be playing the video at the same time?
Here are my settings:
http://venturait.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Screenshot-from-2013-11-05-150204.png
3) Do I need to pad the audio with silence to 6 channels like I've read?
http://venturait.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Screenshot-from-2013-11-05-150856.png
4) I'm using a starndard USB thumb drive. Do I format it to ext2 or ext3 for Doremi ShowVault so it will automatically ingest?
Thanks everyone!
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 11-05-2013, 05:26 PM:
quote: Jordan Older
1) what "format" screen ratio is used to convert a DVD mkv file that is 720:480?
What aspect ratio should your file be presented in? Does it need to be stretched from its current 1.5:1 ratio?
quote: Jordan Older
2) When using dvd-o-matic do I just click "Make DCP" and it does the job or do I have to be playing the video at the same time?
Just click "Make DCP" and leave it to its own devices.
quote: Jordan Older
3) Do I need to pad the audio with silence to 6 channels like I've read?
I would suggest doing that, yes. There's almost no disadvantage and it will improve your chances of the DCP working.
quote: Jordan Older
4) I'm using a starndard USB thumb drive. Do I format it to ext2 or ext3 for Doremi ShowVault so it will automatically ingest?
Either should work, but I'd plump for ext3.
Regards
Carl
Posted by Jordan Older (Member # 7948) on 11-05-2013, 05:34 PM:
Thanks Carl.
I'm not sure what the film should be presented in. It's shot in 720:480 based on the DVD I have but there is no option for 1.5:1 in DVD-o-Matic.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-05-2013, 05:38 PM:
NTSC is 720x480 (rounded numbers). Remember, this is an analog thing and we are referring to lines, not pixels so things are NOT linear. It is a 4x3 ratio image. If they were, it would be 640x480.
Posted by Jordan Older (Member # 7948) on 11-05-2013, 05:53 PM:
It's not 4:3, its 1.5:1. It's either scope or flat (not stretched).
I'm not sure what the difference is between scope and flat since I think they are terms left over from analog projection.
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 11-05-2013, 05:59 PM:
quote: Jordan Older
I'm not sure what the film should be presented in. It's shot in 720:480 based on the DVD I have but there is no option for 1.5:1 in DVD-o-Matic.
If you want it to stay in 1.5:1, stick with Flat without stretch in DVD-o-matic. If you don't know what the ratio should be you may need to look at clocks and/or wheels in the image to check that they are circular ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
If it's from DVD there is a reasonable chance that the pixels are not square (i.e. there should be some stretch on playback).
Posted by Jordan Older (Member # 7948) on 11-05-2013, 10:08 PM:
What's the difference between scope and flat?
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 11-06-2013, 03:06 AM:
Flat is 1.85:1, scope is 2.39:1.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-06-2013, 06:08 AM:
DVDs can be a bit of a nuissance. They could be:
'plain' 4:3
4:3 with letterboxed 16:9/BW or CS content (ouch, I have StarWars CS letterboxed in 4:3...)
16:9 'anamorphic' (stretched) with 4:3 pillarboxed, 16:9 'native', or letterboxed BW or CS content. It will usually tell you about the format on the box, but not always. You will have to find out about it yourself.
- Carsten
Posted by Jordan Older (Member # 7948) on 11-06-2013, 01:59 PM:
The DCP preview was looked correct at either scope unstretched or flat unstretched setting in DVD-o-Matic. These settings simply put the DVD vidoe in the center of a black screen. The difference between the two are that the flat seems to be for a more "boxy" 4:3 screen and the scope seems to be for a wider screen. The Cinemark theater that I use has 10 screens and I think that two of the screens have "scope" format and the rest are "flat" but I'll take the DCP I made and test it soon. I did not "pad" the 6 channel audio with silence so we'll see if Doremi ShowVault can handle 2 channel audio. It took about 15 hours to make the DCP in DVD-o-Matic.
BTW, the DCP files total over 80GB for a 2K DVD, is this normal? What kind of hard drives are recommended for this?
Is there a way to remotely transfer (over the Internet) to the ShowVault the file for ingestion into the system at the theater instead of using a USB drive?
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 11-07-2013, 08:44 AM:
quote: Jordan Older
The DCP preview was looked correct at either scope unstretched or flat unstretched setting in DVD-o-Matic. These settings simply put the DVD vidoe in the center of a black screen.
Yes. These options put your image (at its current aspect ratio) in the centre of either a 1.85:1 frame or a 2.39:1 frame.
All projectors will be setup to display 1.85:1 and 2.39:1 frames correctly, since those are the two common ratios for feature films.
quote: Jordan Older
BTW, the DCP files total over 80GB for a 2K DVD, is this normal? What kind of hard drives are recommended for this?
Depends on the J2K bandwidth you chose and the length of the content. At 200MBps the DCP will be about 24Mb per second of content.
quote: Jordan Older
Is there a way to remotely transfer (over the Internet) to the ShowVault the file for ingestion into the system at the theater instead of using a USB drive?
I don't know. You are going to need a fast internet connection to get 80Gb across in any reasonable time.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-07-2013, 10:30 AM:
quote: Jordan Older
The Cinemark theater that I use has 10 screens and I think that two of the screens have "scope" format and the rest are "flat" but I'll take the DCP I made and test it soon.
NO! You do not adjust the aspect ratio to the target screen. The DVD footage has it's own native aspect ratio and you should choose the settings within DVD-o-matic so that exactly this aspect ratio is preserved.
The difference between the common aspect ratios is big enough for you to find out from viewing the intermediate VOB/MTS main feature file on the computer.
DVD image width should be scaled to 1998 pixels, into a flat container, so that if there IS screen masking, it will fit to this common format.
quote: Jordan Older
I did not "pad" the 6 channel audio with silence so we'll see if Doremi ShowVault can handle 2 channel audio. It took about 15 hours to make the DCP in DVD-o-Matic.
Stereo should be technically okay. If there is multitrack audio on the DVD, you should be able to extract that. Stereo is okay for a TV set, but in a cinema environment, it can cause trouble with the dialog. DVD-o-matic has no trouble using multichannel DD/AC-3 or dts audio.
quote: Jordan Older
BTW, the DCP files total over 80GB for a 2K DVD, is this normal? What kind of hard drives are recommended for this?
That's normal. You can use any USB 2.0 drive for the transfer. Depending on your server, it should be self powered, or at least should have a Y-cable for dual-power if it is a USB powered 2.5" drive. Most servers can read NTFS now, which is probably easier to use for you, unless you use LINUX anyway. You mention a ShowVault, that is a Doremi and it can read NTFS.
quote: Jordan Older
Is there a way to remotely transfer (over the Internet) to the ShowVault the file for ingestion into the system at the theater instead of using a USB drive?
Not easily. Trailers are roughly 1-3Gbytes, these can be transfered with DropBox or other similiar tools. But 80GByte is too much for these tools unless you can use a paid/commercial service. Even then it would take quite a while to transfer, depending on your and the cinemas internet connection, the up- and downstreams involved, etc.
If you can't go there yourself, maybe get a large USB-Stick or SSD and send it by mail.
- Carsten
Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 11-27-2013, 01:59 PM:
What does this error mean:
"Could not set content: Cannot handle pixel format 30 during components ()"
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 11-27-2013, 02:39 PM:
quote: Dennis Benjamin
What does this error mean:
"Could not set content: Cannot handle pixel format 30 during components ()"
If you are on DCP-o-matic (rather than DVD-o-matic), upgrade to version 1.28 or higher and it should be fixed.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 11-27-2013, 05:44 PM:
The DCP-o-matic 32-bit deb package for Ubuntu 13.10 has an incorrect dependency.
It depends on "libxmlsec1 (>= 1.2.18-2)" so once I installed that, the package installed.
But running dcpomatic results in...
"dcpomatic: error while loading shared libraries: libxmlsec1-openssl.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
So that tells you it actually depends on the "libxmlsec1-openssl" package.
And installing that package allows it to run.
Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 11-27-2013, 09:07 PM:
Anyone else notice when playing back a ripped Blu-ray thats been converted to a DCP there is a gamma conversion taking place that is visually inaccurate. The playback appears to be a very low gamma 2.0 or even 1.9 using the DCI standard 2.6
I would expect the conversion to land a gamma somewhere between 2.2 and 2.6 but it is going the other direction. Setting up another memory or macro in your projector to counter this the BD looks great.
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 11-28-2013, 08:39 AM:
quote: Chris Slycord
The DCP-o-matic 32-bit deb package for Ubuntu 13.10 has an incorrect dependency.
Thanks, I will fix that.
quote: Alan Gouger
Anyone else notice when playing back a ripped Blu-ray thats been converted to a DCP there is a gamma conversion taking place that is visually inaccurate. The playback appears to be a very low gamma 2.0 or even 1.9 using the DCI standard 2.6
This is with DCP-o-matic? What version? You mean that your conversion came out too bright?
Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 11-28-2013, 11:59 AM:
Hello Carl I just checked and I used DVD-o-matic, version 0.126
it turned out to bright. Should I give DCP-o-matic a try.
I get the same results using Cineasset. The math may not taking into account the difference in source gamma before the conversion.
Thank you.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-29-2013, 06:08 AM:
I had the same issue with a BluRay Conversion with DVD-o-matic, I wrote Carl about it earlier. However, I have seen other conversions from other people without that issue. I still have not found the time to find out what causes this, machine/FFMPEG/OS, or the specific BluRay.
The gamma issue was not subtle - blacks were driven up to greenish blocky gray, blooming dark red, etc. That one DCP I was only able to play with a custom projector setting (reduced brightness a lot). No, it was not a missing xyz conversion, the colour balance was okay.
I need to spend some more time on this.
- Carsten
Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 12-02-2013, 11:24 PM:
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.
Posted by Jordan Older (Member # 7948) on 12-03-2013, 09:01 PM:
I'm converting a .mov file 1920x1080 into a DCP. The ratio is 1.78:1 so which format in DVD-o-Matic do I select? Also, does DVD-o-Matic accept .mov or do I need to convert it to mkv with HandBrake first?
I'm going to use 16:9 since it matches.
I'm still a little confused on the JPEG2000 bandwidth setting. What value do I enter to create the best quality DCP?
Thanks everyone!
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 12-04-2013, 03:21 AM:
quote: Jordan Older
I'm converting a .mov file 1920x1080 into a DCP. The ratio is 1.78:1 so which format in DVD-o-Matic do I select? Also, does DVD-o-Matic accept .mov or do I need to convert it to mkv with HandBrake first?
DVD-o-matic will accept .mov. I would use "16:9 within Flat", though 16:9 will probably work fine.
quote: Jordan Older
I'm still a little confused on the JPEG2000 bandwidth setting. What value do I enter to create the best quality DCP?
Empirical evidence suggests that you won't notice any difference between 50 and 250MBps, so I would suggest 50Mbps.
Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 12-05-2013, 02:39 PM:
I've noticed that when converting a DVD with a film source, I'm not able to get an inverse telecine. Is there any way to do this, or is this in the development plans?
Note that I'm talking about a DVD (29.97) that has progressive film frames within the video (23.976). The only way I've been able to convert these is to leave the output set at 30 fps, and it looks like there's just extra frames present, creating a bit of a choppy look.
I'm sure I could take the DVD's MKV file and convert to 23.976 in another piece of software beforehand, but that would be even more time-consuming and prone to quality loss.
Thanks for any ideas!
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 12-05-2013, 02:53 PM:
Not currently. DVD-o-matic, however uses FFMPEG for image processing, and recent versions of FFMPEG offer inverse telecine, so, basically, it could be implemented I guess.
- Carsten
Posted by Jordan Older (Member # 7948) on 12-05-2013, 04:10 PM:
Why is 16:9 within flat better than just 16:9?
I've formatted a WD Passport 1TB USB hard drive ext3 and copied the DCP folder to the drive. Is the lost and found folder OK to keep on the drive? Is the DCP supposed to be inside a folder on the USB drive or in the root directory of the drive?
Is this how the folders should look? (image below)
http://venturait.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/dcp.png
Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 12-06-2013, 04:45 AM:
Ideally the DCP folder that DVD-o-Matic creates (not the one you manually created) should be in the root directory of your hard drive. However, your server will probably find it either way... I'm sure this is dependent on your server brand and software version. Other extra folders and files shouldn't pose an issue, but again, I'd keep it simple if possible.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 12-06-2013, 06:47 AM:
quote: Jordan Older
Why is 16:9 within flat better than just 16:9?
Look at the target resolution/container created with the settings.
Stick to the commonly used DCI containers, in this case, 16:9 would create a 1920*1080 container (not to DCI spec), while 16:9 within flat would create a proper 1998*1080 flat container.
If this is only for your own server or the same server everytime, NTFS will probably do just as well, as most servers nowadays can read NTFS. If you're coming from a Windows system, this is easier and safer. Folders are no problem.
- Carsten
Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 12-08-2013, 05:21 AM:
quote: Carsten Kurz
Not currently. DVD-o-matic, however uses FFMPEG for image processing, and recent versions of FFMPEG offer inverse telecine, so, basically, it could be implemented I guess.
Others may let me know if they disagree, but I think it would be very handy! The way I see it - the vast majority of DVD's out there are film speed based, it would be beneficial, especially on the big screen... if one MUST run a DVD source, it helps a lot for the motion to be smooth.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 12-08-2013, 10:58 AM:
I absolutely agree. The DVD to DCP conversion I've personally seen was heavily marred by the lack of fluidity of motion since the DVD was at 29.97Hz from a 24fps source and was then converted to DCP at 30fps. Furthermore, I would think the file size and rendering time would drop by almost 25% since those frames would not need to be rendered.
Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 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.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 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.
Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 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.
Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 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]](frown.gif)
Posted by Donnacha Kenny (Member # 6371) on 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!
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 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
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 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.
Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 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.
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 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
Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 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.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 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.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 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.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 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.
Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 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.
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 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...
Posted by Donnacha Kenny (Member # 6371) on 09-23-2014, 07:51 PM:
Steve, I've appreciated your expertise over the last while whenever I've checked this site for assistance, so I know you'll understand my post was not designed to indicate that a 1080p Blu-ray was the equal to DCP just because it had comparable resolution, just to indicate that in the past I've been quite happy with the results.
I happen to agree with your assessment of some older-flick DCPs. The Ghostbusters re-release, for example, is particularly galling; the current re-release scarcely looks better than the 2K version they released in 2011 (when they had the recurring Thursday shows in October), and even back then I was disappointed to see it bested by a Blu-ray of The Exorcist playing in the next auditorium.
Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 10-10-2014, 03:12 PM:
DCP-O-Matic question... are there any plans to implement any type of simple "matrix" audio feature? When I convert content that's 2.0 stereo, it would be nice to have the option to have a PLII-style matrixing feature so I'm not limited to only having audio come out of the L/R stage speakers. Unless I'm missing something?
Posted by Steve Matz (Member # 1890) on 10-10-2014, 03:44 PM:
Something I'm not following here because Digital is something I never Dealt with Theatrical Wise. You Theater Owners say you are converting Blu-Ray Discs to DCP for Showings in your theaters. I assume you purchased these Blu-Rays from a Retailier/Wholesaler like most consumers. Do you then have to pay a licensing Fee to the Film Studio/Distributor for these showings. I thought when you bought a VHS Tape,DVD,Blueray Disc that they were for Non-Commercial Use Only. Can someone Fill me in on this Process of who gets Paid for this type conversion... ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-10-2014, 04:12 PM:
The studios do get their money. Honestly, sometimes the studios, for classics where they don't have a DCP available, tell the theatres to run a BluRay. They just want the money.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-10-2014, 05:23 PM:
Nobody gets paid for doing the conversion. It's simply to make a BluRay easier to run (you can just add it to the playlist with everything else). To run it legally for an audience you still have to license it just like any other movie. (It's pure profit for the studios and their prices are ridiculous.)
Posted by Steve Matz (Member # 1890) on 10-10-2014, 09:01 PM:
LUCKY STUDIOS!....I knew there would be easy money involved here for them!
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-11-2014, 05:20 PM:
quote: Mark Strube
DCP-O-Matic question... are there any plans to implement any type of simple "matrix" audio feature?
It's in the inofficial 2.x version, but still quite rudimentary. I've had excellent results with the Neo:6 implementation in our Datasat AP20 - but that works only realtime. There once was a 'free' Neo:6 coming with a range of creative soundblaster soundcards, which could be used for offline encoding.
There are a lot of 'cheap' attempts to do this, but most of them sound rather unconvincing and produce strange artifacts. In most cases, a decent center generation is sufficient, though.
If this is for your own cinema, you may find a way to activate matrix decoding on the first two DCI LPCM channels - some processors allow to do this. An alternative way is to split the AES/EBU signal of the first AES-pair to S/P-DIF and route it in parallel to a digital non-sync input of that same processor - these sometimes offer matrix or PLII decoding. Then you would have a separate preset/format for DCI+matrix.
I heard that recent versions of Adobe Audition offer upmix options, but haven't looked into it yet.
Other than that, software for good upmixing from stereo to 5.1/7.1 is quite expensive.
- Carsten
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-22-2014, 11:35 PM:
Alright...I'm giving a BD to DCP conversion another go with pedestrian equipment. I have an Lenovo Thinkpad W520 with an i7 quad-core and an old 1st gen iMac Intel Core 2 duo networked.
I think I read somewhere that one should set the thread count to match the core count. However, on the Master (for this the Lenovo with the i7)...should I set the thread count to 6 (the total number of threads) or to 4? The iMac definitely is only processing 2-threads (says so in the terminal screen since that is what I set it to ask for).
Can I set the thread count higher/lower on either to get a faster transfer rate? For this DCP...it is running at about 2.7fps.
Can you change the thread count mid conversion?
If you "cancel" make changes and start again...will it find where it left off and then start up from there or are you back to square one?
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-23-2014, 02:31 PM:
As a matter of fact, some 'overthreading' will give slightly better performance. On a 4core i7 HT machine, choosing 12 to 16 threads will yield best performance.
This will only work on 64Bit operating systems - 32Bit windows versions will usually crash with too many threads configured.
No, you can't adjust the number of encoding threads during an encoding. However, you could kill a remote encode server any time during the transcode job and restart it with different settings.
You can use an iMac as a remote encode server for a WIN machine, just make sure you run the same version of DCP-o-matic on both machines. There have been quite a few changes in the encoding pipeline recently and it is important that master and remote match.
The remote encode server on the Mac does not yet have a nice GUI version, you have to launch terminal and start it with
cd /Applications/DCP-o-matic.app/Contents/MacOS
./dcpomatic_server_cli
The iMac is probably an i5 machine without HT, and DCP-o-matic will choose the best thread setting automatically, which is 4.
- Carsten
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-23-2014, 02:34 PM:
Yeah, the Win 7 machine is 64-bit. So when choosing the thread count on the host machine...do you select the TOTAL number of threads (local + remote) or just the local number of threads?
I limited the number of threads on iMAC to 2 with the following line:
cd /Applications/DCP-o-matic.app/Contents/MacOS ./dcpomatic_server_cli --threads 2 --verbose
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-23-2014, 02:36 PM:
Only the number of local compute threads. The external machine will use it's own local setting. It's a 'one J2k frame per thread' distribution scheme. The master will try to keep all local and remote encoding threads busy with images for encoding.
- Carsten
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-23-2014, 02:40 PM:
What happens if you stop and restart? Will it pick up where it left off? Or are you back to square-1?
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 11-23-2014, 02:45 PM:
The remote machine can be killed any time - the master will notice it missing - it will notice the frame it sent did not come back encoded (timeout) and will reissue it to another thread. You can add or kill remote machines any time during an encoding.
The Master can be stopped as well. I keeps track of all encoded frames and will pick up where you stopped - unless you changed parameters around the image encoding, frame rate, etc. In that case, it will notice an essential change and create a new DCP with a new image file from scratch.
- Carsten
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-23-2014, 02:50 PM:
Thanks so much...this has been quite helpful.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-26-2014, 08:41 PM:
On my second go around with the same equipment...making the changes you suggested...my speed went up by 22%, on average. Thanks again.
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2