Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Why did I receive two sets of KDMs?

This is topic Why did I receive two sets of KDMs? in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-06-2014, 12:24 PM:

So we're playing Mr. Peabody this weekend. On Tuesday I got 18 KDMs....(we've been down that stupid road before). Anyway I narrowed it down to the 2 we need, ingested them last night and this morning I got ANOTHER set of 18 KDMs.

WTF? Why do they do this? It's not the first time it's happened and I can't see any problems with the original ones.

Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 03-06-2014, 02:32 PM:

Looks to be everything from Fox that got sent again, not just Peabody. I see new Son of God keys in my email as well. This seems to happen a lot with a handful of Deluxe-distributed studios, but I don't know why. I occasionally see it with Technicolor too though. Very strange. Doesn't it cost a semi-significant chunk of change to generate and distribute keys?

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 03-06-2014, 02:50 PM:

I got a second set for Peabody as well, but not Son of God. I wonder if Deluxe received too many phone calls from theatres saying they didn't receive the keys, so they just retransmitted to everyone.

On the flip side, I nearly missed the keys for 300 since they sent all 6 versions in one email with a single zip file.

Posted by John Roddy (Member # 7348) on 03-06-2014, 02:59 PM:

The Son of God keys I received are for the Spanish version, and they're only good for one week at a time. I guess the more accurate claim would be that any Fox key generated for a run beginning on Friday was sent out again today.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-06-2014, 03:11 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
I nearly missed the keys for 300 since they sent all 6 versions in one email with a single zip file

That's happpened here too. I sure wish they would pick one system and stick to it. Of course then a lot of "help line" people might lose their jobs, so....

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 03-06-2014, 03:12 PM:

It must be the phase of the moon or something. [Confused]

I got 4 identical sets of keys on 2 different days for my press
screenings of "Jorodowski's Dune" and "Grand Budapest Hotel"
this week.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 03-06-2014, 06:32 PM:

Yeah I just got keys that had attached files I was urged to rename from .zzz to .zip and then un zip them before ingestion?
Why? [Mad]

I have 500 other things to do!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-06-2014, 07:55 PM:

Another half-baked "security measure" maybe?

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 03-06-2014, 08:49 PM:

Some of the webmail services (gmail?) don't allow .zip file attachments as a half-baked measure to avoid passing along Microsoft Windows viruses.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 03-06-2014, 09:12 PM:

Thanks Frank,that makes sense.

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 03-07-2014, 10:07 AM:

I got the same set of duplicate keys for Mr. Peabody & Sherman. When in doubt, just download your keys from foxkeys.com. The paperwork enclosed with the drives includes the username and password to access your keys.

Posted by Andrew Thomas (Member # 7000) on 03-08-2014, 02:38 PM:

Yeah, my wife saw my cell phone explode with Peabody and Son of God e-mail alerts. I got to explain to her the ridiculous "key for every possible variant" approach.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-10-2014, 08:30 AM:

If they're going to send out all the keys anyway, why bother with a jillion different keys? Why not just have one key that unlocks every version?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-10-2014, 08:46 AM:

I think that's not possible with a single KDM. One KDM file per CPL.

- Carsten

Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 03-11-2014, 11:37 AM:

Mike, a KDM unlocks a specific file to a specific projector, so the name of the file needs to include info like whether or not the file is in 2D or 3D, in 5.1 or 7.1 or 11.1 or 8,589,934,592.1 and such. If that information was missing from the title of the movie an otherwise "less aware" "projectionist-type" "person" would likely program the wrong file to the wrong projector.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-11-2014, 05:17 PM:

OK, noted. I guess I did realize that, but didn't know that it was required.

Posted by Andrew Thomas (Member # 7000) on 03-11-2014, 11:43 PM:

They could easily make a system in which a single KDM unlocked each version of the content for any projector/server in the building.

They could also easily implement a system in which your system configuration could be shown to the server and the server automatically pick which version to play, all while having the ability to manually change any specifics that are needed.

But that would be too simple [Razz]

I really feel sorry for my friends in the business that did not grow up with computers as I have to believe this silly system is 10 million times more frustrating to them!

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-12-2014, 06:19 AM:

True. The number of best guesses as to which CPL to ingest, where to find it after the ingest (PKG_...) is so retro... And then recently we receive more and more KDMs without a clear reference to the CPL they are issued for in their filename.

A CPL like 'AmericanHustle_FTR2_DEXX_DE_51_4K_TOBIS_20140122_DXT' may be tied to one of three KDMs like:'<your-theater-name-here>_1100047_572322.kdm.xml'
within a folder '551056a7-ea98-4f51-8c2e-5558a4feda31'
within a ZIP file '551056a7-ea98-4f51-8c2e-5558a4feda31'

Well, no problem to simply ingest all three keys. But how do you communicate to those poor guys that it is essential to ingest to 'right' KDM when in some situations you tell them 'just ingest them all'... Just imagine you would have to tell them to open every KDM in an editor and look for the specific CPL it unlocks...

- Carsten

Posted by Vegard Olsen (Member # 8102) on 03-15-2014, 08:23 AM:

Ingest everything, play whatever unlocks. [beer]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-15-2014, 10:30 AM:

You can't do that if you get keys for every version.