Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Lack of proper trailers.

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-22-2015, 04:43 PM:

It seems to be increasingly common that when we book a film, particularly from the smaller distributors, no proper trailer is available, and we get pointed to something on Vimeo or Youtube, and we have to download the best that there is, usually 720p but sometimes 1080p, and build our own from that. I have just had to do that for two of our nine August films.

We get sent dozens of download links to trailers for films which we don't want, and are never going to show, but often can't get the ones for the films which we will be showing. The trailers obviously exist, or they couldn't be on Vimeo, Youtube, HD Trailers etc., so why are proper copies not being made available to cinemas which are actually showing the films?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-22-2015, 06:27 PM:

Maybe just start a thread on specific trailers and see what comes out. Could become a new category on film-tech.

We have about a dozen locations to download DCP trailers from in germany. Some offer english language trailers, too.
Some of these locations are studio sites, some are smaller distributors, some seem to be unrelated to any studio or distributor, but collect very many official DCP trailers for download. The larger mastering and service companies send out emails with links to their trailers, so, most of them time, the search starts within our email program.

There is also a german forum with a 'trailer' subcategory where projectionist can ask for specific trailers.

- Carsten

Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 06-22-2015, 11:05 PM:

This sounds interesting. Is this something accessible from the USA? We get the typical Technicolor/Deluxe trailer drive, but it would be nice to have access to DCP trailers for older releases.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-23-2015, 05:21 AM:

I guess the existence of the trailer drives in the US make it unattractive to establish a different distribution mechanism.

I am a regular reader of Cinema Technology Magazine, which is UK/IR oriented, but I think I never read something in it regarding trailer sourcing.

I don't know how some of these german sites would deal with international requests. Download of DCP Trailers is still expensive I guess, so the registration may not be granted.

We do get the occasional trailer on the distribution drives, but in general, all DCP trailers nowadays are IP downloads in germany.

- Carsten

Posted by Burleigh Ibbott (Member # 3917) on 06-23-2015, 08:47 AM:

Yes I found that too with art House films and even if i go to the distributer it takes ages for it to arrive. tailerloop.de has loads but they are in German. manage to find Leviathan dcp trailer on the http://www.academytwo.it website but they are limited on what they are showing. Any new list will be great on here.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-23-2015, 11:39 AM:

There is https://directcinema.eu/

That is dcinex/YMAGIS, so, basically, a pan-european company. But I don't know how they handle registration requests now.

- Carsten

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-23-2015, 04:06 PM:

Our trailers come from various places. Our booker always asks for a quad (poster) and trailer when he books a film. The majority of distributors seem to use the MPS site, they just put them on the trailers page in our exhibitor's portal, and the link seems to stay there permanently; some have certainly been there for well over a year. We get an e-mail telling us that it's been put there for us, but about 80% of the ones we are sent are for films which we are never going to show. The site also needs to have Aspera Connect software installed on the client to be able to download. This seems to work well, it is possible to pause and resume a download, or re-start if something goes wrong, and to throttle the throughput if needed. The only real problem is that it uses some non-standard ports, which can be a problem if you're behind a firewall which you don't have control over.

The next most common, which several distributors use is 'Mel', don't know what it stands for, from Soho. There are sections called 'Trailer Park' for err trailers, and 'Screenfast' for features, come back to that later. Trailers which are posted here don't seem to stay there very long, but we do get sent a e-mail notification, it doesn't use any special ports, and we don't get sent lots of junk which we don't want.

Several distributors have used their own download sites in the past, and one just sent us the IP address of a FTP server, and didn't even give us the names of the files, we had to open a FTP session, change into the appropriate directory folder, do a ls to find the files, change to binary mode, and then FTP them over. Probably enough bother to put some people off doing it. These 'do it yourself' systems seem to be dying out.

We still occasionally get sent trailers on DVD-ROMs; MPS don't want theirs back, but some others do. This is a bit of a pain, because the DVD drive was removed from our server when it was re-installed and the hard disks were moved to a vertical position for some reason.

We also get sent USB sticks from Deluxe and Technicolor, almost all of which are for trailers which we don't want which is particularly annoying because both want them back, so I have to spend time and money to take them to the post office and send them back, when we never wanted them in the first place.

We eventually get most of our trailers by one of these methods, but the two out of nine in August for which we are offered a link to Vimeo or Youtube, or just have to find something ourselves, is fairly typical.

We were offered one feature, 'White Bird in a Blizzard', by download from Screenfast, but had to decline the offer as the only Internet connection available was just too slow, but we now have about 17.5 Mb/s available, so we're going to give it a try with 'The Goob' at the end of July. I'm also hoping to get a visit to Imperial College soon to have a look at their Lansat box.

We have been sent one feature so far on a USB stick, and a few on small 'pocket' USB disks, mainly ones which have been sent from abroad. For some reason Toshiba ones seem to refuse to mount on our server, it's not a power problem, and we have to copy the files to another disk on a laptop first.

It does seem ridiculous that today we still have to use a courier to deliver, and collect, large boxes, some of which are just cardboard or thin plastic, and give almost no protection to the contents.

Posted by Steve Moore (Member # 4753) on 06-23-2015, 06:03 PM:

Stephen, I feel your pain. I too have a great deal of issues getting the correct trailers and quads for titles we actually play. I have so many copies sent of quads and trailers for films we will most probably never play and struggle beyond belief to get them for what we will (even Minions Quads were near on impossible and I had to print out colour A3 ones). I often presume priority is given to the megaplex over an independent; however you would think in this modern digital age, a trailer would be a doddle.

As for the MPS download system here in the UK which works great, the problem is that those trailers are generally the same ones I get through the post too, It's the ones that are not on there to download that I also can't get delivered.

The idea of having a thread to perhaps exchange surplus stock between people would be a great idea!

Posted by Paul Willmott (Member # 3904) on 06-30-2015, 02:54 AM:

It's the same with us at Saffron Screen. We use Lansat which means we get a lot of our trailers automatically sent to us but it still only accounts for about 50%. The rest are on DVD or USB sticks or the occasional direct link. On average I'd say we go to Youtube for about 20-25% of our trailers which takes extra time converting to DCP.

Stephen - if you want to see the Lansat you are welcome to come to see us anytime.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-30-2015, 09:31 AM:

Paul, I'd be interested, bur are you near to public transport; I don't drive?

Are you using the LANSAT with Lan or Sat, or both?

Posted by Paul Willmott (Member # 3904) on 07-01-2015, 06:48 AM:

We use Lansat for both DCP deliveries and satellite broadcasts. A few minor niggles but generally it works really well.

We are in Saffron Walden, the nearest station being Audley End - PM me if you want to arrange a visit.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-01-2015, 01:46 PM:

I think it's pretty ridiculous for any movie production or movie distributor to expect a theater operator to grab a trailer off public video clip sites like YouTube and Vimeo.

First of all the clips are in consumer level resolutions, not d-cinema settings like 1998 X 1080 or 2048 X 858.

In the case of YouTube they're constantly changing the methods in how the video is streamed as a means of breaking browser plug-ins designed for downloading clips from YouTube. Even if the plug in works the snagged video may be no better than 720p since YouTube does some complex things to videos in settings of 1080p or higher.

What really sucks about the video sharing sites is dozens of redundant copies of the same clip may be uploaded by different people, and re-encoded when they're re-uploaded. A MP4 video file encoded from an uncompressed source is already going to be severely data compressed and show at least some visual flaws.

When some idiot takes that already lossy compressed video file and re-uploads it as a "me too" post (to get more traffic to his YouTube page) the end results of that look horrible. It's pretty easy to tell when a video clip has been encoded and re-encoded 2 or more times. YouTube apparently has little if any way to clean house and get rid of all the needless bandwidth hogging me too bullshit posts from people.

Overall this movie trailer thing is just another example of how movie production companies and distributors need to be getting input from movie theaters on how to get this stuff done right. Telling a theater manager to snag a trailer off YouTube is unconscionable.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 07-02-2015, 04:12 AM:

quote: Carsten Kurz
There is https://directcinema.eu/

That is dcinex/YMAGIS, so, basically, a pan-european company. But I don't know how they handle registration requests now.

You need to be a "European" corporation to register, but YMAGIS just recently announced they're also starting DirectCinema content delivery operations in North America.

I really don't understand why those independent publishers often screw up with their trailers. If you don't want to setup your own infrastructure, why not use one of the many on-line file sharing services availabe?

quote: Stephen Furley
Several distributors have used their own download sites in the past, and one just sent us the IP address of a FTP server, and didn't even give us the names of the files, we had to open a FTP session, change into the appropriate directory folder, do a ls to find the files, change to binary mode, and then FTP them over. Probably enough bother to put some people off doing it. These 'do it yourself' systems seem to be dying out.

FTP is still a great way to transfer files, if you ask me, still the best and it's a non-vendor specific protocol... Why don't you use a proper FTP client like FileZilla, to make your life easier? No need to manually switch to "passive" or "binary" mode, just drag-and-drop.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-17-2015, 04:13 AM:

quote: Paul Willmott
Stephen - if you want to see the Lansat you are welcome to come to see us anytime.

Paul, I sent you a private message, I think on 1st July, but have not had a reply; did you receive it?

I also need to contact you urgently about a film which we have received, but when I tried to e-mail you via Film-Tech messages to your address are being blocked.

The e-mail address which I had registered with Film-Tech was an old one which was no longer valid, but I have now corrected this. Would you please contact me, by e-mail or private message as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Posted by Paul Willmott (Member # 3904) on 07-17-2015, 05:28 AM:

Hi Stephen

I have PM'd you but an error was reported. Try looking up our website and emailing the general info address.

Paul

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-17-2015, 08:23 AM:

Paul, e-mail sent to the info address and marked urgent and for your attention.