Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: ISDCF code for multi-language audio but single-language subtitles?

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-29-2016, 08:24 PM:

quote: ISDCF guidelines
Occasionally, Digital Cinema Packages will have two subtitle languages.

Example: GSW-FR-IT

(Swiss German audio with French and Italian subtitles.)

Are you supposed to use the same syntax to describe a DCP with dialogue in multiple languages, with the dialogue in language B subtitled in language A only?

I am making a DCP of a movie that contains both English and Japanese dialogue (mainly English, with one or two scenes in Japanese); the English dialogue is unsubtitled, but the Japanese is subtitled (burnt-in) in English. Therefore, would I use the subtitle tag EN-JA-en ?

I can't find any guidelines for this situation on the ISDCF site.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 07-30-2016, 06:19 AM:

I would simply assume one language to be dominant (in this case, EN).
DCNC is not meant to indicate every possible aspect of CPLs. It is not meant to illustrate what the movie is being made of, but to allow to discern different versions to suit the audience/presentation. If there is only this single version, it doesn't make sense to split hairs.

I could easily think of movies with three or more different languages spoken in it. Doesn't make sense to indicate them all.

Yes, the Swiss routinely have two subtitle languages on screen at one time.

- Carsten

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-30-2016, 10:01 AM:

Actually, indicating a situation like this in the DCP name makes a lot of sense. It would appear that the presentation problems at The Infiltrator's premiere could have happened partly because a small proportion of the movie was subtitled foreign language, but not most of it. Therefore, a DCP name which tells the projectionist that (s)he needs to check for subtitles present and displaying in some, but not all, of the footage would seem to be to be an important safeguard.

I can't see any way of doing it without introducing another separation character (to avoid ambiguity with the existing double subtitle code), though, e.g. "EN-XX+JA-en").

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 07-30-2016, 02:43 PM:

I've been working at a big Japanese film festival all week and I had a
title last week that had 3 spoken languages and two sets of subtitles-
one of them "burned in" and the other locally generated.

It took me a minute or two to figure out the CPL when I first saw it.

I should have taken a picture. I know that title has been deleted
from the digitalcinemaserverthingy due to space limitations (I have
a 5 1/2 hour feature - - with a friggn' Q&A after to do tomorrow)but
if the hard drive hasn't been shipped out yet, I'll see if I can get a
shot of what the CPL name looked like.

But I agree with Carsten- - I don't know if it's practical to list
"everything" in the CPL name if dealing with multiples of languages
and subtitles.

(Is there a maximum point where the name string gets so long
that a server will 'choke' on it?)

Posted by Leslie Hartmier (Member # 7053) on 08-02-2016, 07:19 PM:

Yes indeed. Linux, including EXT4, has a maximum filename length of 255 bytes, including the delimiter. In essence, 255 characters, but linux does not require that the filename ONLY be characters, so you could call something #$&%!©¿.mp4 (strictly stated, only NUL is off limits), and it wouldn't care.

As for the maximum path name, there is no set limit other than, 'Don't be ludicrous.'

In other words, they can be a lot longer than they are, although screen resolution would be more of a limiter than the filename.

If I had to complain about something, it would be the set resolution that most machines are at - with the names of the content being what they are, the server resolutions are a pain.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 08-04-2016, 04:09 PM:

There is an ISDCF recommendation for path lengths of max 200 characters. DCI uses ext2/3, but there are other limitations if you view the DCI ecosystem and practical considerations as a whole.

- Carsten