Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Christie Solaria not recognizing DCP

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Posted by Rachael Barbash (Member # 5158) on 03-29-2018, 01:24 PM:

For the next few weeks I'm working at a film festival with two types of projectors, mostly Christie Solarias with IMB and one Christie CP2000 with a GDC server.

I am not very familiar with either of these systems. One of our films cannot be recognized by the Solarias at all but the GDC recognizes it and ingests it just fine.

I was looking at the file and it has 10 .mxf files instead of the normal 2 - I was told that the film is split into separate reels inside of the DCP folder which I've never seen before but I am not sure if that's the issue.

Here's what the file looks like: https://imgur.com/a/J3OoQ

Has anyone been able to troubleshoot something like this before?

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 03-29-2018, 01:35 PM:

I have no experience with the Christie IMB, so I can't help you there, but multiple video and audio .mxf files to correspond to "reels" is definitely normal.

Posted by Rachael Barbash (Member # 5158) on 03-29-2018, 01:44 PM:

Thanks Ken, that's good to know. So there's some other issue.

The Christies I normally work with use Doremi/Dolby servers so I'm not too familiar with the IMB either. In the past I've definitely had files that GDC won't recognize so it's interesting/frustrating that this is working the other way around.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 03-29-2018, 02:02 PM:

It may have something to do with the way the drive is formatted. That has been an issue with just about every server at some point. I do not know what file systems the Christie supports. Is there other content on the drive that the Christie will recognize? You might try using a computer to copy the content in question to another drive that you know works.

Posted by Rachael Barbash (Member # 5158) on 03-29-2018, 02:08 PM:

Yes, there are other files on the drive that it recognizes. Even so, I am still moving it to it's own drive to test when I am back at the theater in the morning.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 03-29-2018, 02:43 PM:

If the Christie will recognize other DCP's on the same drive, then the drive is not likely to be the fault. Hopefully someone else with more experience in this area will chime in.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-29-2018, 03:44 PM:

I guess that's pretty normal to experience during a festival, you get DCPs from very different sources, from professionally mastered to D.I.Y.

From the directory listing, it is impossible to say what could be the reason, but the reel splitting as such is no problem.

I guess, with IMB you mean the Christie IMB-S2?

If you are a bit tech savvy and willing to spend some time on understanding and solving the problem, you could try to test this DCP with DCP-o-matic, and, if possible, rewrap it (load DCP, Make DCP). I hope it is unencrypted? DCP-o-matic player in latest test version (2.13.9) has a basic data integrity check function (hash check).

The VLC icons in your directory listing tells me that you were able to mount the drive on an ordinary computer - is that drive NTFS formatted, or does this computer have an ext2/3 disc reader software installed (Paragon, or OS X fuse/fuse-ext)? Judging from the screenshot, it appears to be a Mac.

Some servers offer an export function for DCPs, in some cases, exporting it from a server that previously ingested it okay may also cure the issue.

Does the IMB see this DCP/folder, but refuse to ingest, or does it even fail to see it on the drive? While it does ingest on another server, this is not a strict evidence that the DCP is okay - it may have a formal error that the GDC simply ignores.

- Carsten

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-29-2018, 07:21 PM:

quote: Ken Lackner
You might try using a computer to copy the content in question to another drive that you know works.

The computer will have to be able to read the partition table and volume format in use by the suspect drive.

A Windows or Mac PC will not be able to read the volume formats approved by ISDCF for use in DCP distribution media (Linux ext2 and ext3), without additional software being installed first. A computer running a desktop Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu or CentOS) will, and can easily be made to read FAT, NTFS and HFS/HFS+, too.

From Rachael's description, my guess would be that this is an NTFS or HFS+ drive, and/or has a GPT partition table, EFI partitions on the start, or something of that sort. One of the servers she's tried includes support for the noncompliant drive, but the GDC doesn't.

Another thing to try would be to ingest it into the server that will take it, and then FTP it across into the one that won't. Copying stuff from a DSS200 into an Alchemy saved my bacon at several festivals in my last job, thanks to exFAT. The MacOS formatting utility describes exFAT as being compatible with all computers (or some such wording). Yes, Windows will read it, but many DCP servers won't, including the Alchemy. The DSS200 will (assuming it's on a software version after support was added), which enabled me to ingest the end result of a DIY DCP maker who formatted a USB drive as exFAT and then copied DCP files onto it.