Keys that expire too soon

[Peter Mork]

I'm sure you're right, in particular about Deluxe having their hands tied. I guess I'll stop whining then. I had hoped someone had a better answer than it's never their problem, always yours.
I will continue to make the owner aware when these things happen, hope he stays on top of it going forward.

[Carsten Kurz]

We use a spreadsheet to keep track of your schedules, DCPs, KDMs, OneSheets, etc. ordered, received, ingested, etc.
When we noticed that one particular distributor often missed to send KDMs to us in time, we set our spreadsheet formatting so that everytime a title was booked from this distributor, the whole line came up in red and included an extra notice 'Attention KDM!' We had the same issue with them as you - complaining didn't solve the issue. So we solved it by ourselves by paying a little bit of extra attention.

The week runtime is probably simply a default that this distributor has set. I would assume that in order to solve this issue, they would have to add 1 or 2 days to their default 7 day KDM window. Won't happen. If their KDM management system allows to have profiles with different validity times (sometimes we do get KDMs for single showings that are only valid for one day), they may be able to create a 'preview profile' which may add one or two days. That profile still has to be activated/used by the distributor staff.

Whatever - I guess you need to talk about this with that specific distributor about your default KDM validity time, not with Deluxe. They always told me that they don't decide about KDM transmission time and validity windows, it's the distributors that do.

[Peter Mork]

You mean the studios? (Meaning for example Universal, as opposed to people sending out the packages meaning Deluxe.)

[Carsten Kurz]

Yes, probably in most cases for you, the studios. We learned that nowadays, KDMs are usually issued by your booking contact, and they choose the validity window. Not always actively, as they probably use standard default windows without much thinking. Deluxe is usually not involved in the validity details.

[Jim Cassedy]

The problem I've had with KDM's recently is that somebody, somewhere at the KDM factory doesn't understand
24hour clock time. I naively assumed this was all taken care of by computer, for the chronographically challenged,
but maybe not so. I do a lot of pre-release press & industry screenings. Most of my KDM's are good for 12hours
or less, and some are only good for a 2hour show window. I recently had a trade screening of an unreleased film
that was supposed to start at noon. The KDM they gave me expired at 11:59am (or 1 minute before the screening)
instead of 23:59 that evening. It caught me totally by surprise, since at 11:57, I walked out into the lobby to check
with the studio rep to see if they wanted to start on time, or wait a few minutes for late-comers. We decided to go
"on time" and just as I was about to hit the [PLAY'] Button at noon, my CPL turned red & I got a big "KDM EXPIRED"
message. I was kicking myself, metaphorically speaking, for not catching that mistake because I use 24hr timekeeping
daily. All my clocks at home, my phone, and my watch are all set to display 24hr time. So I should have caught that
error. It took me 40min to get a new key issued, because the 1st (or actually the 2nd) one they issued was for the
"release" version, and not the "preview" version I was screening. Because 99% of the shows I do at that location are
'one off' specially booked shows, I routinely ignore the "KDM EXPIRING SOON" messages on the serverthinghy
because ALL the KDM's I get usually expire expire in 12hrs or less. Today, I caught another KDM time error for a
show Im doing later this week. It's a single screening in the early afternoon,(on Feb 10th, lets say) and when I
was looking at the KDM, I realized it was set to expire at 4AM (0400) on the 10th, instead of 1600 on the 10th,
which is about when said show would be ending. I got a properly timed KDM re-issued, but I'm still trying to figure
out if these 'timing errors' are a fault of DeLuxe, or of the person who did the booking.
Either way- - if the show doesn't happen, I'm the one who gets the blame.

[Peter Mork]

So a stopped clock at your house is only right once a day, eh?
It took me a while to get used to 16:00 means 4 pm but I did it.

[Peter Mork]

One thing that has at least been helpful is having a theater management system (ours is by GDC) that keeps tabs on when your current keys expire, so when you set up an automated schedule for days in advance, you can look ahead and any shows which will be unplayable show up as bright red. This saves you having to squint at tiny "Valid Between" numbers on a screen and trying to pick information out of strings of code.

Right now, Sing 2 on Wed. and Thurs. are red-flagged. Dave, who has to deal with mid-week stuff, has kept on top of it after the first week (or if he hasn't, I haven't heard about it), but when the next Sing 2 comes along the pain will no doubt return.