dcp_inspect on Mac OS X?

[Jonathan Greer]

Hello all,

Having a lot of time on my hands and a couple of laptops I finally got around to installing the program dcp_inspect on ubuntu and tried it out a bit.

Just wondering if it's possible to install this on recent Mac OS Xs? I found this thread https://github.com/wolfgangw/backpor...mment-68636021 from a while back on how to install it on Yosemite but I haven't been able to get it to work on this laptop (running High Sierra).

[Carsten Kurz]

I can only suggest to contact Wolfgang Woehl directly. As far as I know, he is (or was) running dcp_inspect on Macs himself, so he may help you with the installation.

[Jonathan Greer]

Very sensible! I contacted Wolfgang and he responded

"About dcp_inspect on MacOS: no reason it should not install/run on recent MacOS. I developed it mainly on a Mac. My current OS version is Mojave (10.14) and dcp_inspect worked fine along all major MacOS version upgrades. Alas, I never got around to write up a proper install guide for MacOS – there are a bunch of steps involved:

You need an Apple developer account to get at their Command Line Tools Package – including a crucial compiler toolchain, which is required for ruby and asdcplib compilation. You need homebrew, a nifty package manager, for some complementary packages.

It goes on like that and there are a couple of pitfalls where it just gets too convoluted for non-console people. Cold truth is I can't go down that MacOS rabbit hole right now.

Another thing: dcp_inspect would indeed need a little love; e.g. the naming convention hints are woefully out-of-date. Not a biggie but not nice, either. Couple more issues ..."

and

"Key thing is to build asdcplib. You could follow along in the setup script to investigate requirements for that.
See https://github.com/wolfgangw/digital_cinema_tools_distribution/blob/master/digital-cinema-tools-setup "

...so if anyone else is interested, it ought to be possible to install on macOS, but not straightforward.

(I realised that I should have left out the X in the topic header... not sure what it was meant to accomplish in the first place...)

[Elia Orselli]

Why don't you use clairmeta instead? It's a python tool and it's tested on macOS 10.12, it should work.

https://github.com/Ymagis/ClairMeta

[Jay Wyatt]

I got this to compile a long time ago (maybe 2015) on OSX 10.9 Mavericks. As wolfgang said there were a ton of hoops to jump through and it took me a long time. Getting asdcplib to compile was the hardest part if I remember right. Haven't heard of clairmeta before but if its a simple python tool and does all the same things then it sounds like the better option.

[Jonathan Greer]

Thanks! It seems Clairmeta also needs asdcplib to run so I'd still have that hoop to jump - I may have another crack at this, but in the meantime I can run dcp_inspect on Ubuntu at any rate -could run it within VirtualBox on our Macs maybe.

[Carsten Kurz]

I think it's better in general to run dcp_inspect from a boot-stick linux, or within a VM, because both methods will also give you stable access to ext2/3 discs.

- Carsten

[Ioannis Syrogiannis]

For whomever wants to give it a try, I propose sharing the whole guidance by Wolfgang, after all, that would correspond to the whole thread's idea.

[Jonathan Greer]

Hi Ioannis, just to gather everything in one place:

Digital Cinema Tools distribution is here:

https://github.com/wolfgangw/digital_cinema_tools_distribution/wiki

Then a thread on Github enquiring about installing dcp_inspect on macOS:

https://github.com/wolfgangw/digital_cinema_tools_distribution/issues/28

-which links to the thread above on installing on Yosemite:

https://github.com/wolfgangw/backports/issues/53#issuecomment-68636021

And then Wolfgang's comments:
"About dcp_inspect on MacOS: no reason it should not install/run on recent MacOS. I developed it mainly on a Mac. My current OS version is Mojave (10.14) and dcp_inspect worked fine along all major MacOS version upgrades. Alas, I never got around to write up a proper install guide for MacOS – there are a bunch of steps involved:
You need an Apple developer account to get at their Command Line Tools Package – including a crucial compiler toolchain, which is required for ruby and asdcplib compilation. You need homebrew, a nifty package manager, for some complementary packages.
It goes on like that and there are a couple of pitfalls where it just gets too convoluted for non-console people. Cold truth is I can't go down that MacOS rabbit hole right now.
Another thing: dcp_inspect would indeed need a little love; e.g. the naming convention hints are woefully out-of-date. Not a biggie but not nice, either. Couple more issues ..."

"Key thing is to build asdcplib. You could follow along in the setup script to investigate requirements for that.
See https://github.com/wolfgangw/digital_cinema_tools_distribution/blob/master/digital-cinema-tools-setup "

Think that's everything!