Inserting media clips into a playing DCP

[Ryan Gallagher]

We always get the weirdest requests. Seems I'll be tackling this cause a comedy troupe is showing a film with live commentary, and wanted to show a version edited with some clips inserted. But venue/festival already paid for the DCP rights, so they said no.

And now I'm asked to insert their clips into a DCP. ALT switching is pretty laborious and slow even on a good projector.

What would you do? (besides tell them to pound sand) ;-)

I'm tempted to convert all their clips to DCPs, and utilize Doremi's "skip" and "advance to marker" feature... stack a bunch of copies of the film in the playlist with the necessary automation and clips in between them. And triple check my skip and resume timecodes.

Either way I roll, I've asked for the clips and timecodes in advance, cause this is not the kind of thing easy to implement in a short sound check.

[Caleb Williams]

Is the DCP encrypted?

It would be pretty intensive, but you could dump the DCP to an mp4, then use some video software with timeline capabilities to edit together the desired clips, then play everything on an alt channel. Sounds like fun lol

[Marcel Birgelen]

I would not try to edit the DCP even if it is encrypted and I'm saying this as someone who regularly masters DCPs... Believe me when I say that it isn't worth the hassle. DCP was never conceived to be an editable format and many editors handle it poorly.

Make sure you get their clips into your server, making DCPs out of them is a good way to ensure it works and build a playlist from there, using the "advance to marker" function on Doremi, is the right way to go IMHO.

[Jason Sharp]

Use the intermission function in your server.

[Mike Blakesley]

Or just make a playlist with the appropriate time markers.

As in:

Play feature from 0:00 to 15:00
Play "clip 1"
Play feature from 15:00 to 30:00
Play "clip 2"
and so on.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Or just make a playlist with the appropriate time markers.

As in:

Play feature from 0:00 to 15:00
Play "clip 1"
Play feature from 15:00 to 30:00
Play "clip 2"
and so on.

What you are describing Mike was my thought in the OP regarding converting the clips to DCP format in the correct container. That seems to be the most direct to me.

Other than playing the file they had edited into their "show" originally of course. They already did the work of the custom edit apparently, but someone wants to force them to play the DCP because that license money is already spent. But I prefer DCP too, more reliable and better color/sound.

Thanks for backing up my path of least resistance thoughts, all.

I don't believe Doremi DCP2K4 has a true "intermission" function, but you can insert "skips" at timecodes to bounce out of a playing DCP, and use any number of custom markers you want to create goto points within the following copy of the feature. I don't know if those markers will be specific to the one instance, or all of them. So a bit of proving out to do, but should work.

Yes encrypted most likely. But not in hand yet. Coming from Deluxe.