For exhibition of HD video in film festival, is DCP better than HDCAM cassette (tape)?

[George Roberson]

They have both choices 🙂

[Michael Gissing]

DCP is technically superior to HDCam. HDCam is compressed 1440 x 1080 8 bit 3:1:1 which plays back as 1920 via anamorphic pixels. DCP is based on Motion JPEG 2000 so less compressed and with proper pixel aspect and better luma, chroma specs.

Also theatres prefer DCP as it integrates better in their presentation environment and is less likely to cause technical problems for their projection systems.

[Rafael Amador]

But the DCP mastering will cost you much more than printing to tape.
rafael

[Michael Gissing]

True Rafael, but if you need 10 copies, then HDCam tape gets more expensive for stock and cloning costs.

[Rafael Amador]

True.
is necessary to make some numbers. Distributing by DCP, will also require one HD per copy.
rafael

[George Roberson]

thanks Michael and Rafael!