David Jahns
Forum Replies Created
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Well, this just keeps getting more interesting…
We sent 3 copies of our DCP out, and 2 of the 3 worked just fine – but one theater could not get it to play at all. It ingested just fine, and audio played fine, but picture did not. There was no real picture to speak of – just a weird vertical line of garbage in the middle of the frame.
The theater tech said he’s seen lots of problems with DCPs, but never this one. He was very concerned that the bitrate was too low – a 75 minute movie was only 20 GB.
In Adobe Media Encoder, the bitrate field read “250 MB” – but it was not adjustable at all. Turns out it actually encoded about 30 MB. The film is fairly dark and desaturated, and it looks great in the other theaters, so the bitrate may not have needed to be any higher – but our tech hypothesized that their brand of DCP server (GKC, I think) might have a MINIMUM bitrate to correctly interpret the content, and that the Adobe Encoder may not be truly DCI Compliant.
So, I went back and started over using OpenDCP – created DPX frames, encoded to JPEG2000, split out the audio, wrapped to MXF, , etc. etc. – and forced the bitrate to 150 MB.
And this DCP worked perfectly. Can’t say for sure what the issue was with the other one – but just take this as a cautionary tale to TEST, TEST, TEST far enough in advance to make changes if necessary!!!
The theater tech also warned me about the Paragon formatted drive, and the fact that the DCI Specs call for the DCP to be at the root level of Partition 0. (Paragon can’t do that.) His system could read it fine, but he said other may not be able to, so he suggested reformatting the drive properly before sending off to other theaters.
So – listen to Sebastian! He knows of which he speaks! 😉 (Personally, I just plan to call on some IT friends to format the drive the next time I need to do this. I’m pretty sure that if they can format it properly, I can still use Paragon to connect the drive to my Mac and copy over the data.)
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
Thanks for those additional details, Sebastian.
Obviously, there’s more going on than I knew. All I can say is that it worked for me – maybe I got lucky, or the cinema server was especially tolerant of the Paragon formatting? I know they ingested it into their own system, they didn’t play it back from the portable drive I gave them. Could that have solved the 128/256 issue?
Anyway – I’ll be sure to look into it a bit more next time. Thanks!
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
Update for 2014…
I just used Adobe Media Encoder to create a 2k Scope DCP (2048 x 858), and worked brilliantly.
I graded in Resolve, Mastered in Smoke – all Rec709 ProRes4444 at 24.0 fps at 2048×858, and AME took my master file with 6ch audio and turned it into a perfect DCP – I was quite impressed.
Here are some gotchas…
For best results, feed AME exactly 24.0 source file with Rec709 color. If you give it 23.98 or 25, it will drop frames or duplicate frames.
Also, for 5.1 audio, the config is odd – L, R, Ls, Rs, C, Lfe.
Resolve can then read the DCP file as a QC check, but my rig would not do realtime playback. (Resolve also displays the XYZ colors properly on your sRGB monitor – I was expecting it to look crazy, but it didn’t – so then I was worried that the encode may not have gone properly – but it did!)
The next tricky part is formatting the portable hard drive for DCP compliance – which needs to be Linux ExtFS2.
This was done on my Mac using Paragon ExtFS software. After installing, your Disk Utility app will be able to reformat the drive into ExtFS2, then simply drag the DCP folder on to the root level. (NOTE – formatting is slow, and will act crashed – let it sit for at least 30 minutes – it will eventually complete.)
I highly recommend renting a local theater for a test screening, just to double check the drive format compatibility and color space conversion and audio sync. Everything worked great for me.
Thanks, ADOBE!!!!!
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
Ah, yes.. the NEXT update is going to be awesome. It’s always that “next” update for some reason… 😉
Yeah – I think we can all agree that the horsepower/GPU is all great, but from Day 1, my biggest beef with X was the lack of project sharing. I’m in a facility with 20 full time people, and we’re ALWAYS bouncing project around to different editors/assistants, working simultaneously, etc… The Avid Bin Locking structure is by far the best implementation of that workflow, and FCP 7 could (accidentally) imitate it reasonably well.
If they ever get a workable project sharing capability for FCP-X, I’ll give it another look – but in the meantime, Premiere/Avid (& FCP 7) are doing the job quite nicely, thank you very much…
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
Thankfully, we have had our LHe cards for many years, so like you said, – keep current and move on.
But this card was just discontinued a few months ago for the LHePlus. If I had bought an LHe last fall, and 3 weeks later Avid v6 (and now CS6) isn’t compatible with it, then I’d be pretty upset.
AJA should over very discounted upgrades to anyone who purchased in 2011, in my opinion.
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
As I understand it, SG does NOT talk to the Mercury Transmit module, which is what gets sent out to the KONA/BM card – via either PCI or Thunderbolt…
In it’s current form, the only way to go out to a proper monitor via SDI is to use a Windows system, and to have a 2nd NVIDIA graphics card with SDI output on the card.
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
2 things it definitely needs before CS6 can be a FC Studio replacement.
1) Dynamic Link from Ppro
2) Mercury Transmit – video out to your I/O card on the Mac.
I understand that it’s a new acquisition, etc., and it will probably be great by CS7 – but it still amazes me that it will just then be reaching the functionality of FC Studio circa 2007. (yeah – Color was pretty buggy way back then – but still – I could round trip to my NLE and output to a calibrated monitor – is that asking too much?
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
Yeah – we don’t know yet, either. Still too much undecided yet – pretty much depends on a Mac Pro or some equivalent. We’ve got 4 or 5 systems that are due for an upgrade.
I’ve been doing some tests with new iMacs and an AJA ioXT Thunderbolt device. It’s an entirely valid workstation option, I think. It bogs down trying to do Red native, but for most formats, it seems great – in Avid 6 and CS6 (although the AJA drivers for CS6 aren;t out yet, so I couldn’t test that.
I’m awfully tempted to go with BlackMagic for the Resolve compatibility…
We’re even considering going PC for Avid/CS6… Too many questions can’t be answered until we either get a new High end box from Apple, or we give up on that and go with iMacs or PCs…
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
I’m not much of a hacker, but I encourage you to do it! And share the results with us!
If you can get it work on with Avid MC6, too – hell, you’d be a hero! I’ll be you drinks at NAB next year! And we can go to the AJA booth and say “Long live the LHe! IN YOUR FACE, AJA!” 😉
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR -
We bought all of our LHe cards in 2007 or 2008 when we made the leap to FCP HD. I’m not terribly upset that we have to replace 4-5 year old cards. However, if I had purchased it last year, before the LHe”plus” – then I’d be pretty pissed off and asking for an upgrade to the plus or LHi version.
We’ve also got 4 or 5 old Mac Pros to replace sometime, so we’re still not sure of the hardware plan. Awfully tired of waiting on Apple…
As it is, we might just go with some iMacs and thunderbolt T-taps. We could build 5 complete edit systems for less than $15k. I tested the iMac and CS6 with an AJA ioXT, and it’s pretty damn solid – and the iMac does most things almost as fast as my 12-core MacPro. (Not as fast as with a CUDA card, but we’re also using Avid more and more now, so the iMac & $250 T-tap might be a great option for us.
David Jahns
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Joint Editorial
Portland, OR