How big of a deal is an invalid MainSoundConfiguration tag?

[elmermakkinga]

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to do some preliminary checks of downloaded DCPs for a small film festival, since they can have all kinds of problems. DCP-o-matic verifier threw this error for one of them:

<MainSoundConfiguration> has an invalid value: MainSoundConfiguration has 0 channels but sound assets have 6

In chapter 19 of the DOM manual this is listed as a "serious problem" but according to the ISDCF website MainSoundConfiguration is only a metadata property. So is that a major problem or a "probably fine" situation? It's encrypted so I can't easily check it msyelf, unfortunately.

For what it's worth, this DCP will be played on IMS2000 and IMS3000 servers.

[carl]

The assessments of severity the verifier are a bit of a guess, to be honest. I'd be interested to hear of any real-world reports, though it is often quite hard to isolate the exact problem when a TMS/server refuses to ingest a DCP, or plays it back wrong.

Even working out what EasyDCP's verifier wants in this field is not trivial, and the standards are (as far as I can see) sadly quite vague.

[Carsten]

Can you quote the exact part of the CPL that states the Mainsound Configuration? There is probably a difference between wether that tag is not there at all, or it carrying invalid values.

A missing <MainSoundConfiguration> tag is completely irrelevant as far as playback servers are concerned.

[elmermakkinga]

The CPL for the 7.1 version of the DCP reads:

Code: Select all

<meta:MainSoundConfiguration>None</meta:MainSoundConfiguration>

But, curiously, the 5.1 version reads:

Code: Select all

<meta:MainSoundConfiguration>51</meta:MainSoundConfiguration>

[Carsten]

Oops. Can you see in the header which software was used to create this DCP?

It's hard to say what will happen on any given server. My guess is the will both play just fine, as it is just metadata and to my knowledge, these servers do not use metadata (yet) for important tasks.

[elmermakkinga]

According to the header it was created with easyDCP. I guess at least the 5.1 version should be playable?

[Carsten]

They should both be playable. As far as I know, current servers do not do anything relevant with these SMPTE metadata (yet).

[elmermakkinga]

Just to conclusively close the book on this thread: the DCP was tested and no issues were reported. Tested on IMS3000 servers, with Christie and NEC laser projectors and Dolby as well as Datasat audio processors.