Cover Sheet - which values to set?

Anything and everything to do with DCP-o-matic.
phili2p
Posts: 41
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2015 10:38 am

Cover Sheet - which values to set?

Post by phili2p »

Hi everybody,

Running the version 2.11.19 (on OS X 10.9.5, so far quite stable), I was really happy to find the COVER_SHEET.txt file to be very useful.
I wonder, if there's a list of values that can be included. Especially as I would love to have the project name and not the CPL to create the title and the CPL extra.

Sometimes it would be helpful to have additional informations about the source and what the creator had to do manually (scaling, upmix, framerate)

And as the KDM might be stored in a different folder as the project, it would be great to have this possibility, too.
As I'm always a dreamer, I'd love to have these datas all stored into one .csv or .ods file, so creating playlists with several shorts in several programs in several venues would become an easy task.

Thanks a lot!
Philipp
Carsten
Posts: 2804
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2014 9:11 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Cover Sheet - which values to set?

Post by Carsten »

Hi Philipp,

so far, all available function strings should be visible under prefs - cover sheet/Zusammenfassung - reset to default text to check if recent versions added more. However, project name is not available.

I guess you can put everything in there that you're able to convince Carl as being useful. It certainly is not much work to add more items, but as far as I know, Carl is very busy currently, so don't hope for quick additions. Simply supply some propositions, I'd say...

Currently it is more or less a copy of what we see as DCP accompanying letters. Of course, some individual items should simply be added manually in the file as needed. As a projectionist, a project name doesn't make much sense as the exhibition side only sees CPLs. Of course, for housekeeping in a festival situation, this may be different. Maybe, finding a way to extract data from the project metadata file would be better suited to your specific task.

- Carsten
phili2p
Posts: 41
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2015 10:38 am

Re: Cover Sheet - which values to set?

Post by phili2p »

Thanks Carsten,

as I haven't seen or used the cover sheet in the stable version, I know that it's more a side effect then something urgently needed.
I just thought, you might know some secrets like $PROCESSOR to get some informations about the audio processing...

We started last year with a pretty detailed check list when creating DCPs and validating them as well as externals. As not everybody out there takes a look on the ISDCF naming convention, it is - to us - very important to have the name as it is published in the catalog as well as the CPL. We print this text file for each program in each venue and by that, we can give hints on audio levels or - especially when it comes to experimental films - about 10 seconds of black which is part of the film and has to be screened.

Many greetings to Frechen!
Philipp
Carsten
Posts: 2804
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2014 9:11 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Cover Sheet - which values to set?

Post by Carsten »

Hmm, I see what you are after, but unfortunately, you can't access arbitrary internal parameters in this way, unless Carl tells us 'Yes, actually you can!' ;-) As far as I see from the translations, the existing cover sheet variables need to be created explicitly in the code. Let's see what Carl says. I guess having full access would really be helpful as inputs to a festival database. Personally, I think $LUFS could also be useful...
Have you tried looking into the metadata XML file? A little bit of scripting could do the job, I guess.

- Carsten
phili2p
Posts: 41
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2015 10:38 am

Re: Cover Sheet - which values to set?

Post by phili2p »

Yes, the $LUFS woul be a great hint for the projectionists. So far, I can live with my personal spreadsheet where I copy & paste the cover sheets in and generate the whole program by extracting and summing up to total time and hard disc space...

As we already have a DCP O Matic Stand Alone Player (is it DOMSAP?) we might get the ultimate DOMVAD, DCP O Matic Verification And Distribution one day.
Carsten
Posts: 2804
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2014 9:11 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Cover Sheet - which values to set?

Post by Carsten »

Oh yes, we need some suitable acronyms by now...


DOM, DOMP, DOMB, DOMK, DOME ...

- Carsten
phili2p
Posts: 41
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2015 10:38 am

Re: Cover Sheet - which values to set?

Post by phili2p »

I'd better cut this down before we drift to far away...