Subtitles

[fredjonze]

Hi,
We're working our way through issues and took Carsten's advice to use 2TB NTFS drives with MBR partitions. That seems to work, contrary to what we were told by the distributors. The projector is a Barco.

The next unexpected challenge is subtitles. What we're doing is expanding the different aspect ratios into a full container (2048x1080) so we don't have to perform lens changes. One of the things I think we're seeing is then the subtitles, which used to be on the movie image, are now below the image. Does expanding a movie, from say 16:9 to full, not work with subtitles? Is there a different treatment for subtitles?

Thx,

Jim

[Carsten]

Hmm, I find it hard to understand what you are doing. Do you add these subtitles yourself, or do they come with the files you convert to DCP? In the latter case, they are probably burnt in. So you can't change their position or appearance, but, if they are within the action area of the movie, they should remain visible also in a full container.

Different thing if you use the 'Scale to fit width' option to fill the screen quickly without much thinking - in these cases, the image will probably often be cropped at top and bottom, and burnt-in subtitles might get chopped off partially or completely.

I guess we need to know more details about what you are doing. Basically, there should be no problem to show content of all aspect rations within a full container, with the necessary letter- or pillarboxing.

Are you able to post a before/after screenshot?


- Carsten

[fredjonze]

Carsten,

It may have been 'pilot error' when the subtitle issue was seen. I wasn't there at the time so am getting the info second hand. I think the issue may have been related to a bad profile that was applied to the macro. I think the profile was cropping the height. I worked with them and we got the profile set on one projector so the full container properly displayed the content. They're working on getting the other projector configured and may need to replace some profiles that were created/altered incorrectly.

I'll know more in a couple of days after they've finished all the adjustments. For now I'll assume that the changes to the profiles solved the issue.

Thanks for your feedback.

Jim

[Carsten]

Do you have proper framing charts for the macro setups? What type of projectors are these?

If you don't have framing charts, it's impossible to do what you are after, as there can be no confidence.

- Carsten

[fredjonze]

Carsten,

I'm a novice at this and just an intermediary between the festival folks and the theater folks. The projects are Barco. And, I'm unfamiliar with framing charts. We built a new macro for the festival and included all of the elements that are standard for general theater play at this location. Then we modified the elements to support the full container (2048 x 1080). One projector works fine, the other has one of the macro elements that is still set to flat that needs to be tweaked I believe.

Thx,

Jim

[Carsten]

If you are not familiar with the way a cinema projector is set up, you have a steep learning curve. They are very different from all you may know about other display devices or home cinema/presentation projectors.

Also, there is a bit of a risc that you screw up existing macros needed for general cinema operations, it is very important to only work on copies/backups of existing macros and macro component files.

That said, Barco Communicator for setup is among the more intuitive administration packages compared to Christie or NEC.

If necessary, get back to us if you don't see progress there, I would help with framing charts and manuals.

Having a cinema tech on site is out of the question for you?

- Carsten