DCP for Cannes Film Festival

[skiff]

Hi guys,
I made a DCP and we tested in theater it was excellent.
After that we send it on hard copy (Linux) to Cannes Film Festival and they said:

״Our lab thinks your DCP has probably been made through internet transfer services of your original files (meaning not in a professional lab) and they often face similar problems from those sources: the image does look OK when you check it at first but gets easily corrupted when they have to process it with the subtitling. They are now trying their best to solve the problem. But for safety, they suggest you could send them urgently a new ProRes HD HQ 422 file without subtitle, using the following URL to access their dropbox:״

Any idea what happened??

Best
Skiff

[carl]

Not really, I'm afraid.

Did it have burnt in subs?

The description of the problem doesn't make any sense to me. Perhaps if the person corresponding with you is French you could ask them to re-describe the problem in French and we could get a translation from one of our forum regulars

However I would guess they won't want to engage in too much correspondance as they have decided the DCP is not "professional".

[Carsten]

Hey skiff - is that your trials with DNxHR or DPX from the other thread?

As Carl says, this is not a proper technical description of the problem. Someone relaying information, and as Carl assumes, maybe in a foreign language. Ask them to deliver a proper description of the issue they found.

- Carsten

[skiff]

It was clean without subtitles. I am not sure but, I think they building a long DCP (1.5 hour with 2-3 shots films to make full slots) with subtitles.

I made it from DNxHR mxf 4K and keep the DCP on 4K.
SMPTE DCP

I will ask them to send me a full technical description in French

Best
Skiff

[skiff]

They answer:

"The main point for your DCP is that it seems ti have been mastered with software "DCP OMATIC".

This software did not mastering properly DCP as DCI standards request.

So we can't use directly your DCP for making a new one with French subtitles.

So we will extract frames and sound separated from your OV DCP for making the new one.

It should be OK but i'd like receiving a Pro Res file as security here. If we received the DCP, it won't fix the trouble.


Cordialement,"

[gunnar]

I have heard that those big film festivals are using some kind of DCP verify software (not related to the actual screening server)
And that software scan the DCP pack and if it is not made with "approved" commercial DCP creator (e.g. CLIPSTER, Dolby CineAsset, EasyDCP and stuff like that) the software will simply not approve the DCP. "The computer says no"
But that is just something i have hard, i have never made a DCP for big film festival.

But what i know for sure is that those big festival generally want everything as 24fps Interop since that is the only thing you can know for sure will work everywhere.
Because the older cinema servers (series 1) can not play anything else than 24fps.
Even if you have series 2 server and can play all kinds of frame rate it might be that the digital cinema projector itself is still series 1 witch mean that if you for example try to play SMPTE DCP that works very well and plays on all kinds of frame rate (because it is series 2 server) then the subtitle wont work if the projector is series 1. Since the SMPTE subtitle are not xml document like the interop subtitle. They are actually MXF format like the picture and the sound and series 1 projector can not display subtitle in MXF no matter what screening server you are using.

So if the cinema do not have both series 2 server and projector then subtitle on SMPTE DCP are not going to work.
Series 1 projector do not care about the frame rate and just shows everything that comes from the series 2 server, but since the subtitle overlay are created in the projector itself SMPTE will always be problem if it have subtitle if both the server and projector are not series 2.

So that is why the only 100% safe way of sending DCP´s to festivals are 24fps Interop.

[gunnar]

"The main point for your DCP is that it seems ti have been mastered with software "DCP OMATIC".
This software did not mastering properly DCP as DCI standards request."

I do not thing DCP O Matic did anything wrong. It is probably your settings that where "wrong" in the festiva´s eyes.
The DCI standards are 24fps Interop.

[carl]

If you want to put me in touch with a technical contact there I am happy to try to get to the bottom of this... carl@dcpomatic.com

[Carsten]

Sigh... bullheaded, but not completely unexpected, I assume. Well, it MAY be they complain about SMPTE, and DCP-o-matic not strictly following the current ISDCF SMPTE dialect as implemented in the current test versions with ALL parameters (most of them unneeded, like Markers or CPL metadata).
It may indeed be, even when not subtitled, that an Interop DCP passes their criteria,because it simply leaves out many aspects that MIGHT be checked during QC. Personally, I always made a strong point for me that DCP-o-matic should follow SMPTE DCPs very closely and be up to date SMPTE wise as quickly as possible, but that it is still advisable to create Interop DCPs for work that goes into official channels. We are slowly moving into general SMPTE distribution, but Interop is still the de facto standard world wide.

We have seen things like that before, and sometimes these complaints were technically substantiated. It is very disappointing that in this case they do not offer any facts other than the choice of the software...

The trouble is, it might be very complicated to get a more detailed answer from them. If they use a QC software, then that software should throw out a complaint/log. I might be worth asking once more for a detailed description of the problem...

The only thing that keeps me from *¬"§$fi£\fi£#·* in this case is that there could be a minor chance that we learn something new about possible QC criteria and that there could actually be something that helps us improving DCP-o-matic.

It would be very interesting to learn what would happen if we'd just remove the string 'DCP-o-matic' from the metadata files and replace it with 'DVS Clipster' or something, but, unfortunately, that is no real option...

- Carsten

edit: Skiff, I looked up the Cannes website for their regulations, it seems that they are open for DCP only for full length regular festival submissons, and suggest to send Prores/MP4, etc. for shorts and student films. They do not even mention DCP in that category. Can you update us on that?

[darkwish]

Hello,
Seems that you are talking with the administrative staff of one of Cannes festivals selection. Most of the time in French Festivals (not all of them), they don't have much technical skills and refer enterely and with loyalty to some labs (that could be only one person) without any questions (because they don't want to go into the tech things). Except if your DCP is encrypted, i don't see how the DCPoMATIC wrap would be an issue, but i would suggest to comply to their demand, sadly.