I HAVE NO IDEA

[sharron]

I had the program installed by out IT department and they added an mp4 file. We chose make DCP from the jobs menu and it seemed to work. There is a file, but it doesn't play. Please help.

[carl]

What are you trying to play it with?

[sharron]

The file created by the conversion opens the dcp-o-matic player but says no dcp loaded.

[Kewl]

A DCP is not a single file. It's a directory (or "folder", synonym) with numerous files. Find the directory that was created by DCP-O-Matic, open that directory with the player.

"A Digital Cinema Package (DCP) is a collection of digital files used to store and convey digital cinema (DC) audio, image, and data streams."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Package

[Carsten]

https://dcpomatic.com/manual/html/ch18.html

[Ron]

Why should the user have to figure out a programers lógic? … It should be the other way around. .another words, the user should only need to do what is intuitive from a users point of view. In this case that would be:highlight the folder and the program itself should internally connect to the right folder.

Initially I had the same problem and I mindlessly clicked on every folder until bingo!… But it doesn’t seem to work in the same way when you need to open a DCP file to change a setting… I think in that case you do click on the main folder… or do you? see what I mean?

[carl]

It sounds like a confusion (which often occurs) between the folder that DCP-o-matic creates, and the DCP which is made inside it.

It's certainly not perfect, but I haven't yet come up with a better way to arrange things. I'm open to suggestions.

With the player, you need to load the DCP folder. With the "main" DoM, you need to load the project. Though you should get a helpful error message if you try to load a project with the player.

It's tempting to hide the difference (i.e. the player just loads the DCP inside the project folder), but I have a couple of worries about that:

• It's important that the user doesn't think that the DCP-o-matic project is the DCP, as then they copy the whole project onto a USB drive and try to ingest it, which often fails.
• There may be more than one DCP inside a project folder.

[Carsten]

DCP-o-matic has a menu entry 'Open DCP in player'. No need to fiddle with folders.

Should you learn to drive a car using just 'intuition'? No, some tasks at least need reading a manual. And/or resorting to a forum.

https://dcpomatic.com/manual/html/ch14.html

[Ron]

Carl,
Thank you for your thorough explanation...
I think that part of the the confusion may lie with the prompt that follows after incorrectly selecting the main DCP project folder for playback.

"Could not load a DCP from <directory> DCP o Matic <File name>
This looks like a DCP-o-matic project folder, which cannot be loaded into the player.
Choose the DCP "directory" inside the DCP-o-matic project folder if that's what you want to play."

The prompt instructs: "choose the DCP directory", except that to the user there is no folder labeled "directory"... There is "analysis" "info" "video"... but no folder named "directory"

Maybe a simpler prompt could say:
To play DCP select the folder with project's name.

Anyway...
I know, I know... I'm not a programer and I have no idea of the complexities involved. I'm just putting out there the perspective of a non-technical user, maybe that's useful, maybe not...

PS.
Carl, let me know if you'd like me to do another .ASS subtitle test.

Thanks
Ron

[Carsten]

A DCP that one want's to add to a project most likely will not carry the name of that same project. It could be 'any' DCP, therefore, DCP-o-matic can not guess it's name in this situation. Same for the player.