Ingest Errors Detected

[Liberated Images]

Hi everyone! Thanks in advance for reading my post. I'm not sure what info will help so if I'm missing something, please ask and I will provide it. I am a newbie and I appreciate any help.

I have been creating content for a local theater that uses a Doremi IMS1000 system. I have had an easy time getting DCPs to playback this far, until recently.

I use DOM on MAC. SMPTE, JPEG 2000, 150 MBPS encoding. My projects in the past have been under 4GB so I usually zip them, upload to GDrive and share them to the theater.

This process has worked very well until recently. My latest projects are between 6-12 GB each. At first I tried to zip the folder and send it as I usually do, but the theater would download the file and it would get an error saying it is "invalid".

So I decided to skip the zip. I uploaded the folder as is, but upon downloading, the j2c downloaded separate from the rest of the folder. The projectionist moved the file back into the folder, then moved the folder to a USB drive and attempted to ingest. He received a message which said "File does not exist. Ingest Errors Detected."

I ran the DCP through the verify tool in DCP player and it detected no errors. Any ideas on what the issue could be? He uses Windows 10.

Again if more info is needed just let me know and I will pass it along. This has been quite stressful and I'm hoping to get to the bottom of this soon.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

[Carsten]

At the theater, I assume they are using a windows machine to unzip the files?


Tell them to install the free 7-ZIP. It allows to deal with ZIP Archives larger than 4GB that have been created on a Mac.

Another option would be to share a G-Drive, Onedrive, Dropbox, etc. with the cinema. It makes up- and downloading a bit easier, and you don't need to ZIP the files. Unzipping larger archives can take very long and sometimes may create space issues with tmp files, etc.

But for now - use 7-ZIP at the cinema.

- Carsten

[Liberated Images]

Thank you for the advice!

I was thinking that 7zip would solve this, so I experimented with my own PC using 7zip. When I unzipped the DCP in question it did warn me of a 32-bit header error. Is that a concern?

Good idea with sharing the drive, but I still would have the issue of my video file downloading separately, which I'm not sure if that could cause issues. I wondered if maybe having it separated and put back in may have messed up the order compared to what appears on the PKL when ingested. Any insight regarding that?

Thank you so much for your help Carsten!

[Carsten]

The issue with the separated J2C file I don't get. Usually it's no problem to separate a file from a DCP folder and put it back in, as long as the filename (and of course, content) stays the same. I can only assume that something else went wrong. I use Archive (Mac) towards 7-ZIP (Win) regularly between my Macbook and our cinema, and once 7-ZIP solved the Mac Archive >4GB issue, never had problems. You need, of course a recent version of 7-ZIP, but that solution is in 7-ZIP since 5-6 years now, as I remember.

[Liberated Images]

Good to know, thank you! I am getting the cinema set up with 7zip so we can try this as a solution. I did submit a project with a smaller bitrate to reduce size and he said there was no noticable degradation of quality but I don't consider that a long term solution, especially if projects keep getting bigger. I will likely reply here to inform anyone who reads this of the results. I suppose the ingest errors will remain a mystery until I find a way to analyze the files and such. All I know is that when it checked the PKL file, something didn't correspond so it came back as the file not existing. Which file? I'm not sure.

[IoannisSyrogiannis]

The issue with the separated J2C file I don't get. Usually it's no problem to separate a file from a DCP folder and put it back in, as long as the filename (and of course, content) stays the same. I can only assume that something else went wrong.
...

That's exactly what went wrong.
I don't find that the matter belongs here, but in any case:
If it downloaded the same way I downloaded similar files, the video .mxf file was downloaded separately and renamed, adding something that might be -001 at the end of the filename, before the extension. I don't exactly remember.
That's one of the reasons I don't like Google Drive sharing of DCPs. You don't get what is uploaded and you end up crosschecking filenames.

[Liberated Images]

So, quick update. 7 zip has been helpful in getting around the 4 Gb file size limit. I have successfully sent quite a few new DCPs. However, I feel I am missing something in terms of a reliable delivery of usable DCPs. Perhaps this should be a new thread, but I'm wondering what sort of workflow I should be looking at for a smooth and reliable delivery method. I am starting to lean into physical delivery more each day. I'm having trouble finding information on how professional studios format their drives and such. I think I will attempt to examine one from the cinema I'm working with so I can determine a good filesystem and such.