VF - to delete scene in the middle of the film

[dcptester]

Good afternoon everyone,

New user here. I just want to ask if it possible to delete/blur/remove a certain scene in the movie using VF in the Dcp-o-matic?

Thank you!

[Carsten]

In general, it is possible to do cuts and replacements within a movie as a VF. But I think the DCP-o-matic GUI currently does not support it in the middle of a movie.

Editing within a movie in DCP-o-matic usually requires to repeat the content, then cut away the end of the first occurrence, and the beginning of the second, as DCP-o-matic only supports trimming from either start or end. However, I think this approach doesn't work with VFs.

Why do you think it needs to happen in the form of a VF - is the OV already distributed?

- Carsten

[dcptester]

Hello Carsten,

Yes. The OV was already distributed and we have to cut some nude scenes in the middle of the movie via VF.

So the answer is no?

[carl]

You should be able to do it, but it's a bit fiddly.

For example, to trim a scene in the middle of a DCP:

• Add the DCP to a project.
• Trim the end to just before the bit you want to remove.
• Add the DCP again to the project.
• Use the timeline to ensure that it is after the first "copy" of the DCP.
• Trim the second DCP's start time until just after the bit you want to remove.
• Set both DCPs to "use this DCP's video and audio as OV and make VF"
• Make DCP

[dcptester]

Thank you, Carl.

Will try this one and will also update this topic for future readers.

Thanks a lot.

and by the way, please accept my topic regarding the 3D.

Thank you!

[Carsten]

I haven't thought about this much before but:

It's easy to cut away frames from the beginning or ends of features and/or reels, as the internal structure of the CPL knows entry and exit points. So, either in DCP-o-matic, or by manually editing the CPL (and recomputing hash afterwards), changes are possible by just editing those entry and exit times for both image and sound. However, there is no CPL structure for skipping a number of frames within a reel. So, the only way to do that is to split existing reels into new reels on the CPL level, the exit and entry points need to be where the images/audio need to be cut. The original OV mxf files can remain untouched, but they are called in the new CPL multiple times with different entry and exit points.

Let's hope DCP-o-matic is doing the right thing. You absolutely need to test this on at least two different DCI servers to be sure.
Would be interesting to have simple editor operations in DOM. Technically, it is probably not too complicated as long as you restrict yourself to a manageable scope of operations. The trouble, again, is how to integrate these functions into the GUI without making it too complex.

- Carsten