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has anyone actually made their own DCP?

10 years, 2 months ago - Wayne D'Cruz

Projectionists often tell me that you can make your own DCP, but I haven't yet met a film maker who has? Anyone out there?
Cheers.
Matt

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10 years, 2 months ago - Richard Lipman

edit house offer a very good deal for DCI compliant DCP files and a discount for SP members

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Richard Lipman SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Richard Lipman

http://www.edithouse.co.uk/dcp-digital-cinema-package

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Richard Lipman SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Charlie Lyne

Can't recommend OpenDCP enough. Spent far too much money on DCPs with my first film, and have since switched to making them myself.

Side note: even greater savings to be had by getting a paid account with Mega (or similar) and sending your DCPs digitally. Cuts out the need for a linux computer to format EXT3, the expense of hard drives, and the hassle of international customs. Now when a festival plays a film I've made, all I have to do is send them a download link. Needless to say, some festivals don't like downloading ~60GB files, but most seem glad of the reduced hassle.

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Charlie Lyne SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - aNELe Onwuka

This is an interesting video. He talks about making a DCP from around the 13.31 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_k2dFVRPLc

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - aNELe Onwuka SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Wayne D'Cruz

Hi everyone,

Many thanks for all the suggestions and links. It seems to me that creating your own DCP requires a fairly high level of technical competence and confidence. And that one should expect to spend a lot of time perfecting the process and results first time round.

The Edit House rates look very, very cheap. Richard I'm going to send you a message off board.

Thanks again to all!

Matt

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Wayne D'Cruz SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Karel Bata

Start learning about colour space. Very important.

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Karel Bata SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Andrew Morgan

This is a good read if you're considering making your own DCP:

http://www.jamesmilnersmyth.com/prepare-project-dcp-digital-cinema-package/

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Andrew Morgan SHOW

10 years, 1 month ago - William Allum

Hi guys, not sure this helps but I have experience in DCPs and looking to expand my freelance work. If anyone is interested please PM me, I am very reasonable.

Response from 10 years, 1 month ago - William Allum SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

DCP is a container format, typically containing a JPEG2000 still for each frame and files containing audio tracks. There's also some metadata, and possibly some encryption. There are transcoding and packaging tools which will create simple packages, but it's a slow process and completely unnecessary for most people. If you're being distributed you will need the distributor's encryption etc., so no added value add it'll need to be rebuilt properly anyway, and many festivals will accept tape or disc formats. Much cheaper now than ever before to get it done 'right', probably hence not many people DIY-ing, much like people rarely cut their own negatives!

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Karel Bata

I really should put up a blog about this, but for now:

Use OpenDCP. It's free. I Use Version 0.19b for no other reasons than that it works fine and the following tutorials are based around that. I follow the video step by step each time I make one - easy to forget something. Watch/read these all the way through before starting.
http://www.thefilmbakery.com/blog/creating-a-feature-film-dcp-using-opendcp
https://vimeo.com/69176054

Once you get the hang of it you can bypass the whole TIFF business (you will need a HUGE amount of drive space) by rendering your project direct to j2k, but that's currently a bit of a dark art for a beginner: http://www.fnordware.com/j2k/

Audition is good at converting your stereo mix to two mono files. Make certain to get the speed conversion exact. Sometimes you can find you're a frame or two out in length (math errors) and that's worrying. Get/borrow Fraunhofer DCP Player if you can. It's hardly foolproof but it's a good check for stuff like sync.

You MUST befriend a projectionist so you can try your DCPs out. At least your early ones.

Drives should be Linux(!) EXT3 formatted. Neither Macs nor PCs will reliably do that for you. Yes, it's a pig. Who dreamed that bottleneck up? All DCP servers will read FAT drives (big movie trailers are delivered on FAT32 sticks) but there is a file size limit. Reducing your data rate for a short might make your project fit. 65 mb/s is OK. Macs will NOT generate reliable FAT drives (why?!?). You have to use a PC or BootCamp.

Best of luck!

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Karel Bata SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Hank Starrs

Interesting links! It may be much cheaper than ever before to create a DCP but we needed one recently for a festival for our micro budget doc and it still cost £1200 so it's not that cheap.

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Hank Starrs SHOW

10 years, 1 month ago - LFS Workshops

Hi Matt, and anyone who's interested!

We're in partnership with the London Short Festival (LSFF) offering filmmakers the chance learn how to make their own DCPs in a day. For just £100 you can go through the whole process with full one-to-one technical support from the LSFF experts. You may need help the first time! But then you'll have the know-how for as long as DCPs are around. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/1FOxAyR

We'll be confirming some dates very soon! Get in touch if you want to be kept in the loop.

Thanks, Carolyn

Response from 10 years, 1 month ago - LFS Workshops SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Neil Oseman

I've made 3 of them to date. Here's a blog post I wrote about the process: http://neiloseman.com/?p=3694

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Neil Oseman SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Dean Harris

Hi Matt, I have researched this recently and built a small test after using these links, for a short film I'm producing. Hope this helps, good luck!

http://filmmakeriq.com/2013/07/how-to-make-a-dcp-digital-cinema-package-on-your-own-computer/
http://opendcp.org/

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Dean Harris SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Jonathon Sendall

Here's a direct quote from Geoff Boyle, a very experienced cinematographer. Just read this today funnily enough.

"http://www.dcpbuilder.com/ DCP Builder is free and it works.

I've produced DCP's for one 22 minute short and one full length movie using
it.

The workflow was to grade in Resolve and output DPX's these were then
imported and converted in DCP Builder.

It converts the 709 to XYZ and although it says it corrects the gamma
automatically it doesn't so you need to set gamma to 2.6 and ignore
warnings.

It works.

I've seen the results on big 60' screens and it was what I intended it to
be, well, after a few initial attempts which went disastrously wrong!!

Cheers
Geoff Boyle"

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Jonathon Sendall SHOW

10 years, 2 months ago - Chris Robins

Hi Matt,
I've made many DCPs using different software packages. The best results I've obtained have been from Final DCP
https://www.innovative-pixel.de which is quite expensive and
CineAsset which is also quite expensive:
http://www.doremilabs.com/products/cinema-products-2/cineasset/
If you're unsure about using the open source solutions like OpenDCP then a decent cheap alternative would be to pay for a one month subscription to Adobe CC to use Media Encoder. It can make DCPs using the bundled Wraptor plugin and is very straightforward. You might even be able to get the trial version! You can preview your finished DCPs using Stereoscopic Player (PC only, 5 mins in length) from www.3dtv.at using the jpeg2000 decoder.

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Chris Robins SHOW

Response from 10 years, 2 months ago - Tony Oldham SHOW