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Author Topic: Doremi issues Richard May Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1057 From: Floral Park, NY USA Registered: Aug 2004 posted 09-30-2012 12:04 PM                     Has anyone come across this at all. We have 2 Doremi DCP 2000 servers. These problems happen on both servers. Let me first say that this problem NEVER has happened when we get drives from Deluxe or Technicolor. They only happen when we get drives from independent filmmakers. That should tell you something right there. The first problem we get is the server doesn't read any content to ingest. That problem has only happened a few times. The main problem we get is a movie that says the audio is 5.1, but it only plays 2.0. This happens on more than half the drive from independents. Their response is always "well, we played it at this other theater and it ran fine". After arguing with them over and over and showing them that everything else we have runs fine, they eventually redo it and it's fine. What do you think the issue is? Doremi says the only info these people need is ext2 format.......  |  IP: Logged Wolfgang Woehl Film Handler Posts: 31 From: Munich, Germany Registered: Apr 2012 posted 09-30-2012 02:04 PM                        Yes, unfortunate. Festivals have to deal a lot with these issues. But we can complain all we want: We're looking at a hugely expanded range of facilities which author and produce content for the big screen and they are not going away. In the long run I think that's a good thing. But right now, like you say, it is painful indeed. I think the best shot we have at improving things is transparency: Make an effort to share information and knowledge. Bug vendors about their bugs instead of working around them. Write about it, too. Get the right tools in place to check stuff. Write about lessons learned. Read the specs. And then read them again  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-30-2012 02:15 PM                     If these features come from indies, they might be unencrypted and hence offer at least some easy ways to analyse issues. As Wolfgang points out, it currently is a bit critical with material from these sources due to the way the DCP format is structured and affordable DCP creation software evolved. There is no other way for the booth staff than to either reject or develop some more skills. It is not sufficient to have a server and projector in the booth when preparing for such a festival. You need a decent PC and a set of free or low cost software. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Richard May Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1057 From: Floral Park, NY USA Registered: Aug 2004 posted 09-30-2012 02:57 PM                     I have spoken with Doremi several times about this. There only response has been to tell them to use EXT2 or EXT3 format for the drives. Obviously there needs to be some more info if these people are still having issues with the drives. Doremi says no, thats all they need..... .....It really sucks dealing with this all the time. Especially when they say that it worked everywhere else.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-30-2012 04:59 PM                     Hmm, even that is wrong. Doremi servers currently accept every disc format commonly found - while ext2 and ext3 is 'the norm' for commercial features. However, support for NTFS and HFS ingest media is NOT a general feature on all DCI servers, so, ext2 and ext3 is a valid recommendation. Doremi support might assume these content providers only copy content to transport media, but do not do the whole encoding and preping on their own. That is a lot more complicated than just copying a folder onto an ext formated disc. When receiving festival content, It might be advisable to first issue some general rules to the participants - like resolution, audio channel assignment, data formats, etc. With the content, they should send a note which software was used to encode the content, and which parameters they actually used. I'm quite sure this will get worse for a certain time until it get's better ;-) - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Richard May Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1057 From: Floral Park, NY USA Registered: Aug 2004 posted 10-01-2012 06:10 PM                     I sent them a long email this morning asking them for more specific info so we can tell these independent filmmakers. I haven't gotten a response yet. I'm tired of hearing...."well it worked fine at the other theater"...... The other theater always has a Dolby server. I don't know why Doremi servers are so problematic with these people.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 10-02-2012 04:24 AM                     What other info should they send? DCPs need to adhere to DCI file specifications. To my knowledge, the Dolbys are more picky than the Doremis. E.g. they don't like non-24bit audio files. Doremi can not help you there. DCP creation currently is a complicated process, whoever want's to do it needs to be careful and be able to work with a discipline. People are used to players like VLC or Quicktime than can play literally everything you throw at them. Not DCI servers. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Bajsic Bojan Expert Film Handler Posts: 190 From: Ljubljana, Si, Eu Registered: Aug 2008 posted 10-02-2012 04:29 AM                     Why on earth do you blame doremi for this? You say you only have problems with indies, and when you ask them to sort it out, they do, and then it works. This is not a Doremi problem. The fact that 'the 5.1 feature worked in xyz theater with Dolby, but here there is only 2.0' is frankly a load of crap. Sorry to inform you, but they probably made that up. Next time ask them where that was, call their tech and inquire about it. I have in my short time as working with dci projectors even got the following: - people claiming that their prores (!) files ingested well into the 'other' server - people claiming burnt-in subtitles were lower/higher in the picture on another machine - people claiming they had mono sound when it was recorded with two identical L/R channels (and subsequently were furious why its not coming only from the center speaker) ... If the DCP files are all there and in proper directory structure, the only thing they should do is supply it on an EXT2/3 disk and everything will be fine. If it is on an EXT2/3 disk and all is not fine, then it is not a valid DCP.  |  IP: Logged Richard May Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1057 From: Floral Park, NY USA Registered: Aug 2004 posted 10-02-2012 12:33 PM                     It's not that I am blaming them for this. I just think they could help me out with some more info to tell these people. If Doremi is telling me that they are doing it the wrong way, then give me some advice on what to tell them to get it right. As far as these filmmakers are concerned, Doremi is a pain in the ass server to work with. If Doremi wants these people to keep thinking that, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. All I'm asking is for is some details. It is their product.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 10-02-2012 06:56 PM                     quote: Richard May As far as these filmmakers are concerned, Doremi is a pain in the ass server to work with. Why do you believe their statements and not Doremis? Doremi has over 40.000 servers in the field. Shouldn't they know better than the film makers? How should Doremi know what they are doing wrong? I make my own DCPs and I know quite a few other people doing it. Not one of them blames Doremis for being picky. Doremi servers are DCI compliant. That's all you need to know. You can hit these filmmakers with the DCI spec. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Richard May Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1057 From: Floral Park, NY USA Registered: Aug 2004 posted 10-02-2012 07:27 PM                     When the majority of these people are having the same exact problem then yes I do believe them to a point. Do I think they are doing it wrong? Absolutely. I'm just looking for a little help from the company that makes the product. Something other than "it should be EXT2 or EXT3 formatted". I don't think that's too much to ask. I love the Doremi server. Until I learn more about DCP specs though, I may have to rely on other people knowledge which is why I was contacting Doremi. I'm not blaming them for these filmmakers doing it wrong.  |  IP: Logged Victor Liorentas Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 800 From: london ontario canada Registered: May 2009 posted 10-02-2012 09:05 PM                     How many features do you keep stored?  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-03-2012 03:59 AM                     quote: Bajsic Bojan The fact that 'the 5.1 feature worked in xyz theater with Dolby, but here there is only 2.0' is frankly a load of crap. Sorry to inform you, but they probably made that up. Next time ask them where that was, call their tech and inquire about it. This is a function of the sound processor's capability, not the Doremi/Dolby/GDC/etc player. Yes it IS possible to play back a 2.0 track in pro-logic surround, and that is clearly what happened at the "other" theater. When the movie got to Richard's theater, his sound processor didn't have that capability and he (and the Doremi) got blamed for what was an improperly mastered DCP.  |  IP: Logged Dave Macaulay Film God Posts: 2321 From: Toronto, Canada Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-03-2012 06:37 AM                     My limited reading of the DCI specs finds no mention of transport medium. The data could come inscribed on papyrus scrolls, I suppose. Certainly there is satellite data delivery. I believe that CRU disk cartridges are the only feature film physical media used by the major distributors. hard drive logical formatting shouldn't make any difference. Doremi servers will accept many formats including FAT, FAT32, and NTFS. Of these, only NTFS will handle large media files but you can ingest KDMs or or other smallish files from a FAT stick. The ext formats are Linux formats that have advantages over NTFS but, as film distribution disks, some of these features are useless and potentially problematic (journalling is not useful for these "bulk loaded" drives and the drive/file permissions make no sense for a distribution drive). I would recommend using ext2 or ext3 for distribution drives but the person formatting the drive has to know what they're doing to make the drive universally readable. The partitioning and physical formatting of a hard drive can cause issues: Linux will usually work it out though. Windows can refuse to see logical drives on volumes partitioned in Linux - not the other way around. NTFS does not have the security features of ext2 or 3 but handles the large file sizes encountered. It is fine for a media distribution drive. I have had plenty of trouble with USB sticks and assorted non-Windows OSes, regardless of what format they have. Some just do not show up on the computer/device: Barco touch screens are very picky. Sometimes one will show up intermittently. I've had flash drives that worked fine for a while then suddenly wouldn't mount on a server, but looked fine from Windows. Now I only buy "name brand" flash drives (USB sticks) because I've had so many problems with store brand or no-brand ones. And always unmount a flash drive that's been mounted on a Linux system as read/write. Just unplugging it while mounted can leave it unusable in Windows for some reason, although remounting it in Linux and then properly umounting it should revive it. I've seen the same kind of problems with the portable hard drives independent films usually come on: one with corrupt data, a few that had to be replaced by the distributor, some that would mount on re-plugging a few times, and one finally mounted on about the 20th plug-in. Again, I don't think I've seen one with a major name brand (Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, LaCie, etc) have mounting problems. I think that one unusable one was a store brand 500gb unit from Office Depot - I've had plenty of issues with their USB sticks. I've only come across one CRU drive (so far) that had issues, a Technicolor trailer drive. It would not mount on one Doremi 2K4 server but did fine on another. Because the systems were networked I didn't look into it: just ingested the trailers needed in the other server and moved them over. I can't say if the problem was the disk drive, the CRU adapter, the CRU bay, or the server itself. Probably just replugging it would work but I moved on to other things once we determined that trailer drive mounted in the other server and other CRU drives mounted OK in the first server.  |  IP: Logged Olivier Lemaire Expert Film Handler Posts: 118 From: Paris, Ile de France, France Registered: Jan 2010 posted 10-03-2012 07:32 AM                        Dave: quote: Dave Macaulay I believe that CRU disk cartridges are the only feature film physical media used by the major distributors. As far a I can see in France, and Germany, this assumption is not true. The more we go, the most USB disk we see out there. Probably the fact CRU is massively seen in the US is somewhat linked to the fact that DATAPORT is an US company.  |  IP: Logged

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