Creating a DCP from Bluray

[Bill Seipel]

What are the legalities involved if any?
(Copying a work and exhibiting)

[Carsten Kurz]

As far as I know, circumventing copy protection schemes on DVD and Bluray is still illegal in the US.
When you show a title in public, you have to book it and receive exhibition rights, just as for film or DCPs.

Very often, we get explicit exhibition rights for classic bluray titles because DCPs are often not available.

In reality, nothing should happen if you keep the conversion process private and consider it a mere technical process to enable a smooth presentation.

[Bill Seipel]

As far as I know, circumventing copy protection schemes on DVD and Bluray is still illegal in the US.
When you show a title in public, you have to book it and receive exhibition rights, just as for film or DCPs.

Very often, we get explicit exhibition rights for classic bluray titles because DCPs are often not available.

In reality, nothing should happen if you keep the conversion process private and consider it a mere technical process to enable a smooth presentation.

Here's the thing:

We obtain the rights from our booker. We'd just rather not PAY the extra money for the studio's DCP, when we can make our own.

They say we can use the DVD/Bluray (and risk the HDMI problems that are so common) or pay for their DCP.

Or you can do like so many do and make your own DCP.

How they'd find out you were using your own DCP is certainly an interesting question....

[Leo Enticknap]

As long as the screening is legitimately licensed, I can't imagine that the booker or studio would care how you put the picture on the screen.

The problem I am trying to address is the opposite: a 3-D movie (relatively obscure 1980s arthouse title) that is not available as a studio DCP but is as a 3-D BD, combined with a movie theater that is able to play a 3-D DCP, but not a 3-D BD. The rights owner is willing to license a screening, but cannot provide a DCP.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Here's the thing:

We obtain the rights from our booker. We'd just rather not PAY the extra money for the studio's DCP, when we can make our own.

They say we can use the DVD/Bluray (and risk the HDMI problems that are so common) or pay for their DCP.

Or you can do like so many do and make your own DCP.

How they'd find out you were using your own DCP is certainly an interesting question....

I'm not privy to the economic difference between getting a DCP or using a Blu-Ray that is readily available, but I understand that motivation.

BUT, speaking strictly from a standpoint of giving the best "cinema" quality presentation. If the DCP is available, that should be the choice!

Blu-ray, even UHD blu-ray is still inferior in a number of important ways.
- compression data rate: 250Mb/s for DCP, 128Mb/s for UHD Blu-ray, 35Mb/s for Standard Blu-Ray.
- Color depth: 12bit for DCP, 10bit for UHD blu-ray, 8bit for standard blu-ray.
- Aspect Pixels Count: Blu-ray is always going to be a pixel count sacrifice on everything wider than 1.78:1 source aspect.
- Audio Quality: DCP is uncompressed tracks, nearly all consumer blu-rays are compressed audio.

And fundamentally, the goal is to be "better" than what someone could view at home, DCP is the only way to do that.