Exporting DCP file from Dolby IMS3000 to portable storage device

[Rick Cohen]

I have some house files that I want to move from one location to another that are not connected over a media network. I have a 1TB external hard drive that I would like to use to move the DCP files. The export function on the IMS did not work when I attempted to do a file transfer. The 1TB external hard drive is currently formatted to NTFS. Should I attempt exFAT instead? Is there some trick that I'm unaware of? TYIA

[Leo Enticknap]

IIRC, it has to be Linux-formatted (ext2 or ext3) to be able to write to it. The DolReMi software will read FAT and NTFS volumes (though I'm not sure about exFAT) but it won't write to them.

Alternatively, you could "outgest" the DCPs you need via FTP.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I 2nd Leo’s memory. That is the situation with our doremi. Ext2. I keep a personal ext2 formatted CRU around, but a ext2e/ext3 formatted usb drive should work too.

Teminal or outbound ftp is probably the most direct if you don’t have a way to make or mount Linux file systems handy.

Note they export in UUID folders, but should appear named correctly on subsequent ingest.

[Benjamin Ruder]

That's how I do this. I have a dedicated Ext2 or Ext3 (not in front of me right now so I can't recall) formatted 1TB for when I need exports. On Doremi Showvault.

[Rick Cohen]

My next question is, how do I format a 1 TB hard drive in Ext2 or Ext3? Can this be done with a Windows PC?

[Ryan Gallagher]

My next question is, how do I format a 1 TB hard drive in Ext2 or Ext3? Can this be done with a Windows PC?

Most "trusted" route would be to burn a USB or DVD linux "live CD" (Live Image/Installer in this disc-less era) of your linux flavor of choosing. Boot the machine into that and use the native linux file system tools to do it. There are some drivers to mount and even read/write ext2/3 on windows, but I only trust them for read-only grabbing files off a drive.

If you have root access there are probably tools on the IMS shell to do it. But not recommending that route. Risky if you point the format at the wrong drive by accident.

[Dave Macaulay]

You can export to a FAT32 drive but it has a fairly low file size limit, so a feature won't likely fit - trailers and short clips are OK. Some more recent Linux distros can work with NTFS... Doremi uses a pretty stale version that reads but can't write.
If you have a cru distribution drive, and know some Linux, you can set it rw, delete whatever is on it, then copy or export your stuff to it. Then ingest it where you want it. Once you can cd to it and ls, it should be obvious that it isn't one of the system drives.
But you do need root to do this, you can try as admin but it isn't likely to have access to these commands.
Plus they are often set up with one partition just big enough for the content put on it.

[Ioannis Syrogiannis]

More tech-oriented, but working as well, if that Windows machine may create a virtual machine via -say- Vargrant, one can have a linux machine to work without using a live-CD/DVD.
Unfortunatelly, the "Windows Over Linux" implementations are not working for such tasks (formatting).

That notion, that "...they are often set up with one partition just big enough for the content put on it" reminded me that DCP-o-matic can format a drive with a partition that will be big enough for the specific DCP. Maybe make a big one and delete it (the DCP) afterwards?

[Dave Macaulay]

It comes down to the drive format. EXT (any version, EXT2 is best for distribution drives) is native to the Doremi Linux. Doremi servers will read/write to FAT32 but NTFS is supported for read only. So DCP-O-MATIC on Windows will not be able to use EXT2 drives natively.
Windows does not support EXT format drives, it won't see them except maybe just pop up "must be formatted" if one is connected. There are Windows programs available to do much of what Linux can do with EXT but with limitations that might not bother you.
If you just want to format one drive it can be done from the server but you need a root login and should know some Linux: as root, a simple typo can ruin the system to the point that a new system SSD is needed.
Depending on how large the content files are, a FAT32 formatted drive may work for this: FAT32 files can not be larger than 4GB (NTFS filesize limit is effectively infinite - 16 Exabytes minus 1KB).
Not likely that a content file is 4GB+ for anything other than features where the reel image data files can be quite large, especially for 4K releases.

[Ryan Gallagher]

If all those linux methods seem too complex I'd pivot back to the FTP method. If you currently have FTP access to the server, I think it's just a matter of navigating to the specific folder where the DCPs are stored, comparing the UUID to the info screen shown in the webui properties of that DCP, and pulling that folder and it's contents down. You can put it on a NTFS drive in one step, or copy it over to one later.

[Carsten Kurz]

DCP-o-matic will create an EXT2 partition when using the Disk Writer app. Yes, one could create a large 'DUMMY' DCP for this purpose - but then you still need to be able to delete it so that you can export new files to it. DCP-o-matic will only create a partition and write the DCP to it, it has no options to manipulate the partition afterwards.
Yeah, you could use Ext2FSD to delete the dummy DCP. Not the most elegant way to create an empty ext2 partition, but...

I use a bootable USB stick with GParted Live on it. That said - while it has SOME graphical user interface, creating a 'proper' partition for DCP transfers still needs some shell commands. It's not very intuitive. I would suggest to find someone nearby with the necessary Linux skills and let him or her do it.

Another option is to use EaseUS Partition Master. Probably the easiest way to create an ext2/3 partition in Windows.

The trouble with GParted is that you have quite a learning curve to accomplish something that you probably only need to perform every few years in order to create a new ext2 drive. Better use EaseUS Partition Master, or find someone with the necessary skills.

In the long run, FTP is the better choice, as it allows to manage DCPs later on standard NTFS discs.

[Leo Enticknap]

The problem with GPartEd is that it won't create a volume with a 128-byte inode size, to be fully compatible with the ISDCF drive formatting standard. I know that it doesn't matter for most if not all the DCP servers in mainstream use, but it still bugs me.

My next question is, how do I format a 1 TB hard drive in Ext2 or Ext3? Can this be done with a Windows PC?

There used to be a free app for this, the name of which i've forgotten, but it became unstable after a Windows 10 update in around 2019.

IMHO, the Paragon Linux for Windows software is your best bet if you don't want to go the dual boot or VM route to use an actual Linux-based operating system. It's extremely solid, and will enable you to mount ext2 and ext3 volumes with a Windows drive letter: thereafter, they will appear in File Explorer, etc. as if they were a regular Windows-handled drive. It will also partition and format drives. It's not free, but I think the $20 it costs is very reasonable. It will also enable you to read DCP distribution drives on a Windows PC, should you ever wish to do so. We (MiT) now supply this with our GDC TMS (Windows-based) systems, and I'm not aware of any complaints about or issues with it.

[Carsten Kurz]

With GParted, you can create a partition using the GUI, but in order to then format that partition 'properly', you need to use a specific shell command. mkfs -t ext3 -I 128 -m 0 /dev/sdX1

No big deal, it's a copy/paste type of problem, but still...


Once you know about that, you could do the same directly on the IMS in a shell. Can you still open a terminal on the IMS type Doremis/Dolbys through the web interface? I am only familiar with the classic Doremi shell environment.

[Leo Enticknap]

Forgot to mention that the Paragon software also comes with a Windows version of mke2fs that you can run in a command prompt window.