Digital Cinema Package

[Terrence Meiczinger]

I cannot open the tiff in photoshop. I don't have gimp installed on my pc:(
I can encode them to jpeg2000 (using opendcp or the command line in DCPC) after applying this command:
-type TrueColor -alpha Off -depth 12 -gamma 2.6 FRAME.tif

Could you send me a non-working tiff? terrence72@gmail.com. I'm guessing the alpha channel is not being handled properly.

[Vincent Baloran]

Could you send me a non-working tiff? terrence72@gmail.com. I'm guessing the alpha channel is not being handled properly.

Here is the link to the non-working tiff i extracted from an mp4 file using ffmpeg.
http://www.mediafire.com/?08e8q4c176zthdd

[Wolfgang Woehl]

... the non-working tiff i extracted from an mp4 file using ffmpeg ...[/URL]

$ opendcp_j2k -i 000001.tiff -o 000001.j2c
[ERROR] TIFF file creation. Bad color format ...
$ identify -verbose 000001.tiff | grep Compression
   Compression: RLE
$ convert 000001.tiff -compress none uncompressed.tiff
$ opendcp_j2k -i uncompressed.tiff -o uncompressed.j2c # yeah, well, you know what I mean :)
   <works>
$ identify -verbose 000001.tiff uncompressed.tiff | grep signature
   signature: b3ad2eabc40a9ddd70ecec1d9494fcd0bc58017588ef87a1fb9c897a8c63284c
   signature: b3ad2eabc40a9ddd70ecec1d9494fcd0bc58017588ef87a1fb9c897a8c63284c

Odd, libtiff knows RLE.

[Terrence Meiczinger]

[CODE]$
Odd, libtiff knows RLE.

It handles the compression. The issue is that the image is encoded YCBCR format which OpenDCP doesn't currently support. It is on the top of the todo list, because most HD content is encoded this way.

You can confirm by doing

# convert 000001.tiff test.tiff
# identify -verbose 000001.tiff > 000001.txt
# identify -verbose test.tiff > test.txt
# diff 000001.txt test.txt
#
65,66c64,65
< tiff:photometric: RGB
< tiff:rows-per-strip: 1
---
> tiff:photometric: YCBCR
> tiff:rows-per-strip: 2

[Terrence Meiczinger]

I should add that you can do the conversion in ffmpeg while you are creating the tiff files with the -pix_fmt rgb24 parameter...

ffmpeg -y -i sample.mp4 -an -r 24 -pix_fmt rgb24 -vcodec tiff tif/%06d.tif

[jonathanj]

I should add that you can do the conversion in ffmpeg while you are creating the tiff files with the -pix_fmt rgb24 parameter...

ffmpeg -y -i sample.mp4 -an -r 24 -pix_fmt rgb24 -vcodec tiff tif/%06d.tif

Ffmpeg should by default be able to read the framerate from the file's header/metadata, right?
The few files that I've tested, it read fine... but that was 25fps material that I wanted to make into a 25fps dcp.
I haven't tried creating a 24fps DCP from 25fps material (or vice versa), but I guess that's when this option is useful.

I am just thinking that maybe ffmpeg can't correctly read the fps of all files, so maybe leaving it on even though you're not converting between framerates is a good idea?

Just a curious thought... I'll give a shout if I encounter a file that can't be read correctly by ffmpeg.

[Matt_G]

Having gone through this entire thread (which has been incredibly helpful, thankyou!), the only piece of information I cannot see is regarding MPEG MXF Interop packages.

Using FFMPEG as someone mentioned, I was able to encode video using this command line:

ffmpeg -i source.avs -flags +ildct+ilme -s 1920x1080 -an -sameq output.m2v

But I was wondering if it is possible to limit the bitrate using the "-maxrate" switch, in the same way as the 'quality' setting with Jpeg2000 tool?

Is this 'allowed'?

[Agustin Goya]

But I was wondering if it is possible to limit the bitrate using the "-maxrate" switch, in the same way as the 'quality' setting with Jpeg2000 tool?

Is this 'allowed'?

in ffmpeg you can use the -b option. Use -b 200k for 200 kilobit per second

[Matt_G]

in ffmpeg you can use the -b option. Use -b 200k for 200 kilobit per second

Ah!, So swap out -sameq for -b and it'll do CBR?

[Chris Young]

My goal was to make OpenDCP work on a Sony SRX R-320 and after numerous attempts -- as an independent filmmaker, I am elated to say it worked perfectly! It wouldn't have been possible if Terrence Meiczinger hadn't developed OpenDCP.

Admittedly, a few weeks ago I didn't know much, if anything, about creating DCP files… let alone a stereoscopic 3D-DCP. I had recently finished work on a self produced and directed short film, "Dead of Nowhere", that I was able to make largely in part utilizing the crowd-based funding site Indiegogo. I used a Final Cut Pro / 2K Cineform workflow to edit and finish my film. I shot my film guerilla style in one day, handheld on location with the Element Technica Dark-Country beamsplitter rig, recording to a 1-Beyond Wrangler. When I learned that it was going to cost somewhere between $1,500 and $3,000 to have my ten minute film encoded in order to have it shown in a realD™ equipped theater, I knew I had to find an alternate "indie" solution to create my DCP.

After investigating all of the commercial solutions (easyDCP, Doremi, etc.) and speaking with several "indie-friendly" post houses -- all of whom bid out of my price range… I stumbled onto OpenDCP.

While the notion of using an open-source command-line tool, still in development, isn't for the faint of heart, and I am by no means a Unix Pro, the process was pretty simple once I understood how the OpenDCP tools worked.

There have been plenty of how-to posts, so I won't get into a lot of detail here… but basically after getting my film into a Left Eye / Right Eye TIFF sequence at the correct aspect ratio (1998 x 1080), the frame rate at (24p), ensuring that my audio was the exact same length (intrinsic value) and the correct sample rate (24bit), it was a fairly straight forward process to convert to XYZ jpeg2000 (.j2c) using opendcp_j2k and then using opendcp_mxf to wrap the stereoscopic-picture and main-audio elements into separate mxf files. After figuring out that I needed to be sure to have the digest (-d) and annotation (-a) tags set in opendcp_xml, it was then just a simple matter of getting these files onto a drive to load into a cinema server.

Now, don't get me wrong, this will probably not work the first time. I had to make several trips back and forth to the theater, trying various DCP versions (interop and smpte) and hard drive formats (I settled on NTFS).

If you're an indie-filmmaker, trying to get your film digitally packaged for exhibition and don't have the money to spend, or are the kind of person (like me) that enjoys learning about every step of the process -- I couldn't recommend a better, more rewarding way of creating a DCP.

---------------------

More information about OpenDCP and DEAD OF NOWHERE can be found here:

OpenDCP Link: http://code.google.com/p/opendcp/

Short Film: http://www.deadofnowhere.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/deadofnowhere