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19 <title>DCP-o-matic</title>
20 <author><firstname>Carl</firstname><surname>Hetherington</surname></author>
23 <chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
24 <title>Introduction</title>
27 Hello, and welcome to DCP-o-matic!
31 <title>What is DCP-o-matic?</title>
34 DCP-o-matic is a program to generate <ulink
35 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Package">Digital
36 Cinema Packages</ulink> (DCPs) from DVDs, Blu-Rays, video files such as MP4
37 and AVI, or still images. The resulting DCPs will play on modern digital
42 You might find it useful to make DVDs easier to present, to encode
43 independently-shot feature films, or to generate local advertising for
50 <title>Licence</title>
53 DCP-o-matic is licensed under the <ulink url="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GNU GPL</ulink>.
59 <title>Acknowledgements</title>
62 This manual uses icons from the <ulink url="http://tango.freedesktop.org/">Tango Desktop Project</ulink>, with thanks.
68 <chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
69 <title>Installation</title>
72 <title>Windows</title>
75 To install DCP-o-matic on Windows, download the installer from
76 <ulink url="http://dcpomatic.com/">http://dcpomatic.com/</ulink>
77 and double-click it. Click through the installer wizard, and
78 DCP-o-matic will be installed onto your machine.
82 If you are using a 32-bit version of Windows, you will need the 32-bit
83 installer. For 64-bit Windows, either installer will work, but I
84 suggest you used the 64-bit version as it will allow DCP-o-matic to
85 use more memory. You may find that DCP-o-matic crashes if you run
86 many parallel encoding threads (more than 4) on the 32-bit
93 <title>Mac OS X</title>
96 DCP-o-matic will run on Mac OS X version 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and
97 higher. To install it, download the <code>DMG</code> from <ulink
98 url="http://dcpomatic.com/">http://dcpomatic.com/</ulink> and double
99 click to open it. Then drag the DCP-o-matic icon to your
100 <guilabel>Applications</guilabel> folder or wherever else you would
107 <title>Ubuntu Linux</title>
110 You can install DCP-o-matic on Ubuntu 12.04 (‘Precise
111 Pangolin’), 12.10 (‘Quantal Quetzal’), 13.10 (‘Saucy
112 Salamander’) or 14.04 (‘Trusty Tahr’) using <code>.deb</code> packages: download the
113 appropriate package from <ulink
114 url="http://dcpomatic.com/">http://dcpomatic.com/</ulink> and
115 double-click it. Ubuntu will install the necessary bits and pieces
116 and set DCP-o-matic up for you.
122 <title>Debian Linux</title>
124 Packages are available for Debian 7 (squeeze) from <ulink
125 url="http://dcpomatic.com/">http://dcpomatic.com/</ulink>.
130 <title>Centos Linux</title>
132 Packages are available for Centos 6.5 from <ulink
133 url="http://dcpomatic.com/">http://dcpomatic.com/</ulink>.
138 <title>Arch Linux</title>
140 Packages for Arch Linux are available from <ulink
141 url="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dcpomatic/">https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dcpomatic/</ulink>,
142 thanks to Stefan Karner.
147 <title>Other Linux distributions</title>
150 Installation on non-Ubuntu Linux is currently a little involved, as
151 there are no packages available (yet); you will have to compile it
152 from source. If you are using a non-Ubuntu distribution, do let me
153 know via the <ulink url="mailto:carl@dcpomatic.com">mailing
154 list</ulink> and I will see about building some packages.
158 The following dependencies are required:
160 <listitem><ulink url="http://ffmpeg.org/">FFmpeg</ulink></listitem>
161 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/">libsndfile</ulink></listitem>
162 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.openssl.org/">OpenSSL</ulink></listitem>
163 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.openjpeg.org/">libopenjpeg</ulink></listitem>
164 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php">ImageMagick</ulink></listitem>
165 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.boost.org/">Boost</ulink></listitem>
166 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.libssh.org/">libssh</ulink></listitem>
167 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.gtk.org/">GTK (on Linux)</ulink></listitem>
168 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.wxwidgets.org/">wxWidgets</ulink></listitem>
169 <listitem><ulink url="http://freecode.com/projects/libquickmail">libquickmail</ulink></listitem>
170 <listitem><ulink url="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/">libxml++</ulink></listitem>
171 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.aleksey.com/xmlsec/">xmlsec</ulink></listitem>
172 <listitem><ulink url="http://curl.haxx.se/">curl</ulink></listitem>
173 <listitem><ulink url="http://www.nih.at/libzip/">libzip</ulink></listitem>
174 <listitem><ulink url="http://carlh.net/software/libdcp/">libdcp</ulink></listitem>
175 <listitem><ulink url="http://carlh.net/software/libcxml/">libcxml</ulink></listitem>
180 Once you have installed the development packages for the dependencies,
181 download the source code from <ulink
182 url="http://dcpomatic.com/">http://dcpomatic.com/</ulink>,
183 unpack it and run the following commands from inside the source
194 With any luck, this will build and install DCP-o-matic on your system. To run it, enter:
208 <chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
209 <title>Creating a video DCP</title>
212 In this chapter we will see how to create a video DCP using
213 DCP-o-matic. We will gloss over the details and look at the basics.
217 <title>Creating a new film</title>
220 Let's make a very simple DCP to see how DCP-o-matic works. First, we
221 need some content. Download the low-resolution trailer for the open
222 movie <ulink url="http://sintel.org/">Sintel</ulink> from <ulink
223 url="http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/graphics/blender/apricot/trailer/Sintel_Trailer1.480p.DivX_Plus_HD.mkv">their
224 website</ulink>. Generally, of course, one would want to use the
225 highest-resolution material available, but for this test we will use
226 the low-resolution version to save everyone's bandwidth bills.
230 Now, start DCP-o-matic and its window will open. First, we will
231 create a new ‘film’. A ‘film’ is how DCP-o-matic refers to
232 some pieces of content, along with some settings, which we will make into
233 a DCP. DCP-o-matic stores its data in a folder on your disk while it
234 creates the DCP. You can create a new film by selecting
235 <guilabel>New</guilabel> from the <guilabel>File</guilabel> menu, as
236 shown in <xref linkend="fig-file-new"/>.
239 <figure id="fig-file-new">
240 <title>Creating a new film</title>
243 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/file-new&scs;"/>
249 This will open a dialogue box for the new film, as shown in <xref
250 linkend="fig-video-new-film"/>.
253 <figure id="fig-video-new-film">
254 <title>Dialogue box for creating a new film</title>
257 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/video-new-film&scs;"/>
263 In this dialogue box you can choose a name for the film. This will be
264 used to name the folder to store its data in, and also as the initial
265 name for the DCP itself. You can also choose whereabouts you want to create
266 the film. In the example from the figure, DCP-o-matic will create a
267 folder called ‘DCP Test’ inside my home folder (carl) into which it
268 will write its working files.
274 <title>Adding content</title>
277 The next step is to add the content that you want to use. DCP-o-matic
278 can make DCPs from multiple pieces of content, but in this simple
279 example we will just use a single piece. Click the <guilabel>Add
280 file(s)...</guilabel> button, as shown in <xref
281 linkend="fig-add-file"/>, and a file chooser will open for you to
282 select the content file to use, as shown in <xref
283 linkend="fig-video-select-content-file"/>.
286 <figure id="fig-add-file">
287 <title>Adding content files</title>
290 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/add-file&scs;"/>
295 <figure id="fig-video-select-content-file">
296 <title>Selecting a video content file</title>
299 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/video-select-content-file&scs;"/>
305 Select your content file and click <guilabel>Open</guilabel>. In this
306 case we are using the Sintel trailer that we downloaded earlier.
310 When you do this, DCP-o-matic will take a look at your file. After a
311 short while (when the progress bar at the bottom right of the window
312 has finished), you can look through your content using the slider to
313 the right of the window, as shown in <xref linkend="fig-examine-content"/>.
316 <figure id="fig-examine-content">
317 <title>Examining the content</title>
320 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/examine-content&scs;"/>
326 Dragging the slider will move through your video. You can also click
327 the <guilabel>Play</guilabel> button to play the content back. Note
328 that there will be no sound, and playback might not be entirely
329 accurate (it may be slightly slower or faster than it should be, for
330 example). This player is really only intended for brief inspection of
331 content; if you need to check it more thoroughly, use another player
333 url="http://projects.gnome.org/totem/index.html">Totem</ulink>, <ulink
334 url="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html">mplayer</ulink> or
335 <ulink url="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html">VLC</ulink>.
343 <title>Making the DCP</title>
345 <para>In most cases, some adjustments would be made to DCP-o-matic's
346 settings once the content has been added. For our simple test,
347 however, the default values will suffice, so we can go straight onto
348 making the DCP.</para>
351 Choose <guilabel>Make DCP</guilabel> from the
352 <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> menu. DCP-o-matic will encode your DCP.
353 This may take some time (many hours in some cases). While the job is
354 in progress, DCP-o-matic will update you on how it is getting on with
355 the progress bar in the bottom of its window, as shown in <xref
356 linkend="fig-making-dcp"/>.
359 <figure id="fig-making-dcp">
360 <title>Making the DCP</title>
363 <imagedata scale="30" fileref="screenshots/making-dcp&scs;"/>
369 When it has finished, the DCP will end up on your disk inside the
370 film's folder. You can then copy this to a projector via a USB
371 stick, hard-drive or network connection. See <xref
372 linkend="ch-files"/> for details about the files that DCP-o-matic creates.
376 Alternatively, if you have a projector or TMS that is accessible via
377 SCP across your network, you can upload the content directly from
378 DCP-o-matic. See the preferences in <xref linkend="sec-prefs-tms"/>.
384 <chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
385 <title>Creating a still-image DCP</title>
388 DCP-o-matic can also be used to create DCPs of one or more still images, perhaps
389 for an advertisement or an on-screen announcement. This chapter shows you
394 As with video DCPs, the first step is to create a new
395 ‘Film’; select <guilabel>New</guilabel> from the
396 <guilabel>File</guilabel> menu and the new film dialogue will open as
397 shown in <xref linkend="fig-still-new-film"/>.
400 <figure id="fig-still-new-film">
401 <title>Dialogue box for creating a new film</title>
404 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/still-new-film&scs;"/>
410 Enter a name and click <guilabel>OK</guilabel>. Now we need to add
411 the content. As before, click <guilabel>Add file(s)...</guilabel>.
412 For our example, we will add a single image file, as shown in <xref
413 linkend="fig-still-select-content-file"/>.
416 <figure id="fig-still-select-content-file">
417 <title>Selecting a still content file</title>
420 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/still-select-content-file&scs;"/>
426 As with video DCPs, most of the default settings will be fine for a
427 simple test. The one thing that you might wish to change is the
428 length of the still. Select the <guilabel>Timing</guilabel> tab and
429 you will see a <guilabel>Length</guilabel> setting, as shown in <xref
430 linkend="fig-timing-tab"/>.
433 <figure id="fig-timing-tab">
434 <title>The timing tab</title>
437 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/timing-tab&scs;"/>
443 This length is a ‘timecode’: it consists of four numbers.
444 The first is hours, the second minutes, the third seconds, and the
445 fourth frames. Enter the duration that you want and then click <guilabel>Set</guilabel>.
449 Finally, as with video, you can choose <guilabel>Make DCP</guilabel>
450 from the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> menu to create your DCP. This will
451 be much quicker than creating a video DCP, as DCP-o-matic only needs
452 to encode a single frame which it can then repeat.
457 <chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
458 <title>Content settings</title>
461 The previous chapters showed DCP generation using the default
462 settings. DCP-o-matic offers a range of features to adjust the
463 content that goes into your DCP, and this chapter describes those features in
468 <title>Adding and removing content</title>
471 At the top of the <guilabel>Content</guilabel> tab is a list of the
472 content that will go into our DCP. There can be as many pieces of
473 content as you like, and they can be of the following types:
477 <listitem>Movie — a file containing some video, probably some
478 audio and possibly some subtitles; for example, a MOV, MP4 or VOB.
481 <listitem>Sound — a file containing one or more channels of
482 audio; for example, a WAV or AIFF file.
485 <listitem>Still image — a file containing a single still image; for
486 example, a JPEG, PNG or TIFF file.
489 <listitem>Moving image — a directory containing many still
490 images which should be treated as the frames of a video.
495 To add one or more movie, sound or still-image files, select
496 <guilabel>Add file(s)...</guilabel> and choose them from the selector.
497 To add a directory of images, choose <guilabel>Add
498 directory...</guilabel> and do similar.
502 You can remove a piece of content by clicking on its name and then
503 clicking the <guilabel>Remove</guilabel> button.
508 <title>Content Properties</title>
511 Below the content list are the controls to set content properties. To
512 adjust the properties for a piece of content, click its name in the
513 content list. The content property controls will then become active
514 for that piece of content.
518 The content properties are split up into four sections:
519 <guilabel>Video</guilabel>, <guilabel>Audio</guilabel>,
520 <guilabel>Subtitles</guilabel> and <guilabel>Timing</guilabel>. Not
521 all of these sections will be active for all content types. The controls
522 in each section are described below.
531 The <guilabel>Video</guilabel> tab controls properties of the image, as shown in <xref linkend="fig-video-tab"/>.
534 <figure id="fig-video-tab">
535 <title>Video settings tab</title>
538 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/video-tab&scs;"/>
544 <title>Image type</title>
547 The first option on this tab is the ‘type’ of the video.
548 This specifies how DCP-o-matic should interpret the video's image.
549 <guilabel>2D</guilabel> is the default; this just takes the video
550 image as a standard 2D frame. The <guilabel>3D
551 left/right</guilabel> option tells DCP-o-matic to interpret the frame as a
552 left-right pair, as shown in <xref linkend="fig-3d-left-right"/>.
555 <figure id="fig-3d-left-right">
556 <title>3D left/right image type</title>
559 <imagedata scale="100" fileref="diagrams/3d-left-right&dia;"/>
565 Alternatively the <guilabel>3D top/bottom</guilabel> option tells
566 DCP-o-matic to see the frame as a top-bottom pair, as shown in <xref
567 linkend="fig-3d-top-bottom"/>.
570 <figure id="fig-3d-top-bottom">
571 <title>3D top/bottom image type</title>
574 <imagedata scale="100" fileref="diagrams/3d-top-bottom&dia;"/>
582 <!-- ============================================================== -->
584 <title>Filtering</title>
587 The ‘filters’ settings allow you to apply various video
588 filters to the image. These may be useful to try to improve
589 poor-quality sources like DVDs. You can set up the filters by clicking the
590 <guilabel>Edit</guilabel> button next to the filters entry in the
591 setup area of the DCP-o-matic window; this opens the filters selector
592 as shown in <xref linkend="fig-filters"/>.
595 <figure id="fig-filters">
596 <title>Filters selector</title>
599 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/filters&scs;"/>
605 After changing the filters setup, you will need to regenerate the DCP
606 to see the effect on the cinema screen. The preview in DCP-o-matic
607 will update itself whenever filters are changed, though of course this
608 image is much smaller and of lower resolution than a projected image!
613 <!-- ============================================================== -->
615 <title>Other settings</title>
618 The ‘crop’ settings can be used to crop your content,
619 which can be used to remove black borders from round the edges of DVD
620 images, for example. The specified number of pixels will be trimmed
621 from each edge, and the content image in the right of the window will
622 be updated to show the effect of the crop.
626 The <guilabel>Scale to</guilabel> option governs the shape that
627 DCP-o-matic will scale the content's image into. Select the aspect
628 ratio that your content should be presented in.
633 <title>Video description</title>
636 At the bottom of the video tab is a short description of what will
637 happen to your video with the current settings. In the example of
638 <xref linkend="fig-video-tab"/>, DCP-o-matic is telling you that the
639 video file is 1920x1080 pixels (which is a ratio of 1.78:1). Since
640 the controls specify ‘Flat’ for the ratio, DCP-o-matic
641 scales the content image to 1998x1080, which is the DCI flat
646 This description also gives the frame rate of the content and what
647 will happen to it when it is played at the DCP's frame rate.
648 <!-- XXX: link to more detailed discussion of this -->
659 The <guilabel>Audio</guilabel> tab controls properties of the image, as shown in <xref linkend="fig-audio-tab"/>.
662 <figure id="fig-audio-tab">
663 <title>Audio settings tab</title>
666 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/audio-tab&scs;"/>
672 <title>Show audio</title>
675 The <guilabel>Show Audio</guilabel> button will instruct DCP-o-matic
676 to examine the audio in your content and plot a graph of its level
677 over time. This can be useful for getting a rough idea of how loud
678 the sound will be in the cinema auditorium. A typical plot is shown
679 in <xref linkend="fig-audio-plot"/>
682 <figure id="fig-audio-plot">
683 <title>Audio plot</title>
686 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/audio-plot&scs;"/>
692 The plot gives the audio level (vertical axis, in dB) with time
693 (horizontal axis). 0dB represents full scale, so if there is anything
694 near this you are in danger of clipping the projector's audio outputs.
698 There are two plot types: the peak level and the RMS, which can be
699 shown or hidden using the check-boxes on the right hand side of the
704 The channel check-boxes will show or hide the plot(s) for
705 the corresponding channels in the DCP.
709 The smoothing slider applies a variable degree of temporal smoothing
710 to the plots, which can make them easier to read in some cases.
714 Obviously the audio plot is no substitute for listening in an
715 auditorium, but it can be useful to get levels in the right rough area.
721 <title>The audio map</title>
724 The section at the bottom of the audio tab is the ‘audio
725 map’. This governs how sound from the content will be arranged
730 Down the left-hand side of the map is the list of audio channels in
731 the currently-selected piece of content. Along the top is each
732 channel in the DCP. A checked box means that the corresponding
733 content channel will be copied into the corresponding DCP channel.
737 Consider, for example, the case in <xref linkend="fig-audio-map-eg1"/>.
740 <figure id="fig-audio-map-eg1">
741 <title>Audio map example 1</title>
744 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/audio-map-eg1&scs;"/>
750 Here, we have two channels in the source which are mapped to left and
751 right, respectively, in the DCP. If we modify that as in <xref
752 linkend="fig-audio-map-eg2"/>
755 <figure id="fig-audio-map-eg2">
756 <title>Audio map example 2</title>
759 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/audio-map-eg2&scs;"/>
765 we now have the content's streams mapped to left and right and also
766 mixed together and placed in the DCP's centre channel.
769 <figure id="fig-audio-map-eg3">
770 <title>Audio map example 3</title>
773 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/audio-map-eg3&scs;"/>
779 As a final example, the map in <xref linkend="fig-audio-map-eg3"/>
780 shows the mapping of a 5.1 source into a 5.1 DCP.
786 <title>Other controls</title>
789 ‘Audio Gain’ is used to alter the volume of the
790 soundtrack. The specified gain (in dB) will be applied to each sound
791 channel of your content before it is written to the DCP.
795 If you use a sound processor that DCP-o-matic knows about, it can help
796 you calculate changes in gain that you should apply. Say, for
797 example, that you make a test DCP and find that you have to run it at
798 volume 5 instead of volume 7 to get a good sound level in the screen.
799 If this is the case, click the <guilabel>Calculate...</guilabel>
800 button next to the audio gain entry, and the dialogue box in <xref
801 linkend="fig-calculate-audio-gain"/> will open.
804 <figure id="fig-calculate-audio-gain">
805 <title>Calculating audio gain</title>
808 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/calculate-audio-gain&scs;"/>
814 For our example, put 5 in the first box and 7 in the second and click
815 <guilabel>OK</guilabel>. DCP-o-matic will calculate the audio gain
816 that it should apply to make this happen. Then you can re-make the
817 DCP (this will be reasonably fast, as the video data will already have
818 been done) and it should play back at the correct volume with 7 on
819 your sound-rack fader.
823 Current versions of DCP-o-matic only know about the Dolby CP650 and
824 CP750. If you use a different sound processor, and know the gain
825 curve of its volume control, <ulink url="mailto:carl@dcpomatic.com">get in
830 <guilabel>Audio Delay</guilabel> is used to adjust the synchronisation
831 between audio and video. A positive delay will move the audio later
832 with respect to the video, and a negative delay will move it earlier.
836 The <guilabel>Audio Stream</guilabel> option allows you to select the
837 audio stream to use, if the content contains more than one. There
838 might be different soundtrack languages, for example.
846 <title>Subtitles</title>
849 The subtitles tab contains settings related to subtitles in your
850 content, as shown in <xref linkend="fig-subtitles-tab"/>.
853 <figure id="fig-subtitles-tab">
854 <title>Subtitle settings tab</title>
857 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/subtitles-tab&scs;"/>
863 DCP-o-matic will extract subtitles from the content, if present, and
864 they can be ‘burnt into’ the DCP (that is, they are
865 included in the image and not overlaid by the projector). Note that
866 DVD and Blu-Ray subtitles are stored as bitmaps, so it is not possible
867 (automatically) to use non-burnt-in subtitles with these sources.
868 Select the <guilabel>With Subtitles</guilabel> check-box to enable
869 subtitles. The <guilabel>offset</guilabel> control moves the
870 subtitles up and down the image, and the <guilabel>scale</guilabel>
871 control changes their size.
875 All being well, future versions of DCP-o-matic will include the option to
876 use text subtitles (as is the norm with most professionally-mastered
883 <title>Timing</title>
886 The timing tab contains settings related to the timing of your
887 content, as shown in <xref linkend="fig-timing-tab-detail"/>.
890 <figure id="fig-timing-tab-detail">
891 <title>Timing settings tab</title>
894 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/timing-tab&scs;"/>
900 Most of the timing tab's entries are <emphasis>time-codes</emphasis>.
901 These are expressed as four numbers, as shown in <xref
902 linkend="fig-timecode"/>.
905 <figure id="fig-timecode">
906 <title>Timecode</title>
909 <imagedata fileref="diagrams/timecode&dia;"/>
915 <guilabel>Position</guilabel> is the time at which this piece of
916 content should start within the DCP. In most cases, this will be
917 <code>0:0:0:0</code> to make the content start at the beginning of the
922 <guilabel>Full length</guilabel> is the length of the piece of
923 content. This can only be set for still-image content: for video or
924 sound content, it is fixed by the nature of the content file. If
925 still-image content is being used you can set the length for which it
926 should be displayed using this control.
930 <guilabel>Trim from start</guilabel> specifies the amount that should be trimmed from the start of the content.
934 <guilabel>Trim from end</guilabel> specifies the amount that should be trimmed from the end of the content.
938 <guilabel>Play length</guilabel> indicates how long this piece of
939 content will be once the trims have been applied. This will be equal
940 to the full length minus <guilabel>trim-from-start</guilabel> and minus <guilabel>trim-from-end</guilabel>.
944 <guilabel>Video frame rate</guilabel> specifies the frame rate for still-image content.
948 Each timecode control has a <guilabel>Set</guilabel> which you should
949 click when you have entered a new value for a timecode. The
950 <guilabel>Set</guilabel> button will make DCP-o-matic take account of
951 any changes to the corresponding timecode.
958 <chapter xml:id="ch-dcp" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
959 <title>DCP settings</title>
962 This chapter describes the settings that apply to the whole DCP. The
963 controls for these settings are in the <guilabel>DCP</guilabel> tab of
964 the main window, as shown in <xref linkend="fig-dcp-tab"/>.
967 <figure id="fig-dcp-tab">
968 <title>DCP settings tab</title>
971 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/dcp-tab&scs;"/>
977 The first thing here is the name. This is generally set to the title
978 of the film that is being encoded. If <guilabel>Use ISDCF
979 name</guilabel> is not ticked, the name that you specify will be used
980 as-is for the name of the DCP. If <guilabel>Use ISDCF name</guilabel>
981 is ticked, the name that you enter will be used as part of a
982 ISDCF-compliant name.
986 Underneath the name field is a preview of the name that the DCP will
987 get. To use a ISDCF-compliant name, tick the <guilabel>Use ISDCF
988 name</guilabel> check-box. The ISDCF name will be composed using details
989 of your content's soundtrack, the current date and other things that
990 can be specified in the ISDCF name details dialogue box, which you can
991 open by clicking on the <guilabel>Details</guilabel> button.
995 If the DCP name is long, it may not all be visible. You can see the
996 full name by hovering the mouse pointer over the partial name.
1000 The <guilabel>Container</guilabel> option sets the ratio of the image
1001 in the DCP. If this ratio is different to the ratio used for any
1002 content, DCP-o-matic will pad the content with black. In simple cases
1003 this should be set to the same ratio as that for the the primary piece
1004 of video content. Alternatively, you might want to pillarbox a small
1005 format into a Flat container: in this case, select the small format
1006 for the content's ratio and ‘Flat’ for the DCP.
1010 Next up is the content type. This can be
1011 ‘feature’, ‘trailer’ or whatever; select the
1012 required type from the drop-down list.
1016 The <guilabel>Frame Rate</guilabel> control sets the frame rate of
1017 your DCP. This can be a little tricky to get right. Ideally, you
1018 want it to be the same as the video content that you are using. If it
1019 is not the same, DCP-o-matic must resort to some tricks to alter your
1020 content to fit the specified frame rate. Frame rates are discussed in
1021 more detail in <xref linkend="ch-frame-rates"/>.
1025 The <guilabel>Signed</guilabel> check-box sets whether or not the DCP
1026 is signed. This is rarely important; if in doubt, tick it.
1030 The <guilabel>Encrypted</guilabel> check-box will set whether the DCP
1031 should be encrypted or not. If this is ticked, the DCP will require a
1032 KDM to play back. Encryption is discussed in <xref
1033 linkend="ch-encryption"/>.
1037 The <guilabel>Use best</guilabel> button sets the DCP video frame rate
1038 to what DCP-o-matic thinks is the best given the content that you have
1043 The <guilabel>Audio Channels</guilabel> control sets the number of
1044 audio channels that the DCP will have. If the DCP has any channels
1045 for which there is no content audio they will be replaced by silence.
1049 The <guilabel>3D</guilabel> button will set your DCP to 3D mode if it
1050 is checked. A 3D DCP will then be created, and any 2D content will be
1051 made 3D compatible by repeating the same frame for both left and right
1052 eyes. A 3D DCP can be played back on many 3D systems (e.g. Dolby 3D,
1053 Real-D etc.) but not on a 2D system.
1057 The <guilabel>Resolution</guilabel> tab allows you to choose the
1058 resolution for your DCP. Use 2K unless you have content that is of
1059 high enough resolution to be worth presenting in 4K.
1063 The <guilabel>JPEG2000 bandwidth</guilabel>; setting changes how big the final
1064 image files used within the DCP will be. Larger numbers will give
1065 better quality, but correspondingly larger DCPs. The bandwidth can be
1066 between 50 and 250 megabits per second (Mbit/s).
1070 The <guilabel>Standard</guilabel> option specifies which of the two
1071 DCP standards DCP-o-matic should use. If in doubt, use SMPTE (the
1072 more modern of the two).
1076 Finally, the <guilabel>Scaler</guilabel> is the method that will be used to scale up
1077 your content to the required size for the DCP, if required. Bicubic is a fine choice in
1083 <chapter xml:id="ch-encryption" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
1084 <title>Encryption</title>
1087 It is not required that DCPs be encrypted, but they can be. This
1088 chapter discusses the basic principles of DCP encryption, and how
1089 DCP-o-matic can create encrypted DCPs and KDMs for them.
1093 <title>Basics</title>
1096 DCPs can be encrypted. This means that the picture and sound data are
1097 encoded in such a way that only cinemas ‘approved’ by the
1098 DCP's creators can read them. In particular, this means copies of the
1099 DCP can be distributed by insecure means: if an ne'er-do-well called
1100 Mallory obtains a hard drive containing an encrypted DCP, there is no
1101 way that he can play it. Only those cinemas who receive a correct key
1102 delivery message (KDM) can play the DCP.
1106 <title>How it works (in a nutshell)</title>
1109 This section attempts to summarise how DCP encryption works. You can
1110 skip it if you like. You may need some knowledge of encryption
1111 methods to understand it.
1115 We suppose that we are trying to distribute a DCP to
1116 Alice's cinema, without a troublemaker called Mallory being able to
1121 There are two main families of encryption techniques. The first,
1122 symmetric-key encryption, allows us to encode some data using some
1123 numeric key. After encoding, no-one can decode the data unless they
1128 The first step in a DCP encryption is to encode its data with some key
1129 using symmetric-key encryption. The encrypted DCP can then be sent
1130 anywhere, safe in the knowledge that even if Mallory got hold of a
1131 copy, he could not decrypt it.
1135 Alice, however, needs to know the key so she can play the DCP in her
1136 cinema. A simple approach might be for us to send Alice the key.
1137 However, if Mallory can intercept the DCP, he might also be able to
1138 intercept our communication of the key to Alice. Furthermore, if Alice
1139 happened to know Mallory, she could just send him a copy of the key.
1143 The clever bit in DCP encryption requires the use of public-key
1144 encryption. With this technique we can encrypt a block of data using
1145 some ‘public’ key. That data can then only be decrypted
1146 using a <emphasis>different</emphasis> ‘private’ key. The
1147 private and public keys are related mathematically, but it is
1148 extremely hard (or rather, virtually impossible) to derive the private
1149 key from the public key.
1153 Public-key encryption allows us to distribute the DCP's key to Alice
1154 securely. The manufacturer of Alice's projector generates a public
1155 and private key. They hide the private key deep inside the bowels of
1156 the projector (inside an integrated circuit) where no-one can read it.
1157 They then make the public key available to anyone who is interested.
1161 We take our DCP's symmetric key and encrypt it using the public key of
1162 Alice's projector. We send the result to Alice over email (using a
1163 format called a Key Delivery Message, or KDM). Her projector then
1164 decrypts our message using its private key, yielding the magic
1165 symmetric key which can decrypt the DCP.
1169 If is fine if Mallory intercepts our email to Alice, since the only
1170 key which can decrypt the message is the private key buried inside
1171 Alice's projector. The projector manufacturer is very careful that
1172 no-one ever finds out what this key is. Our DCP is secure: only Alice
1173 can play it back, since only her projector knows the key (even Alice
1181 <title>Encryption using DCP-o-matic</title>
1184 There are two steps to distributing an encrypted DCP. First, the
1185 DCP's data must be encrypted, and secondly KDMs must be generated for
1186 those cinemas that are allowed to play the DCP.
1190 The first part is simple: ticking the <guilabel>Encrypted</guilabel>
1191 box in the <guilabel>DCP</guilabel> tab of DCP-o-matic will encrypt
1192 the DCP using a random key that DCP-o-matic generates. The key will
1193 be written to the film's metadata file, which should be kept
1198 A DCP that is generated with the <guilabel>Encrypted</guilabel> box
1199 ticked will not play on any projector as-is (it will be marked as
1200 ‘locked’, or whatever the projector manufacturer's term
1205 The second part is to generate KDMs for the cinemas that you wish to
1206 allow to play your DCP. This is done using the <guilabel>Make
1207 KDMs</guilabel> option on the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> menu. This
1208 will open the KDM dialogue box, as shown in <xref linkend="fig-kdm"/>.
1211 <figure id="fig-kdm">
1212 <title>KDM dialog</title>
1215 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/kdm&scs;"/>
1221 In order to generate KDMs for a particular projector, you need to know
1222 its <emphasis>certificate</emphasis>. These are usually made
1223 available by the projector manufacturers as text files with a
1224 <code>.pem</code> extension.
1228 DCP-o-matic can store these certificates to make life easier. It
1229 stores details of cinemas and screens within those cinemas. Each
1230 screen has a certificate for its projector. DCP-o-matic can generate
1231 KDMs for any screens that it knows about.
1235 To add a cinema, click <guilabel>Add Cinema...</guilabel>. This opens
1236 a dialogue box into which you can enter the cinema's name, and
1237 optionally an email address. This email address can be used to
1238 get DCP-o-matic to deliver KDMs via email, but it is optional.
1242 Once you have added a cinema, select it by clicking on its name, then
1243 click <guilabel>Add Screen...</guilabel>. The resulting dialogue
1244 allows you to enter a name for the screen and load in its certificate
1245 from a file. The certificate should be in SHA256 PEM format.
1249 Once you have set up all the screens that you need KDMs for,
1250 DCP-o-matic can generate KDMs for the last DCP that you generated for
1251 the currently-loaded film. Select the cinemas and/or screens that you
1252 want KDMs for and fill in the start and end dates and times.
1256 Finally, choose what you want to do with the KDMs. They can be
1257 written to disk, to a location that you can specify by clicking
1258 <guilabel>Browse</guilabel>. Alternatively, if you choose
1259 <guilabel>Send by email</guilabel> the KDMs will be zipped up and
1260 emailed to the appropriate cinema email addresses. Click OK to
1269 <chapter xml:id="ch-preferences" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
1270 <title>Preferences</title>
1273 DCP-o-matic provides a few preferences which can be used to modify its
1274 behaviour. This chapter explains those options.
1278 <title>The preferences dialogue</title>
1281 The preferences dialogue is opened by choosing
1282 <guilabel>Preferences...</guilabel> from the <guilabel>Edit</guilabel>
1283 menu. The dialogue is split into five tabs.
1287 <title>Miscellaneous</title>
1290 The miscellaneous tab is shown in <xref linkend="fig-prefs-misc"/>.
1293 <figure id="fig-prefs-misc">
1294 <title>Miscellaneous preferences</title>
1297 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/prefs-misc&scs;"/>
1303 <title>Language</title>
1306 If you tick the <guilabel>Set Language</guilabel> checkbox and choose
1307 a language from the list, that language will be used for DCP-o-matic.
1308 You will need to restart DCP-o-matic to see the new language.
1312 The translations for DCP-o-matic have been contributed by helpful
1313 users. If your language is not on the last, head to <ulink
1314 url="http://dcpomatic.com/i18n.php">the DCP-o-matic website</ulink> to
1315 read about how to contribute a translation.
1320 <title>Threads</title>
1323 When DCP-o-matic is encoding DCPs it can use multiple parallel threads
1324 to speed things up. Set this value to the number of threads
1325 DCP-o-matic should use. This should normally be the number of
1326 processors (or processor cores) in your machine. DCP-o-matic will try
1327 to set this up correctly when you run it for the first time.
1333 <title>KDM emails</title>
1336 DCP-o-matic can send KDMs (see <xref linkend="ch-encryption"/>) to
1337 cinemas (or anywhere else) via email. To make this work, enter a
1338 suitable outgoing mail (SMTP) server and ‘from’ address
1345 <title>Defaults</title>
1348 The next few options allow you to set up default values for several
1349 properties of new films that you create.
1356 <title>Colour conversions</title>
1359 The colour conversions tab is shown in <xref linkend="fig-prefs-colour-conversions"/>.
1362 <figure id="fig-prefs-colour-conversions">
1363 <title>Colour conversions preferences</title>
1366 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/prefs-colour-conversions&scs;"/>
1372 As part of the encoding process, DCP-o-matic has to convert the colour
1373 space of the source files that you use into XYZ, the colour space used
1374 by the DCI standard.
1378 Colour conversion is discussed in more detail in a separate document
1379 <ulink url="http://dcpomatic.com/manual/colour.pdf">colour.pdf</ulink>.
1383 These preferences control a list of presets which are suitable for
1384 converting from common input colour spaces to XYZ.
1390 <title>Metadata</title>
1393 The metadata tab is shown in <xref linkend="fig-prefs-metadata"/>.
1396 <figure id="fig-prefs-metadata">
1397 <title>Metadata preferences</title>
1400 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/prefs-metadata&scs;"/>
1406 This allows you to set up a couple of identifiers that are written
1407 into the DCP. The default values should cause no problems.
1412 <section xml:id="sec-prefs-tms">
1416 The TMS tab (shown in <xref linkend="fig-prefs-tms"/>) gives some
1417 options for specifying details about your theatre management system
1418 (TMS). If you do this, and your TMS accepts SSH connections, you can
1419 upload DCPs directly from DCP-o-matic to the TMS using the
1420 <guilabel>Send DCP to TMS</guilabel> option in the
1421 <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> menu.
1424 <figure id="fig-prefs-tms">
1425 <title>TMS preferences</title>
1428 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/prefs-tms&scs;"/>
1434 <guilabel>TMS IP address</guilabel> should be set to the IP address of
1435 your TMS, <guilabel>TMS target path</guilabel> to the place that DCPs
1436 should be uploaded to (which will be relative to the home directory of
1437 the SSH user). Finally, the user name and password are the
1438 credentials required to log into the TMS via SSH.
1443 <title>KDM email</title>
1446 The KDM email is shown in <xref linkend="fig-prefs-kdm-email"/>.
1449 <figure id="fig-prefs-kdm-email">
1450 <title>KDM email preferences</title>
1453 <imagedata fileref="screenshots/prefs-kdm-email&scs;"/>
1459 This is a template for the email that is used to send KDMs out to
1460 cinemas. You can change it to say whatever you like. The
1461 ‘magic’ string <code>$CPL_NAME</code> will be replaced by
1470 <chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en" xml:id="ch-frame-rates">
1471 <title>Frame rates</title>
1474 In an ideal world, a DCP would be created using content at the same
1475 video frame and audio sampling rates as the DCP. This is not,
1476 however, always possible.
1480 <title>DCP rate limitations</title>
1483 There are some limitations to video and audio rates in DCPs. This is
1484 complicated by the fact that not all projectors will play DCPs at the
1485 same rates. It is possible to create a DCP which one projector will
1486 play fine, but another (of a different type) will refuse to play, or
1487 even refuse to ingest.
1491 <title>Guaranteed rates</title>
1494 The only rates that are (pretty much) guaranteed to work on all DCI
1495 projectors is 24 frames per second (fps) for video and 48kHz or 96kHz
1496 for audio. If you are sending your DCPs to unknown places it wise to
1497 consider using these rates if at all possible.
1503 <title>Other often-supported rates</title>
1505 Many projectors now in the wild support additional video frame rates:
1511 <title>Adapting content to fit the DCP rate</title>
1514 DCP-o-matic has a few tricks to allow you to use content that is not
1515 in one of the ‘approved’ rates.
1519 Audio is easy: DCP-o-matic can resample to 48kHz from any source rate
1520 with minimal loss in quality.
1524 Video rate conversion is harder. DCP-o-matic's basic strategy to deal
1525 with a non-supported content rate is to run it at the wrong speed, and
1526 to adjust the audio to keep it in sync.
1529 <para>Let us consider the example of a 25fps source for which you want
1530 to create a 24fps DCP. DCP-o-matic will put the frames from the
1531 source directly into the DCP without modification, but will tell the
1532 projector to play them back at 24fps. This means that the DCP's video
1533 will run slightly slower than the original.
1537 If DCP-o-matic did nothing else, the result of this would be that the
1538 audio would be running at the original speed with the video running
1539 slowly. Hence the audio would drift slowly out of sync. To avoid
1540 this, DCP-o-matic also resamples the audio such that the projector
1541 will play it too slow by the same amount. Hence it will sound
1542 slightly different but will remain in sync with the video.
1546 For very low or high frame rates, DCP-o-matic can also skip or duplicate frames.
1553 <title>Setting up</title>
1556 The <guilabel>Frame Rate</guilabel> control in the
1557 <guilabel>DCP</guilabel> tab sets the video frame rate that the DCP
1558 will use. Clicking <guilabel>Use best</guilabel> sets the rate to
1559 what DVD-o-matic thinks is the best for your content. With this
1560 button, DCP-o-matic assumes that the whole range of frame rates (24,
1561 25, 30 and 48fps) are allowable.
1565 After this, the <guilabel>Video</guilabel> tab for each piece of
1566 content will give a summary of what DCP-o-matic is doing with that
1575 <chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en" xml:id="ch-servers">
1576 <title>Encoding servers</title>
1579 One way to increase the speed of DCP encoding is to use more
1580 than one machine at the same time. An instance of DCP-o-matic can
1581 offload some of the time-consuming JPEG2000 encoding to any number of
1582 other machines on a network. To do this, one ‘master’
1583 machine runs DCP-o-matic, and the ‘server’ machines run
1584 a small program called <code>dcpomatic_server</code>.
1588 The master and server machines do not need to be the same type, so you
1589 can mix Windows PCs, Macs and Linux machines as you wish.
1593 <title>Running the servers</title>
1596 There are two options for the encoding server;
1597 <code>dcpomatic_server_cli</code>, which runs on the command line, and
1598 <code>dcpomatic_server</code>, which has a simple GUI. The command line
1599 version is well-suited to headless servers, especially on Linux, and
1600 the GUI version works best on Windows where it will put an icon in the
1605 To run the command line version, simply enter:
1609 dcpomatic_server_cli
1613 at a command prompt. If you are running the program on a machine with
1614 a multi-core processor, you can run multiple parallel encoding threads
1615 by doing something like:
1619 dcpomatic_server_cli -t 4
1623 to run 4 threads in parallel.
1627 To run the GUI version on windows, run the ‘DCP-o-matic encode
1628 server’ from the start menu. An icon will appear in the system
1629 tray; right-click it to open a menu from whence you can quit the
1630 server or open a window to show its status.
1633 <para>If you would rather not bother installing DCP-o-matic on your
1634 server computers, the other option is to use the live-CD
1635 image that you can download from the <ulink
1636 url="http://dcpomatic.com/">DCP-o-matic web site.</ulink></para>
1638 <para>Either burn the image to CD, or write it to a USB stick (using
1639 something like <ulink
1640 url="http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/">unetbootin</ulink>). Boot a
1641 PC from the CD or USB stick and it becomes a DCP-o-matic server
1642 without touching your standard operating system install.
1647 <title>Setting up DCP-o-matic</title>
1650 DCP-o-matic periodically looks on the local network for servers. Any
1651 that it finds are given work to do during encodes. Selecting
1652 <guilabel>Encoding Servers</guilabel> from the
1653 <guilabel>Tools</guilabel> menu brings up a window which shows that
1654 servers that DCP-o-matic has found.
1659 <title>Some notes about encode servers</title>
1662 DCP-o-matic does not mind if servers come and go; if a server
1663 disappears, DCP-o-matic will stop sending work to it, and will check
1664 it every minute or so in case it has come back online.
1668 You will probably find that using a 1Gb/s or faster network will
1669 provide a significant speed-up compared to a 100Mb/s network.
1676 <chapter xml:id="ch-files" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0" xml:lang="en">
1677 <title>Generated files</title>
1680 DCP-o-matic generates a number of files as it makes a DCP. <xref
1681 linkend="fig-file-structure"/> shows the files that might be generated
1682 after you have created a DCP for a film called ‘DCP Test’.
1685 <figure id="fig-file-structure">
1686 <title>Creating a new film</title>
1689 <imagedata fileref="diagrams/file-structure&dia;"/>
1695 The <code>DCP Test</code> folder is the one that you specify when you
1696 select the <guilabel>New Film</guilabel> option from DCP-o-matic's
1697 menu. Everything is stored inside this folder.
1701 DCP-o-matic generates some working files as it goes along. These are as follows:
1704 <listitem><code>log</code> is a list of notes that DCP-o-matic makes as it goes
1705 along. This can be useful for debugging purposes if something goes
1708 <listitem><code>metadata</code> stores the settings that you have made
1709 for this film: things like cropping, output format and so on.</listitem>
1711 <listitem><code>video</code> is where DCP-o-matic writes the DCP's
1712 video data as it encodes it.</listitem>
1714 <listitem><code>analysis</code> is used to keep the results of audio analysis runs.</listitem>
1716 <listitem><code>info</code> contains details of each video frame that
1717 DCP-o-matic has written so far. This is used when an encoding
1718 operation is interrupted and DCP-o-matic must resume it.</listitem>
1723 Following this is the DCP itself:
1724 <code>DCP-TEST_EN-XX_UK-U_51_2K_CSY_20130218_CSY_OV</code>. This
1725 contains some small XML files, which describe the DCP, and two large
1726 MXF files, which contain the DCP's audio and video data. This folder
1727 (<code>DCP-TEST_EN-XX_...</code>) is what you should ingest, or pass
1728 to the cinema which is showing your DCP.
1734 <title>Loose ends</title>
1737 This chapter collects a few notes on bits of DCP-o-matic that do not fit elsewhere in the manual.
1741 <title>Resuming encodes</title>
1744 If you cancel a DCP encoding run half-way through, or your computer
1745 crashes... fear not. DCP-o-matic takes care to ensure that, in most
1746 cases, it can resume encoding from where it left off. When you
1747 re-start a DCP creation, using the same settings are a previous run,
1748 DCP-o-matic will first check that the existing picture frames are
1749 correct, and then resume from where it left off. The checking of
1750 existing frames does take some time, but it is much faster than
1751 running a full re-encode.
1755 This resumption is achieved by writing a digest (hash) to disk for
1756 every image frame that is written. On resumption, the existing MXF
1757 file for image data is read and its contents checked against the