- Tue Jul 19, 2016 6:57 pm
#2022
Film Festivals are ubiquitous in some parts of the world, and becoming more ubiquitous everywhere else.
They range from small and tightly focused on a particular topic to International in scope with dozens or hundreds of full length movies in competition and on view for distribution. The needs therefore range from the need for DCPs with the tightest security to viewing product direct from portable computer video ports.
Why is this of import to the ISDCF group?
Many reasons. First, even though some of the festival support teams which have run into every nuance of DCP conversion issues that rippled through the general exhibition field for the last 10 years – compressed into their 3 day or two week setups – have learned through diligence, better processes and more stable equipment – the continued growth of the festival industry, the SMPTE Compliant DCP transition and other "digital" factors has kept the industry in turmoil.
Second is the inexplicable belief that free internet tools will be so easy and flawless that people with no professional skills can bypass logic and learning curves during the last phase of their artistic process and come up with a deliverable that is difficult for even professional companies to achieve – a DCP that will play on different generations and makes and models of media servers and projectors with different software and firmware – against the advice of the festival organizers who often work out special deals with DCP creation teams to reduce problems...but which predominantly refuse to invoke a "Must Use" clause.
A third reason is that the internet is strewn with 10 years of "solutions", some small part of which still have enough truth to be useful and some large part which adds to the confusion. It is hoped that an ISDCF Forum discussion can lay out problems and solutions.
Since it has been the remit of the ISDCF to help deal with Pain Points in the d-cinema transition, and since this topic comes up regularly, this post is submitted to discuss still existing problems and tested solutions that can assist tech support teams, and therefore festival organizers and artists.
They range from small and tightly focused on a particular topic to International in scope with dozens or hundreds of full length movies in competition and on view for distribution. The needs therefore range from the need for DCPs with the tightest security to viewing product direct from portable computer video ports.
Why is this of import to the ISDCF group?
Many reasons. First, even though some of the festival support teams which have run into every nuance of DCP conversion issues that rippled through the general exhibition field for the last 10 years – compressed into their 3 day or two week setups – have learned through diligence, better processes and more stable equipment – the continued growth of the festival industry, the SMPTE Compliant DCP transition and other "digital" factors has kept the industry in turmoil.
Second is the inexplicable belief that free internet tools will be so easy and flawless that people with no professional skills can bypass logic and learning curves during the last phase of their artistic process and come up with a deliverable that is difficult for even professional companies to achieve – a DCP that will play on different generations and makes and models of media servers and projectors with different software and firmware – against the advice of the festival organizers who often work out special deals with DCP creation teams to reduce problems...but which predominantly refuse to invoke a "Must Use" clause.
A third reason is that the internet is strewn with 10 years of "solutions", some small part of which still have enough truth to be useful and some large part which adds to the confusion. It is hoped that an ISDCF Forum discussion can lay out problems and solutions.
Since it has been the remit of the ISDCF to help deal with Pain Points in the d-cinema transition, and since this topic comes up regularly, this post is submitted to discuss still existing problems and tested solutions that can assist tech support teams, and therefore festival organizers and artists.