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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Software DCP players for theater screenings - looking for advice and experiences
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Karim Benmachiche
Film Handler
Posts: 18
From: Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
Registered: Oct 2018
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posted 10-28-2018 10:46 AM
Hi!
I work for a small independent cinema in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is run completely on a voluntary basis, no salaries, and completely non-profit. We do not screen big budget or Hollywood movies, but only small independent ones, documentaries, shorts or art pieces, we also have 16mm performances, etc.
We have been screening with 35mm until a couple of years ago, we waited to see how DCP would develop and rather screened from either dvd/bluray discs or "simple" non-dcp files until recently. However, even our small distributors are starting to require that we can handle DCP files because they don't want to do conversion for us anymore.
We recently received some public funding to re-equip ourselves, but the amount or infrastructure works and equipment to purchase is quite important (for us at least...), and we didn't receive that much either.
So, basically, we are very limited budget-wise, and we cannot afford professional DCI equipment.
Our new projector will most likely be a 3LCD laser projector, under 9000$. (Panasonic MZ770, HDCP compliant)
Another venue in the country which was in a similar situation last year chose to go with EasyDCP and a MacPro. While looking at EasyDCP we also came across NeoDCP. We will not got with a Mac, but rather with a Windows PC, which is cheaper for much better perfoamnces (and we have good techs to maintain it).
Anyway, my question: are there people here with experience screening for small venues or festivals using either software? Is there one that is the "standard" in 2018?
From what I could see, NeoDCP is much more interesting mainly due to the lifetime license (EasyDCP is only valid 6 months, then you have to purchase a service fee). Since both seem to be updated quite frequently, it seems like an easy choice. But such a choice cannot be made without real-life proofing, which is why I am looking for advice and experiences here.
So. Any thoughts? Suggestions? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Thanks in advance for your help and please pardon my english on a couple of sentences...
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 10-28-2018 11:02 AM
This question has been asked and answered before (so much so that I'm wondering if an FAQ section on F-T might be an idea to develop, especially if regular posters could step up to write and develop some of the articles), and this is basically, as far as I can remember, a distillation of the answers.
The big problem with a software DCP player is that it lacks a hardware media block. The media block is the component in a dedicated, DCI-compliant playback system, that decrypts encrypted DCP movie data and sends it the "last mile" into the projector's imaging hardware, in a way that makes it near impossible to extract and pirate copy the content.
There are software DCP players that have, in effect, a virtual media block, with a serial number that KDMs (decryption keys) could be issued for. The problem is that the major studios regard these as unacceptably insecure, and most will refuse to issue KDMs for them. With a software DCP player running on a PC, therefore, you will likely be limited to playing unencrypted DCPs, which will limit you to arthouse, non-profit archival and re-release titles. You won't be able to play any Hollywood studio titles (including studio archive titles).
A secondary consideration is that a DCI-compliant server, media block and projector setup is guaranteed to be able to process and play the image data (either 2K or 4K, depending on the system) without stutters, glitches and other artifacts. DCI-compliant playback does not use image scaling at all (pixels in the JPEG image are reproduced directly as pixels on the imaging device), so no major graphics processing power is needed. Using a PC-based approach, you are basically going the same route as games geeks. The work is done by the PC's processor, RAM, GPU, and hard drive storage, and you'll need these components to be heavy duty enough to cope with (potentially) 4K at 250mbps. I've just finished building such a computer to QC unencrypted DCPs I've created, and the hardware alone cost me just shy of $2K. Then there's the software side of things - you don't want Windows popups appearing on the screen or it going into screensaver mode during your movie show, etc. etc. (my recently built DCP render/QC machine is Ubuntu-based, which makes it much easier to keep this sort of stuff under control).
If you're serious about this, I would suggest that a Series 8 Core i7 processor (or AMD equivalent) capable of 4.5 to 5GHz (with a liquid cooler - this thing will be running under a heavy load for two hours or more during a show), 64GB of 2400 DDR4 RAM, a GTX 1080 GPU with 8GB RAM, and a hardware RAID5 controller with at least three 2GB drives should be considered a bare minimum hardware spec for the PC.
For all these reasons, therefore, a used Series 1 system (just as a for example, Barco DP1500, plus Dolby DSS200/cat862) would probably come in at a similar price to that of the e-cinema setup you're contemplating, but would give you full access to commercially distributed DCPs by the major studios.
The only minor glitch would be that most Series 1 projectors that I know of have DVI input boards that are not HDCP-compliant, but boxes that can take care of that are widely available for $100 or less. If you've been running 35mm, then handling xenon bulbs won't be a problem for you, which would be the only other issue I'd flag up for someone contemplating owning and using "proper" d-cinema equipment for the first time.
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Carsten Kurz
Film God
Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 10-28-2018 03:33 PM
NeoDCP is the only useful player to be used in front of an audience. The development is explicitly targeted at this application. I know a few cinemas using it for stationary and open air applications. But - keep in mind, at 10.000€, you are not that far away from a second hand DCI system. If you spend all that money now for a non-DCI system, that future path towards DCI may be blocked for a long time.
There are other players able to play DCPs 'somehow', but I wouldn't recommend them for presentations.
One could employ a second hand DSS200, however, that has some limitations as long as you are not able to finance a cinelink (DCI) capable projector sooner or later.
NeoDCP will play encrypted DCPs into a non-DCI projector (if KDMs are issued at all for this setup). The DSS200 will only play unencrypted content, unless a DCI projector is used. You will get KDMs a lot easier for a DSS200, but they will be useless without a DCI projector offering encrypted HD-SDI.
Being in Switzerland, you may want to have a look at project A-Cinema as well.
A-Cinema uses the Fraunhofer EasyDCP player engine, but uses a custom GUI supporting typical cinema needs.
You still need to shell out a few thousand € for software and hardware.
- Carsten
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Karim Benmachiche
Film Handler
Posts: 18
From: Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
Registered: Oct 2018
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posted 10-28-2018 06:19 PM
Thank you both very much for your replies!
I feel my first post was missing some information.
First of all, it was while researching NeoDCP that I found those forums and thus wanted to ask more, it was not because I didn't do research previously .
As I said, we are 100% independently run, no salaries, etc. This means everyone does everything, sometimes people doing the screenings are not experienced techs, so we need something usable by anyone.
Our philosophy is indeed close to the one from A-Cinema, which I just looked up:
quote:
Das „A-Cinema“ wird sich in der technischen Lösung vom DCI unterscheiden. Unsere Ziele sind:
-> Unabhängigkeit
-> Zukunftsfähigkeit / Erweiterbarkeit
-> Low-Budget-Finanzierbarkeit
Wir möchten weiterhin selbst entscheiden, welche Filme in unserem Programm laufen und sind für einen offenen, uneingeschränkten Zugang zu Filmprojektionen.
Ein geschlossenes System ist aus unserer Sicht auch technisch nicht sinnvoll. Keine heute verordnete Norm und kein heute als hochauflösend definiertes Format muß in den nächsten Jahren noch Gültigkeit besitzen.
Dem Diskurs um Kinoserver und Projektoren in Preisregionen, die Lottogewinnern vorbehalten sind, begegnen wir mit klarer Überlegung: Ein Kinoserver ist - ganz simpel - ein Rechner.
(however, being in the french-speaking part of Switzerland, it unfortunately seems complicated for us to get involved)
It was even a rather long discussion to decide whether we'd even accept the idea of DCPs. Encrypting movies to protect from piracy is one thing, allowing movies to only play on certain types of devices is another one. But in any case, we need to be able to play DCP files, whether they are unencrypted, or if they are encrypted and the distributor accepts our setup.
Most of our screenings will be from either "classic" file formats, (mp4, mov, etc), and non-encrypted compliant DCPs would probably be 20% of our screenings. Encrypted ones, we are not even sure we will have any, at least for now.
This is why we are looking at such a solution. We thought a "new" setup with a nice 8000lm projector, would be more interesting and less expensive than an 2nd hand system. We already chose an i7-8700 machine with a GTX 1080, and 1TB SSD drive for screening (+ other storage etc.). This is, indeed short of $2K. We have two IT professionnals in our cinema, including me, and are fairly confident we can setup a Windows config to play flawlessly.
It might still be completely erroneous reasoning on my part. Maybe second-hand DCI systems are better than what we intend to use. We didn't do much research on pricing of second hand DCI systems, at least I never expected it would cost around the $15k mark. While NeoDCP seems to be currently our best short-term choice (thanks Carsten for the confirmation), I would be seriously interested in knowing what type of 2nd hand DCI system we should be looking for.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 10-29-2018 08:49 AM
quote: Karim Benmachiche
We already chose an i7-8700 machine with a GTX 1080, and 1TB SSD drive for screening (+ other storage etc.).
I really wouldn't feel confident about using a single drive to play out to a large audience (especially a SSD, which are not designed for sustained reading or writing over a long time period - that's when they tend to overheat and fail). If the drive fails, that's the end of your show. This is why professional DCP servers store the movie content on a RAID5 (older ones tend to use hardware RAID controllers, more recent ones a software RAID) consisting of at least three drives, and sometimes more.
Given the rapidly decreasing cost of large capacity 3.5" drives (though drives badged as "archival," that use shingled magnetic recording, are no good for use in media servers and should be avoided), it might make sense for you to use, say, two 6TB drives as a RAID1, especially as this would reduce the memory and processing power required for a software RAID (e.g. Windows Storage Spaces and ReFS on Windows 10) to a negligible drain on the machine's computing power.
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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006
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posted 10-29-2018 11:23 AM
Like Leo, I had often had a need to QC DCP's, mostly "festival
stuff", which was un-encrypted and often 'home made, as well
as checking the occasional material I generate via DCP-0-Matic.
I'm also often called into service to "fix" or figure out what's
wrong with DCP's that won't play just before a festival and
which both the film-maker and theater staff are clueless about.
(I've had to do this twice in just the past week) AND- I wanted
to be able to do this without tying up a server at work or going
down to a theater after hours to check things on screen in the
middle of the night. (I have keys and/or after hours access to
several venues here in San Francisco) and I wanted to be able
to do this 'at home' sipping tea comfortably in my pajamas,
rather than late at night in some cramped projection booth
where beverages and such attire are generally frowned upon.
I wasn't really happy with the few software based DCP players I
tried, although a lot of that had to do with the fact that the
computers I was using simply lacked the processing power to do
it properly.
At some point I realized that I could either buy a computer that
was up to the task, or simply get myself a used, cinema server,
and it would wind up costing me about the same, more or less.
I knew a theater theater that had an old, unused server sitting
around. They wanted $2500USD for it, but I managed to talk
them down to $2kUSD. I already had an audio processor that I
got for practically nothing when a theater was upgrading their sound
system, and I picked up an AJA Dual Link Serial Digital - to - HDMI
converter box so that I could connect the server to a large monitor.
I wasn't really too concerned about colorspace, etc because all
I needed this system for was to verify that content was ingestable
and playable on a 'real world' server, and that there was at least an
'acceptable' level of video & audio content present.
I'm not sure what my point is here, other than to say that if its'
at all possible, I think that in the long run you are better off trying to
find a good, used, 'real' digital cinema server, than to go the software
based player route. I think in the end it might wind up costing about
the same, and you also will wind up with a system that is fully accepted
by the major distributors who will provide keys, which as others have
mentioned, many will not issue for software based players.
In the end, the server and AJA 2xSDI>HDMI box (which aren't cheap!)
and some cables & incidental items wound up costing me just under
$3k USD, which really isn't a lot of money.
- - and I think it was worth it.
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Karim Benmachiche
Film Handler
Posts: 18
From: Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
Registered: Oct 2018
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posted 10-29-2018 06:40 PM
Thanks for all the replies so far.
This has made me reconsider some things. We might still go with the original plan, but now are taking a step back to reconsider all possibilities. First thing is to contact the distributors we are regularly working with to see if they'd accept a non-DCI setup.
We will also contact the Cinematheque in Leipzig to discuss the A-Cinema Project, and see how its been going for them so far, be it technically, or with distributors.
And also to investigate possible second hand equipment available locally.
Leo: I hadn't really thought about SSDs this way, it is something to take into account indeed. What I maybe failed to mention is that we really don't do many screenings compared to big venues. We're at about 70-80 screenings a year, so the hours of use cannot really be compared with those of a heavy duty cinema server. Regardless, if a drive fails, it would indeed be nice to have it in RAID1 at least.. better safe than sorry.
Please, don't hesitate to keep the information coming. It is extremely helpful to come up with the best solution for us.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 10-29-2018 10:01 PM
If the new GDC thing is the same one I saw at Cinemacon, it uses M-2 flash cards. Whether they're the PCI-E, SATA, or something more esoteric like Intel Optane, I'm not sure.
Karim - for a conventional DCP playback setup based around a PC, I can't think of any argument in favor of SSDs. For the price of a single 1TB SSD, you could buy two enterprise grade spinning rust drives of the same capacity, and still have a fair bit of change. Even running at the full 250mbps, you're not going to need the extra read speed advantage that a SSD theoretically would give you (I say theoretically, because in most situations, the data transfer speed from the SATA interface to the motherboard is the limiting factor, not what the drive itself is capable of).
The lifetime of a HDD is determined mainly by the number of hours it's spinning; with a SSD, it's the number of write cycles per sector (reading does not take much life out of flash memory; writing does). A drive for media storage will likely see a lot of writing, reading only once or twice, then delete and rewrite, a usage pattern that will be hard on a SSD.
Why GDC has chosen to go the solid state storage route I'm not sure. Maybe their system primarily involves live streamed playback from the central TMS/library server, with local storage only being used to supplement that when the media LAN bandwidth is under pressure. I didn't manage to get to any of the GDC presentations, and I haven't had to install one of these things yet, so I don't know the details.
IMHO, the advantages of SSDs are their robustness (no moving parts that are vulnerable to mechanical shock), their lower power consumption, and their higher read speed. This makes them perfect for use in laptops - less risk of FUBAR-ing it if you drop the laptop, (or if the plane runs out of overhead bin space, you're forced to check your bag, and it gets tossed around by baggage handlers), the battery lasts longer, and it boots quicker. The disadvantages are their higher cost, write cycles being the determining factor of service life, and the fact that you'll get little if any warning (e.g. SMART errors) before it suddenly drops dead.
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Karim Benmachiche
Film Handler
Posts: 18
From: Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
Registered: Oct 2018
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posted 10-30-2018 04:59 PM
Current screen size is 5m x 3m and we are getting a new one which will be 6m x 4m (approx).
Switzerland is not a poor country indeed, but it also comes with the fact that gear is overpriced compared to other neighboring countries... and the current situation of movie theaters in our area (i.e. french-speaking part of the country) is kind of a sad wasteland. Lots of theaters closed before the switch to digital, and now you have big groups like Pathé selling a single tickets > 20$, and a few smaller theaters struggling to survive.
Our case is a bit particular, as we are helped by the city which pays our rent, we don't have a really dedicated venue, it's an old wine production cellar (so the rent is really low...), and since we don't have salaries, there is not much risk, we just have to have our bar and entrances paying for the movies and the maintenance cost of the venue, insurance, etc. We close most years with -1000$ to +1000$ profit...
So yes, we managed to raise some money, but we are organized as what we call in french an association, I guess it's kind of a union (a bit like an amateur sports club)? I don't know the word in english... in german it's Verein. And we have our own regulation, which prohibits private sponsorship in order to stay completely independent. Yes, I know it's complicated... So the fundings are rather limited, but state and national lottery gave us something. But with the amount of gear to replace/upgrade (audio, screen, electrical work, sanitary work), it's hard to allow more than 11000-13000$ for the complete setup.
I believe you when you say a decent second hand DCI setup might be found for that price, but our other problem is that we are in a hurry due to our current projector crapping out on us. I sent a few inquiries here and there to see if there was a DCI setup available in the area, so we'll see, but with the current situation of movie theaters I described above, I doubt we'll find anything on short notice.
Thanks for all the ideas and help so far. We are now waiting on other experiences and testimonials from venues in the country and in Germany we believe might be using a system similar to the one we are considering, and we'll see what they say. I am also looking at options for an enterprise grade RAID configuration instead of an SSD.
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