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Topic: digital nightmare

Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-27-2012 08:58 AM

I look forward to nights like this:
http://astortheatreblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/what-happened-last-night/

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Philip Jones
Film Handler

Posts: 90
From: England
Registered: Dec 2011

posted 01-27-2012 09:42 AM

Why did they only find out 10 minutes before the show that the KDM didn't work?

Are there instances where the 'future' licence will corrupt or something when it gets to the time it is going to unlock?

Sounds like it was someone's fault for not checking the KDM before they tried to start the show to me

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-27-2012 11:00 AM

This article is full of exaggerations and misinformation. I hate stuff like this:

quote:
(The KDM) is time sensitive and often is only valid from around 10 minutes prior to the screening time and expiring as close to 5 minutes after the scheduled time. (snip)...the projectionist can’t test to see if the KDM works or that the quality of the film is right before show time.

I've never seen a key that wasn't valid for at least 24 HOURS ahaed of the first screening time. And they never expire until something like 4 AM the morning after the last day of the booking...at the earliest.

And this:

quote:
There are thousands upon thousands of screenings at cinemas just like us all over the world constantly experiencing these same issues.

I would like to know how many cinemas experience digital projection related problems "constantly." I'm betting it's very few.

And the whole rigamarole of the process they went through to get themselves a new KDM. It sounds like it took two phone calls, which is one more than it should have taken, but still. Not that big a deal and should have been taken care of long before "10 minutes" before showtime.

Then she makes it sound like a huge big process to ingest a KDM ("5 - 10 minutes"). Uh, no. If it's in my email, I can have it downloaded, unzipped and ingested in about 60 seconds. I could do it faster if I didn't have to take a flight of stairs to get to the machine.

Sorry for the rant but I just hate over-exaggeration on things like this. She put more of a black-eye on the industry with this article than their delayed showtime ever did.

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James Westbrook
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1133
From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 01-27-2012 11:13 AM

I've had some KDMs kick in Thursday night at 6PM or 8PM, but usually it's 00:01 Thursday.
I learned to check the KDM for which specific version of the feature it's unlocking. I placed a 7.1 version of a movie on the playlist only to have one of my fellow assistants discover, about an hour before it's maiden midnight showing, that the KDM was for the 5.1. He replaced the file on the playlist with the 5.1 and sent it to that house and it made it with moments to spare.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 01-27-2012 12:00 PM

Obviously one big advantage of 35mm over digital is you could inspect the print, build it and screen it to make sure there were no problems and even do so days before opening day. Normally any movie theater should be able to preview the show to make sure everything is set properly and working properly. The paranoia from content providers (the movie studios) are making this much harder to do with digital projection.

Plenty of things can go wrong in a digital projection setup. When 3D is added there's another possibility of technical problems. If there is a last minute problem with the KDM it just raises the risk level even higher.

IMHO, the movie studios and digital projection service providers should have IT crews working and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for digital projection equipped commercial movie theaters. It's a global business. No matter the time of day, hundreds or thousands of digital projection equipped theaters are playing movies somewhere in the world. It's ridiculous to think a theater in Australia has to deal with people working normal office hours in the United States and then bounce calls to London, etc. to salvage a show. If the studios are going to play games with a KDM, making it unable to work until the last minute then they ought to be immediately available, not just available during office hours, to solve any problems that could arise.

quote: Mike Blakesley
I've never seen a key that wasn't valid for at least 24 HOURS ahaed of the first screening time. And they never expire until something like 4 AM the morning after the last day of the booking...at the earliest.

Given the theater is located in Australia, I wonder if this theater's KDMs are configured in a different manner.

I'm not going to name names to risk getting any friends in trouble, but I have heard of some releases that didn't unlock until Friday, opening day with only an hour or two to spare before the first afternoon showing. Sometimes a service provider (like AccessIT) would have to log into the theater's network and deliver the keys remotely. This may not be happening now, but it has happened in the past at a certain digital projection equipped theater. Normally their keys would arrive and be valid days before opening day. Every once in awhile a studio would get funny with the KDM. Add to this the potential for a KDM to get delayed or lost in the mail.

To me, I think the system of shipping KDMs on USB flash memory sticks is stupid. I think the content providers should either e-mail them or have the service providers drop them into the systems remotely. Isn't every digital projection equipped theater connected to the Internet? Don't these systems "phone home" so to speak when a movie is shown? I guess I just don't see the point in snail-mailing a KDM. Snail mail makes sense for a 500GB hard disc holding a 250GB movie that would otherwise take a long time to download.

quote: James Westbrook
I've had some KDMs kick in Thursday night at 6PM or 8PM, but usually it's 00:01 Thursday.

This brings up another issue of those Thursday at midnight screenings going into Friday morning. It's another opportunity for DCP keys to be delayed until the last minute.

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Edward Havens
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 614
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Mar 2008

posted 01-27-2012 12:12 PM

One film we recently ran a sneak preview of, the KDM unlock the file one hour before showtime and actually expired while the show was still on. I guess as long as you start the show before the KDM expires, you're good to go. But that's a rare instance. 99.45% of the KDMs we get unlock the file at least 24hrs prior to showtime. Disney is even nice enough to let KDMs unlock a file as much as five days before opening.

Clearly the onus of this incident is on the person or persons in charge of acquiring, loading and verifying the KDMs. At my theatre, the KDMs go to every manager at the theatre, and every manager has been trained on how to load them and verify them.

And why the manager or owner would allow a blog that says to the world "Our team is not very well trained," I have no idea.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 01-27-2012 02:43 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Obviously one big advantage of 35mm over digital is you could inspect the print, build it and screen it to make sure there were no problems and even do so days before opening day.

..where the big disadvantage is that it's on DVD the next week in pirated form...

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 01-27-2012 03:16 PM

Monte -

Most of the films that are available for download on the Internet are from Studio screener copies (go to any bit torrent site and you will see this). The bottom line is 35mm or digital - they will make a copy if they want - all this digital security stuff is smoke and mirrors anyways...

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Bernie Anderson Jr
Master Film Handler

Posts: 435
From: Woodbridge, New Jersey
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 01-27-2012 03:38 PM

Oh, I've had keys for screenings and special events that wouldn't work until 2 hours before (which in that case, another movie is playing prior to the screening and your only chance to test it would be 30-45 min prior to showtime) and then key actually expire during the film run. "We Bought A Zoo" 1st sneak preview had a key that expired at 9pm and the film ended at 930pm. If the projector went down, you lost your show. I also had a screening of "New Years eve" on the thursday before opening where that DCP was different then Friday's DCP which was showing at 12:01. Two DCPs, two different KDMs. The KDMs are a nightmare and usually my biggest problem.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 01-27-2012 05:24 PM

quote: Dennis Benjamin
all this digital security stuff is smoke and mirrors anyways...

Thx..good to know - but won't go there on "why then......" [Roll Eyes]

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-27-2012 05:45 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Obviously one big advantage of 35mm over digital is you could inspect the print, build it and screen it to make sure there were no problems and even do so days before opening day. Normally any movie theater should be able to preview the show to make sure everything is set properly and working properly.

That's true, if you could get a print ahead of time. More often that not we would get our film prints on Thursday, or sometimes on Friday, leaving inadequate time for a screening and no time at all for a replacement in case of problems.

With digital we almost always get our hard drives on Wednesday, or even Tuesday sometimes. We got our drive for "War Horse" a full 7 days before we opened it. The keys almost always show up on Wednesday. So I have a couple of days to get the content ingested, and then I can take 10 minutes on Thursday to verify everything's working. So actually with digital I have MORE time to prepare than I usually ever had with film.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 01-27-2012 06:31 PM

...and when you have a LS/TMS to do your builds for the assigned houses in your complex, that really shortens the length down to minutes when one had the entire evening and night to build the same amount of film prints.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-27-2012 07:43 PM

The problem with video, as I see it, is not that things will go wrong any more or any less than they will when you play the real thing but, when they do go wrong, you can often come up with a workaround when using film.

I've had problems with movie projectors that could literally be fixed with duct tape and coat hanger wire. I have done it. I'm sure everybody here has done it. These "Yankee Ingenuity" type fixes are undoubtedly temporary just to save the show and get you through until you can make the correct repairs. But, when showing programs on video, if there is a problem, it is very likely that there will be no way to fix it without ordering expensive replacement parts which will take at least 24 hours to arrive.

This begs the question that it's a problem that even can be repaired. What if the digital file is corrupted or if the blu-ray disc is scratched? You might not know until the program is well under way and, when it happens, you probably won't be able to diagnose and repair the problem in a reasonable amount of time to save the show.

Just this week, I had to present a movie from Blu-Ray and the disc would not recognize in the player. This was not a problem with a scratched, dirty, damaged or corrupt disc. I have other discs that will successfully play in the machine, as well, thus ruling out a damaged machine. Turns out the disc was incorrectly formatted when it was made.

I had to run out to Best Buy, with the disc in hand, and try it in every player in the store until I found one that would recognize and play the disc. I finally did at 5:00 pm on the evening before the show.

What's worse is this whole digital video thing is done, ostensibly, to save on labor costs. Well, if I hadn't been there and INSISTED on a test screening before the show, nobody would have known that the disc wouldn't play until it was too late. Everybody just assumes that a Blu-Ray is a Blu-Ray and that you just put it into the machine and press "PLAY." Well, that ain't necessarily so but most people don't even understand that.

Like Bobby said, you can't actually inspect a digital video the way you can inspect film. You don't have reasonable assurance that the show will play as planned until you actually attempt to play the show and, when video goes wrong, you can't fix the problem with ordinary methods like you can film.

I have had two video programs that failed in the middle of the show. In both cases, the disc played perfectly for the screening and the first show but, on the second, the disc failed.
I never took the disc out of the player. I simply powered it off. If I could show a movie two times in a row without problems, shouldn't I be able to assume that it will play the third time, too?

I can tell you from experience that one of the worst sounds you can ever hear is the collective moan that goes up in a theater when the video stops playing! It feels even worse when you realize that there's probably nothing you can do to prevent it.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 01-27-2012 08:46 PM

Obviously the high-tech term "mission critical" has not made its way into movie studio parlance just yet.

Plenty other high tech businesses fully understand the concept of "mission critical" and realize that even mere seconds of down time equal much lost dollars. If Hollywood wants to really get jiggy with embracing the whole "digital" thang they and their technology partners need to step it up a few notches on the mission critical idea. If "digital" is really supposed to be as great as they insist it is then there should be no such thing as a movie theater going dark for a screening over something as simple as a damned invalid KDM or corrupted hard disc file.

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Paer Hoegberg
Film Handler

Posts: 81
From: Borlänge, Sweden
Registered: Apr 2005

posted 01-28-2012 02:02 AM

I've had some KDMs valid only 10-20 minutes before the show start, and the expire 15 minutes after the last show, and more the once.

But usually the valid time are a couple hours before the start, and expire by one or two hours after.

And then, some does not expire at all (i have only seen this on European films).

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