question re: screening blu-ray

[Jason Garnett]

I stopped managing theaters 15 years ago, before the digital changeover, so I might be out of the loop on this but I've noticed my local 4 screen now shows first run on DCP and repertory titles on Blu-ray. When questioned why they aren't showing the rep stuff on DCP, I was told that they can't get the titles on DCP. Is this true? Partly true? What is the availability of DCP rep titles?

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Most likely true. Rep titles are not high up on the list for remastering to DCP. Only extremely popular rep titles will get encoded to DCP, the lesser titles won't (unless a private party does it with the likes of DCP-O-Matic.)

To any rep house operators who see this:

If you are a rep house, and do a lot of titles that are only on dvd/Blu Ray, you might (if you have a really solid computer) look into getting DCP-O-Matic and "rolling your own" for your shows. BUT ALWAYS KEEP THE DVD/BLU RAY AS BACKUP, AND START PLAYBACK OF IT 2-5 MINUTES AFTER YOU START THE DCP!. (Same goes for those who run digital and film, whenever possible have both media and delay the backup.)

[Mike Blakesley]

It varies a lot by studio. Some have their rep titles on DCP, some do not. And some have two rental fees, and blu-ray is cheaper, and you don't have the shipping or file-transfer fee to deal with.

Here's what I know, all subject to changes of course.

Disney/Fox - occasional re-issues on DCP, but will not license random titles or ANY blu-rays for theatrical use.
Warner Bros - has two price tiers, and will license almost anything. Some titles available on DCP but not all.
Universal - will license most titles, not sure if there's a lower price for blu-ray or not. They have "combo drives" that have several movies on them -- such as a bunch of family titles, a bunch of horror titles, etc.
Paramount - no experience there because their prices are high.
Sony - Will license most titles, DCPs available on some titles.
Lionsgate - no experience.

Warner and Universal seem to be the most reasonably priced. Sony has a large amount of titles but their prices are variable.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I was told that they can't get the titles on DCP. Is this true? Partly true? What is the availability of DCP rep titles?

Most likely true. We show a fair number of blu-rays too for that reason. Or you might make a quality decision when the blu-ray has been remastered for 5.1 and the only DCP available has original audio etc etc.

This is also the same logic we use when deciding to fire up the 35mm... when the title is not available as DCP. When available, we always purchase a blu-ray or DVD backup for 35mm screenings too, if not in our library already. We are not in the habit of running backups for DCP though, though we did recently after performing two major Doremi updates and being unsure of stability.

We have not rolled our own ripped feature DCPs but do it for pre-show content on the regular. Will have to consider starting that project when I start encountering damaged disks or our blu-ray player bites the dust.

[Marcel Birgelen]

What also doensn't help that some BluRay releases, especially the UHD/4K "remasters", are actually superior to some of their DCP counterparts. Where those 4K releases often use digitally polished masters, many DCP releases are from prior digitizations that often look rather rough, dull and also sometimes carry inferior soundtracks.

Instead of playing BluRays directly, I'd prefer the process of putting them through MakeMKV/DCP-o-Matic first, it's way more comfortable and often times more professional to run a DCP in a properly equipped cinema than a BluRay from a BluRay player.

[Jason Garnett]

What also doensn't help that some BluRay releases, especially the UHD/4K "remasters", are actually superior to some of their DCP counterparts. Where those 4K releases often use digitally polished masters, many DCP releases are from prior digitizations that often look rather rough, dull or also sometimes carry inferior soundtracks.

Instead of playing BluRays directly, I'd prefer the process of putting them through MakeMKV/DCP-o-Matic first, it's way more comfortable and often times more professional to run a DCP in a properly equipped cinema than a BluRay from a BluRay player.

My biggest gripe with this place showing Blu-rays is how they end up flashing the menu screen for the whole audience to see. It goes against everything I was taught about presentation.

[Steve Guttag]

Better systems have a preview monitor so things may be cued up off-screen and better players have the ability to keep crap off of the screen. Of course, all of that costs more (sometimes, a LOT more). Once you get a preview monitor involved, working with 24Hz can be an issue as most "monitors" won't but many/most TVs will.

[Ryan Gallagher]

My biggest gripe with this place showing Blu-rays is how they end up flashing the menu screen for the whole audience to see. It goes against everything I was taught about presentation.

Ahahah. yeah. That is on the operator... the Blu-ray dance is often even more tricky than 35mm dance when not using automation. I think Universal blu-rays won't even pause indefinitely, reverts back to a stupid logo screen. Sucks for trying to cue up your film ahead.

There are also other cards I try to skip that are present on the blu-ray but not typically visible on the DCP. Copy protection, sometimes and extra studio card at the beginning, etc. Getting a blu-ray player to give you times in a useful way is also a chore, I use the oppo ipad app where at least I can see the TRT and a progress time.

I think playing of discs directly is really only an option for single screens (or screens with an operator per screen). If you want that high presentation value that is and avoid the gotchyas.

For more than one screen, or to make your life easier, ripping to DCP probably makes for the smoothest screenings.

[James Wyrembelski]

Blu ray is also *considerably* cheaper.

Instead of ripping here, I just have a separate monitor set up via a splitter from the player to the projector. I keep the douser closed and the sound processor on mute, that way I can see what I'm doing and navigate silently. As soon as the disc is playing the film just hit mute again and open the douser, no one would even know!

[Bobby Henderson]

This kind of unprofessional industry bullshit just makes me ever more inclined to watch any NOT-new movies ONLY at home on my stupid-ass TV screen.

I mean, seriously what in the fucking fuck? Why is there all this foot-dragging on what kind of media a commercial cinema can get to organize a screening of a particular existing movie? We're in a God-damned age where most places around this nation have pretty good, fast Internet access. It should not be all that difficult for movie distributors to provide a DCP via some kind of download. Are these guys taking stupid pills or what?

A Blu-ray disc is a pretty decent piece of media for watching movies at home on an ordinary HDTV screen. But it's a serious down-grade from d-cinema standards. If I'm going to pay to watch a movie played from a retail Blu-ray disc I'll just buy the damned thing and watch it at home on my big-ass TV set. I can drink beer, lounge on my living room couch in my underwear and let out stinky farts without having to worry about anyone else in the room being offended. The point is: retail Blu-ray discs as a commercial playback standard totally sucks ass. It is UNPROFESSIONAL. They need to stop doing that stupid bullshit.

These movie studios are really militant about protecting their copyrights and all that legal mumbo jumbo. But they don't appear to give one tinker's damn about presentation quality. It's as if anyone who lined up to pay money to watch their product is some kind of sucker. Well, here's a hardy "fuck you" to those guys for that vibe. Sit on a running chainsaw and spin!

[Marcel Birgelen]

A Blu-ray disc is a pretty decent piece of media for watching movies at home on an ordinary HDTV screen. But it's a serious down-grade from d-cinema standards.

The irony is that this isn't always the case. Yes, a properly created DCP from the same master as a Full HD BluRay will certainly be higher quality. But the fact is, things aren't always created equally. Many DCPs of legacy productions were created years ago, from old digitized material, whereas the latest release of 4K BluRays often had some significant restoration work done on the source material, in order to sell it as an upgrade.

Furthermore, if you look at the UHD HDR BluRays, they're using either BT2020 or Dolby Vision as color space. This color space exceeds DCI-P3, so even if a movie doesn't use the full range of e.g. BT2020, it won't be downgraded to Rec.709, like with traditional BluRays. The difference between DCI-P3 and Rec.709 is clearly visible on screen, especially if you would run both side-by-side. Red.709 on a big screen has the tendency to look pretty desaturated. Not all movies are equally affected of course.

When it comes down to audio: Practically all BluRays contain uncompressed 5.1 or 7.1 audio tracks. Some releases also include the original theatrical mix, instead of some "near-line" remixed mix. The Dolby Atmos for home standard might be sub-par compared to the theatrical version, but movies with Atmos releases should really not be a problem in getting on DCP...

Then last but not least: The JPEG2000 compression standard should be superior compared to an MPEG compressed video stream. But in reality, the JPEG2000 stream bandwidth of most DCPs caps out at somewhere around 150 MB/s, in order not to hit the theoretical maximum of 250 MB/s. The highest quality 4K BluRay standard caps out at 140 MB/s. A HECV H.265 stream at those bandwidths looks pretty darn good, even on a large screen. You'll have a hard time seeing any differences between a properly mastered 4K DCP and a properly mastered 4K HDR BluRay.

Then again, I don't consider BluRay to be the medium for cinema. The problem isn't so much the quality of the content itself, but the tooling around it: The menus, trailers, copyright notices and other shenanigans...

[Steve Guttag]

Blu ray is also *considerably* cheaper.

Instead of ripping here, I just have a separate monitor set up via a splitter from the player to the projector. I keep the douser closed and the sound processor on mute, that way I can see what I'm doing and navigate silently. As soon as the disc is playing the film just hit mute again and open the douser, no one would even know!

That works if:

• You either have a 24Hz monitor/TV or your don't mind/care running content at 60Hz and accept the judder associated with the frame rate conversion on motion...it normally shows up on pans or more rapidly moving objects.
• Your TV and projector have enough EDID similarities that the monitor isn't setting the maximum for the projector.
• The source player doesn't get upset, periodically, about the EDID or HDCP from seeing both. Some projector's DVI ports are more fussy than others. Some HDMI devices respond unfavorably to projector DVI ports.

I have a site, right now, that has 24Hz capable TVs with the aforementioned DAs to allow the Blu-ray players to show on both...most of the time they work just fine...sometimes, maybe an hour in...someone gets upset and shuts the image off. We're going to put using better DAs (Extron) that will address the problem (the Extron DAs...which are rather expensive) are both a sink and a source so HDCP and EDID is not repeated but it functions as the one device that everyone see. The Blu-ray player just sees the DA and is completely oblivious to the monitor and the projector. It is up to the DA to do its own EDID handshakes and to also verify HDCP compliance. I can also set the EDID as needed and ensure that the projector always gets what it is capable of handling.

And that is the "fun" of using consumer stuff (Blu-ray) with professional CINEMA stuff...nobody checks their equipment on Cinema projectors/sound. It's checked against consumer stuff and maybe A/V...but not cinema.

[Joao Lopes]

[/LIST]I have a site, right now, that has 24Hz capable TVs with the aforementioned DAs to allow the Blu-ray players to show on both...most of the time they work just fine...sometimes, maybe an hour in...someone gets upset and shuts the image off. We're going to put using better DAs (Extron) that will address the problem (the Extron DAs...which are rather expensive) are both a sink and a source so HDCP and EDID is not repeated but it functions as the one device that everyone see. The Blu-ray player just sees the DA and is completely oblivious to the monitor and the projector. It is up to the DA to do its own EDID handshakes and to also verify HDCP compliance. I can also set the EDID as needed and ensure that the projector always gets what it is capable of handling.
.

How to bypass EDID handshakes and to also verify HDCP compliance? Use one HDMI cable (allways the best you can get), from your source to the projector, but with an extra HDMI to DVI-D converter at the end, and connect it to the projector. You get a perfect digital image without black screens because it cannot check any EDID and HDCP compliance. Works every time and the player recognise the projector. Make all connections before power up, because the system verify all inputs in use when powers up. Later is possible but is more difficult and stressful till it works.

[Mike Blakesley]

The menus, trailers, copyright notices and other shenanigans...

That’s why it’s best to create a DCP and use that instead. You can even put cue markers in like the ”real thing” has.

Bobby, I get what you’re saying about a Blu-ray show not being a professional one. But, in a repertory situation it's DAMN close and most people would not know the difference. Do I wish every title from every studio was available on DCP? Yes I do. But there is the cost factor to consider.

DCP Cost: Licensing fee anywhere from $100 to $400 film rental, plus $25 to $40 to ship (or transfer) it in
Blu-ray cost: Discounted licensing fee (sometimes $100 less), no shipping cost, and I can make it into my own DCP and keep it forever, and it looks/sounds 99% as good as the DCP

Which do you think is the better choice from a business standpoint? With blu-ray, I can offer my customer a reasonable price. DCP, there's a good chance they'll think it costs too much and walk away.

I absolutely agree with the above comments about never showing the menu, FBI notice, etc. on screen. In fact Warner Bros.' contract forbids you from showing that stuff on screen.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I also think we old timers forget that there is a whole generation of people growing up that don’t even buy a TV once they move out. The largest screen in their home is a laptop, gaming PC, or god forbid a tablet or phone.

Even a UHD Blu-ray on cinema screen is a rare treat, never minding the spatial audio played at significant SPLs, and with a bunch of people in the room.

I’m not trying to justify choosing blu-ray when dcp is available, But the fact is many people’s viewing options at home are much worse! And there is much more to the experience than image fidelity alone.