Parasite Subtitling Issues

[Greg Routenburg]

So, has anyone else been experiencing difficulty with the Subtitles on Parasite? I’ve fielded 4 calls today about subtitles either not working or not displaying properly. There were two GDC SX3000s installed in NEC NC900s that needed to have the subtitle overlay activated in the GDC settings otherwise they wouldn’t display at all. There was a GDC 2000AR installed in a Barco 12C that needed the same treatment otherwise the subtitles would display below the bottom of the scope image area. Finally there was a Christie IMB-S2 in a CP2208 that just didn’t want to display them at all. I think it might be a content ingest issue there but it’s a Christie IMB and they’re so unreliable that anything’s possible with them. We’ll see what a re-ingest does for that one. Everything has the latest and greatest projector/server/ICP firmware installed. I don’t know what it is about this movie but it’s been a real adventure.

[Jim Cassedy]

I've run this movie many times- In fact, I believe I ran the US premiere of it sometime last summer with
the director and most of the cast present to do intro's & Q&A - - - But- - about your subtitling issue:

Assuming that the DCP has been mastered correctly to match CPL nomenclature:

Parasite_FTR-28_S_KO-en_OV_51_4K_NEON_20190919_CVN_IOP_OV

> Than the lower case "en" in the CPL language field would indicate that the subs are permanently
"burned in" on the video image and your server or projector or sever should have nothing to do with it.

I see you're in Canada, and I'm assuming you're playing an "english" subtitled version of Parasite,
If you have a different version with French or some other language subs, than perhaps those are
locally generated and there is an issue with your server/projector configuration.

But if it's an English subtitled version like the one above, than except for the fact that the movie is
in 4K, there shouldn't be anything different playing this movie and one without subtitles.

Edit: I just went back looked at my logs. Since late July, I've handled 4 different 'en' versions of
PARASITE, including a 'pre-release' version, and all of them had 'burned in' subs, according to the CPL's

[Greg Routenburg]

We have the:

Parasite_FTR_S_KO-EN_CA_51_4K_20191007_IOP_VF DCP.

The caps on the EN would explain why the subtitle overlay setting was effective in correcting 75% of the problems.

I just received word that the Christie problem was indeed solved by a complete re-ingest of the content.

All’s well that ends well I guess.

[Jim Cassedy]

Interesting that the versions "up there" where you are are using locally generated subtitles, while
all the versions I've handled here in the US, had them burned in. But it's good to hear you've resolved
most of the issue. I sometimes work at a venue that runs a lot of Japanese films with English subs
and sometimes have issues generating the subtitles on their Doremi & NEC 900 series projector.
Every once and awhile I had to 'twiddle' with the server or projector settings to get the subtitles right.
- - and, of course, sometimes just a re-boot would solve the problem.

[Gunnar Asgeirsson]

As a owner of a Digital Cinema lab in Iceland I am the one who created the new localized OV of Parasite with Icelandic subtitles. At least here in my country there is not a single problem about this. So if the version you are playing is having those problems I am pretty sure that it is something wrong with the DCP versioning.

[Carsten Kurz]

Greg - is it possible that those locations rarely play subtitled versions?

In the past, we have seen issues with 4K subtitled features quite often - and 'Parasite' IS 4k. Some systems are not setup properly to deal with timed text/PNG, in combination with 4k IMBs/IMSs in 2k projectors. The combination of 4k DCP AND full length timed text on 2k projectors probably strikes rarely.

Some features may only have the occasional timed text line/translation, and if that doesn't display, no one will probably notice.
However, with a fully translated subtitled feature, that problem immediately becomes evident.


- Carsten

[Greg Routenburg]

Carsten, that is indeed the case. These locations play mainstream Hollywood fare nearly exclusively and I believe this is the first foreign language feature we’ve ever handled in 4K. We do get some Iranian and Indian content at a couple of these locations but it’s always been 2K so it didn’t rear its ugly head until yesterday.

[Carsten Kurz]

There is some reference to this 4k/2k timed text issue in the old forum. The main cause is that in IMS/IMB systems, there is a possible ambiguity in the scaling reference for 2k vs 4k when having 4k capable IMB/IMS in a 2k projector. If you use the server internal software subtitle function, as exists in Doremi/GDC/Sony systems, that problem doesn't occur, because the IMB knows the resolution to decode to and applies the same to the subtitle placement reference.

In all cases I have come across this, it happened unexpectedly, because the specific combination of parameters was rare. So, I think it's safe to outrule the DCP itself (even though it's 4k property initially causes it).

- Carsten

[Harold Hallikainen]

Does the scaling issue exist for timed text? I thought it was just a PNG issue.

Harold

[Carsten Kurz]

There's a general scaling issue indeed for PNG in 4k Interop titles.

But this one for timed text is different - the positioning reference for timed text is % off top or bottom. That computes to a different number of pixels between 2k and 4k. In IMB/IMS systems, this can lead to a scaling reference misinterpretation if a 4k capable IMB is installed in a 2k projector and an auto or 4k macro is used.

This is essentially a setup mistake - the IMB/IMS has to be setup with a 2k Macro/PCF when installed in a 2k projector. The problem comes up every few years, and only with 4k subtitled DCPs shown on 4k capable IMBs in 2k projectors.

e.g.

http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f16/t003231.html

http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f16/t001327.html

- Carsten

[Harold Hallikainen]

Thanks! I did not know about that issue!

[Dave Macaulay]

Parasite: What I've seen here in Canada is English + French DCPs (EN-FR) and I believe the KDM specifies which is shown. First "mainstream" feature DCP I have come across that's unencrypted.

[Carsten Kurz]

Well, the DCP is circulating already since mid-october, and before it scored at the Golden Globes and the Oscars, it wasn't really 'mainstream'. After they shipped thousands of unencrypted DCPs worldwide during the recent months, they probably thought that it's not worth the effort to secure it now.



- Carsten

[Gordon McLeod]

I know that if the NEC projector has the FMT board the subtitles must be rendered in the server not the projector

[Leo Enticknap]

There are several gotchas that can cause subtitles to not work properly. They always come out of the water and bite when an arthouse movie crosses over into the mainstream, and you get houses that almost never play a subtitled (or OCAP) movie trying to do so. There was a Japanese Anime pic, last summer IIRC, that caused the same fun. As Carsten notes, the 4K subtitled Interop DCP played on a 4K-capable IMB in a 2K projector issue is one of them; Series 1 projectors that can't cope with more than a certain number of characters per line (could be 128, but I can't remember), or some special characters, and then shut down their subtitle rendering engines when they encounter either (meaning that subtitles can suddenly stop working in the middle of a movie) is another. And then there are the projectors, servers and media blocks that haven't had any software or firmware updates since 2014, encounter an SMPTE subtitled DCP with the subtitles encrypted, and then you'd better hope that your audience knows Korean.

You would have thought that any distributor handling such a title in the USA would, by now, know that the only safe way to do it is to create a DCP with burned-in subtitles (XX-en). There are simply too many banana skins to slip on having them rendered in the projector. The situation is likely different in Europe, where subtitled DCPs play in mainstream houses all the time, and everyone knows what they have to do with them. But here, giving a mainstream theater such a DCP is like asking its manager to drive a manual transmission car. It is more likely than not that there will be problems.