Keys that expire too soon

[Peter Mork]

This is a thing that has happened now and then. We book a film and get a preview screening a day or two in advance of the official opening date. And thereafter, the keys for that title expire as if the preview date was the opening date, for as many weeks as we run it.

Current example: Sing 2. We had previews on two days, a Wednesday and a Thursday, before the Friday when it joined the regular schedule. But the keys we get, week after week, expire after Tuesday, so we need to download and ingest new keys on Wednesday. They have dutifully sent them, but I'm not around on Wednesday to deal with them. Dave, the owner, complained to me that he missed shows on Wednesday - I said "Yes, I told you this would happen - they always do this; I wish they wouldn't" (naturally he'd forgot).

I thought every cinema in the USA ran schedules from Friday to Friday; if there are any that don't they are outliers. In the film days, it never mattered, you kept a print as long as you needed it. But I don't see why, if a house is booked for preview shows, they can't make us a key that covers that extra time, so we get in Friday-to-Friday sync.and don't have to remember to make a special effort in the middle of the week to assure we're set for the next two days.

Yes, I've complained to Deluxe; they never seem to get what the complaint is. "Oh yeah, those keys we sent are good for seven days" - but it's the wrong seven days!

Has anyone ever gotten satisfaction and found a way to get Deluxe or whoever to realize this is making trouble and causing missed revenue? If anyone wants to start a pitchfork brigade, please let me know.

[Jim Cassedy]

I used to have a similar problem, and often had to go all the way down to a certain venue
just to ingest keys. This probably isn't the solution you were looking for, but I configured a
system that allowed me to download the keys at home and send them to the server remotely.
It saved me number of trips. On some systems, there might even be a way to get this to
happen automatically.

[Frank Cox]

I've had a few occasions when they send me a key that's valid until Tuesday, so they have to send me another key that's valid for Wednesday and Thursday.



It does have a high pain-in-the-ass factor and I really have no clue why they do that. It's rare -- it only ahppens once or twice a year, just often enough to be a nuisance to deal with.

I try to remember to check the expiry date on the keys as I receive them so I know when I have to ingest a different one mid-week.

[James Wyrembelski]

In 2019 I had an incident with Spider Man Far From Home involving keys.

Went to start the show and of course I get large red tail lights and an error. Check the keys. It had expired 30 minutes before the projector was to start. When I had looked at the times when ingesting I messed up thinking it ended at 4am the next day. It was indeed 4 PM the day of our last show.

Called Deluxe thinking they could whip a new one out real quick and was told that there was a new version released and was set to start playing that same day therefore my "old" release was not to be shown. Deluxe tried their best to let the studio give us the go ahead anyways to no avail. It was my last day to show it......

Ever since....checking the date and time is top priority as soon as I get them. But typically times run right through the day after our last show. Some even run way past our play dates. I just removed Ghostbusters from our server that was still unlocked. (We played that in mid December)

[Mike Blakesley]

Sony often gives two-month keys. I think they just don't specify an ending date so Deluxe makes them two-months by default, or something like that. Our Ghostbusters key was two months, too.

I usually use the fancy-schmancy over-bloated (but pretty useful) Deluxe website to get our keys from, but maybe one out of ten weeks, the keys won't be available there -- it happened again this week with "American Underdog." As of today the key STILL wasn't on the site. So it's back to the trusty email which hasn't failed me yet.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I thought every cinema in the USA ran schedules from Friday to Friday; if there are any that don't they are outliers. In the film days, it never mattered, you kept a print as long as you needed it. But I don't see why, if a house is booked for preview shows, they can't make us a key that covers that extra time, so we get in Friday-to-Friday sync.and don't have to remember to make a special effort in the middle of the week to assure we're set for the next two days.

Yes, I've complained to Deluxe; they never seem to get what the complaint is. "Oh yeah, those keys we sent are good for seven days" - but it's the wrong seven days!

Has anyone ever gotten satisfaction and found a way to get Deluxe or whoever to realize this is making trouble and causing missed revenue? If anyone wants to start a pitchfork brigade, please let me know.

We screen a lot of "unusual" stuff, including pre-releases. We live at opposite locations of that big pond, but over here, Deluxe's emergency contacts usually saved the day when we got a DCP with a missing or invalid key. It's usually the independent distributors who don't manage to get their acts together, where you can't reach anybody if their DCP won't ingest or their keys are broken...

[Peter Mork]

I configured a
system that allowed me to download the keys at home and send them to the server remotely.

Well, that's one workaround I might try, if I can figure out how to use Teamviewer from home. (Deluxe should pay me, since I'm solving a problem they can't be bothered to deal with.)

Yes, not every key expires after seven days. But unless you have booked a special one-night-only showing, they are always made in multiples of seven, which would be fine if only you never had occasion to do previews, which I've come to dread. (Okay, a few times we got a one or two-day key for those instances, followed by a normal seven (or fourteen) day key on Friday - not a problem - more often though it's the situation I described that makes me go into teeth-gnashing mode.)

Clever dodges like Jim's should not be necessary - I want someone at Deluxe (it's always them, and you'd think they'd know better) to fix this, because it's bad for them and for us. Who do I bring this to who'll listen?

[Jon Dent]

Sing 2 was an odd one since it technically opened on Wednesday the 22nd, so the keys were valid for the seven day window starting then. Deluxe had to cut us a one day key at the end of our run to get that final Thursday in.

[Peter Mork]

Right, so a nine-day key somehow would cause a meltdown?
We are still running Sing 2, still getting Wed.-to Wed. keys. At least now Dave is prepared for it.

[Peter Mork]

Well, Ok. But... that's the last straw. I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels... But then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll, I'll, I'll set the building on fire...

[James Gardiner]

Yes, Key screw ups happen all the time. Due to this I wrote a tool that Emails me every day with the status or every show and if a KDM is present to allow it to play.

Kem_Check.PNG
If a KDM is missing it gives me a RED FLAG on the sessions missing the KDM,, or a yellow if a CPL is missing. (As i cannot lookup the KDM it needs).

As I get warned 3 days in advance, I have time to jump up and down and tell the distributors there has been an issue..WIthout it becoming an emergency, all hands on deck to try and save a session.

This works with my AutoKDM tool, of which I never ingest KDM manually, they just get ingested into all target players as they arrive. I only get a RED flag if someone stuffs up and I have to track the issue down.

I was considering putting this into the catcher tool... at some stage, but right now I have a lot on my plate dealing with a family member care (Major Accident) and company rationalization to deal with the ongoing suppressed attendance levels.


James

[Marcel Birgelen]

I've never understood why key management hasn't been on the radar for any of those cinema integrators. Anyway, hope your family member recovers quickly and I guess for the rest, we're all pretty much in the same boat over here...

Well, Ok. But... that's the last straw. I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels... But then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll, I'll, I'll set the building on fire...

Milton, is that you?

[Peter Mork]

I'm hearing about workarounds and ways to keep abreast of occasional mistakes or miscommunications that happen to everyone. What I want to know is an answer to the question, has anyone had success with getting Deluxe, or anyone, to stop the practice of issuing automatic key updates in seven day chunks (or multiples of seven), week by week for as long as the title is kept, that don't jibe with your cinema's standard schedule updates, causing expiring keys on off days and missed shows/ disappointed patrons?

When this happens, it's always for the special case of a title getting preview screenings a day or two before the Friday opening. How is it that Deluxe, or whoever, don't seem to understand or care that this is a problem that could be easily solved - if it's a matter of a bookkeeping headache for them, it's not something that benefits them or us or our customers.

If I'm just venting and you think this concern is not reasonable, or I'm being naive, say so. Or if you know of a magic word that you can tell your cinema's booker that gets the distrib on board with coordinating key updates with what you need, I'd like to hear it. Band-aid fixes are fine as far as they go, but aside from refusing to do previews I can't see a way forward.

[Peter Mork]

And I'm keeping my stapler.

[Gordon McLeod]

Deluxe has no obligation to give you the keys on your terms The studio dictate to them the duration of the key..It is the obligation of a theatre to monitor the status of their keys and keep track of it and it is not a big tme consuming item