Can I Convert DCP To MOV/MP4/ProRes, etc?

[Leo Enticknap]

Could definitely be a Windows thing. The main desktop computer I have at home has an Intel i7-8700 CPU, 32GB of RAM, an ATI RX580 graphics card, a 500GB M2 flash drive for the operating systems, and 6 x 6TB hard drives as a RAID5 driven by an LSI MegaRAID controller for data storage. It dual boots into Windows 10 and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on separate partitions (I don't have a TPM for the motherboard and so haven't upgraded it to W11 yet, and don't intend to unless support for W10 ends while I still have this computer in service). There are three monitors connected to the graphics card, all of them 1920x1080.

Under Windows, the DCP-o-Matic player plays 2K DCPs encoded up to around 150 MBPS fine without losing frames, but above that, and for all 4K DCPs, it loses a substantial number of frames. Under Ubuntu, however, it works great. I've even played a 4K DCP with the pix at 250 MBPS, and it runs without dropping any frames at all. So I'm guessing that the Windows graphics card driver is the problem. The hardware must be capable, because of the flawless performance under another operating system.

[Marcel Birgelen]

My workstation is currently equipped with a NVIDIA Quadro P6000, which may be an older card by now, but it has full OpenGL support so playing 4K movies with DCP-o-Matic works fine, I don't see any frame skips. But on my notebook, it's practically impossible. I'm pretty sure it's due to the lack of good OpenGL support in the embedded graphics chipset of the thing.

We have a couple of newish iMac Pros, which we primarily use for FinalCut workflows, but I haven't checked it on them yet. For Mac we used CinePlayer by Doremi, but that has since been replaced with the Dolby CineAsset Player, which is probably the most overpriced product Dolby has ever offered...

[Justin d'Entremont]

So I tired DCP-O-Matic player on my Mac Pro (2x 6-core xeon 3.33GHz, 64gb ram, AMD FirePro W7000 4GB, running macOS Monterey v12.2.1), as well as VLC on the same mac. Both choke and drop 75% of the frames, even though my system monitoring shows that neither the GPU or CPU are being taxed. Essentially unusable, even at 1/4 resolution.

DCP-O-Matic player running in a Windows virtual machine (4gb ram) on a Dell rack server (2x 4-core 2.4 Ghz Xeon, 64 Gb ram, no video card), accessed remotely from my Mac, works absolutely fine, 0-1 dropped frames for a trailer.

Seems to lend credibility that there's an issue with either macOS or the Mac version of DCP-o-Matic.

[Justin d'Entremont]

If it's unencrypted, Davinci Resolve should also be able to directly import DCPs.

On the same mac, I can drop the DCP on to the timeline in Davinci Resolve, and it will playback instantly, full resolution, without converting or anything along those lines. I guess this will be the solution to my issue!

[Carsten Kurz]

As I mentioned above, you need to enable openGL in DCP-o-matic player prefs on Macs.

DCP-o-matic player so far is not intended as a presentation player, but a test tool. It allows a lot more than other players on that side.

[Justin d'Entremont]

As I mentioned above, you need to enable openGL in DCP-o-matic player prefs on Macs.

DCP-o-matic player so far is not intended as a presentation player, but a test tool. It allows a lot more than other players on that side.

Ok, interesting. I tried that, it crashed, and now it crashes immediately every time I try to open it again.

[Carsten Kurz]

You see - it's a test tool!

[Carl Hetherington]

Ok, interesting. I tried that, it crashed, and now it crashes immediately every time I try to open it again.

Do you get the "DCP-o-matic quit unexpectedly" dialog? If so, it would really help to click Report... and then show us what it says (or email to carl@dcpomatic.com)

[Carl Hetherington]

Do you get the "DCP-o-matic quit unexpectedly" dialog? If so, it would really help to click Report... and then show us what it says (or email to carl@dcpomatic.com)

Never mind - I can see the same problem here. I'm working on it...

[Marcel Birgelen]

Direct access to the development team, when did you last get that with a commercial piece of software?

[Carl Hetherington]

This version should fix the macOS OpenGL crash if anyone would like to try it.

[Justin d'Entremont]

This version should fix the macOS OpenGL crash if anyone would like to try it.

The latest version works like a charm! Thanks so much Carl!

[Jason Speers]

I've experienced similar problems with high-resolution video playback on Windows. In my case, updating the graphics driver and tweaking the graphics settings helped, but it wasn't a complete fix.

Interestingly, I also tried converting the files to a different format using Movavi, as iMovie wasn't compatible with my setup. Movavi was straightforward to use. I simply imported the DCP files, chose the output format that suited my system best, and let the software handle the conversion. This workaround significantly improved playback smoothness.

See these imovie alternatives, there are a plenty of options that might help.