DCP Creation in Davinci Resolve 17 Studio & Cinematiq DCP Transfer

[Ed Gordon]

Nov 27, 2021
In this video I attempt to show you steps on how to create a DCP including basic setup of 5.1 Surround in DaVinci Resolve 17 Studio and then creating a DCP Delivery Package using Cinematiq DCP Transfer Software. DCP exporting is a Resolve Studio 17 feature. You can follow using standard Resolve but exporting will result in a Watermark. Resolve Studio is an excellent tool and has free upgrades for life! Highly recommended for Editing and Color Grading. Download DaVinci Resolve at: www.blackmagicdesign.com Get Cinematiq DCP Transfer Software here: www.cinematiq.com

Credit: Josh Williams

Note: DaVinci Resolve is now at version 18.1.4 and is available at no charge at: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/pro...avinciresolve/ .

[Jim Cassedy]

I've said it before and I'll say it again- - just because somebody can make their own DCP's, doesn't mean they should.

I've had more headaches dealing with 'amateur' and a few semi-professional home-made DCP's at various festivals
over the years. A couple of years ago, I got a panicked call from a venue I wasn't even working at to "save" one of
their big festival titles that was scheduled to play the next day. What made it more frustrating, was that the film-maker
had e-mailed me for advice prior to making his DCP- - and then apparently ignored my suggestions. I made it clear
that I would 'save' their show- - but it was going to cost $250 (in advance), for me to do so. I don't know who got stuck
paying it - - the venue, the festival, or the film-maker, but I got my money and they had their show. I don't really like
extorting money from people like that, but given all the circumstances too numerous to go into here, it was justifiable.
(I had actually turned down an offer to work that festival, mainly because I knew it was going to be a P-I-T-A)

[Henry Atkinson]

Does Resolve only use CPU for encoding DCPs or can it rely on a GPU? My biggest gripe with DCP-O-Matic 2 is that it relies entirely on CPU for encoding when it could be a whole lot faster if it relied on a CUDA GPU. Multithreading that workload on a 20-thread 12th gen Intel CPU is nice and all, but it could still be faster.

[Thomas Piccione]

Does Resolve only use CPU for encoding DCPs or can it rely on a GPU? My biggest gripe with DCP-O-Matic 2 is that it relies entirely on CPU for encoding when it could be a whole lot faster if it relied on a CUDA GPU. Multithreading that workload on a 20-thread 12th gen Intel CPU is nice and all, but it could still be faster.

The studio version of Resolve supports GPU acceleration for several encoding operations, the free version does not.

[Jon Dent]

I've said it before and I'll say it again- - just because somebody can make their own DCP's, doesn't mean they should

We got a DCP once from a professional film scanning company, and it's the worst DCP I've even seen. It was in 4k full container (4096x2160) with a stereo track that had the original mono audio in the left channel only. To add insult to injury the CPL title was a simple text description of who the film was scanned for. Completely beyond amateur and unusable as is. I told the submitter that I hope he didn't pay much for the DCP because they did a shit job. I ended up re-encoding it myself before we screened it.

Unencrypted DCPs aren't all that difficult to make, so long as you know the formatting guidelines and some technical details about how they work. Encrypted ones are a different story...

And yes, Resolve Studio uses the GPU for DCP encoding. DCP-o-Matic is a nicer program for DCP creation, but they're hindered by the open source encoder they use (OpenJPEG), which doesn't have GPU capabilities.

[Ioannis Syrogiannis]

More than nine times out of ten, I get a headache rather than a proper DCP, exported out of DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro.
The first victim is naming. I had uncountable cases of "DCP Project.dcp" or "<Title> <Date>" with spaces in between, categorized as advertisements, with non-standard characters, no info on format, audio, framerate, SMPTE or IOP standard, nothing.
And if I am lucky enough to get more than once a DCP, every copy will appear on the server with the same name.

Except naming, window-boxing, using C (full panel), letterboxing or aspect ratio mayhem is often enough an export slip of the hand.

The bitrate is the only constant: if it's Premiere Pro, it would be around 60Mbps, if it's DaVinci Resolve, most probably 250Mbps.

Then, I get often enough .srt or similar subtitle files dropped in the DCP folder, with the people expecting that the cinema servers will pick those up and show them on demand. (With the use of the screen-server's remote control, maybe. Too bad most of the cinemas don't buy that when they buy the servers.)

Finally, I have gotten my share of DaVinci DCP exports with its logo and the easyDCP logo on each side of the picture. Checking deliverables is overrated.
More often than not, all those gems I get are coming from people who charge for their services

What I am trying to say by writing those funny facts, is that - if someone is doing professional work or is aspired to do such, they will be much better off with exporting from DaVinci Resolve a ProRes and using DCP-o-matic afterwards.
Indeed, there is some learning curve there, to understand how DCP works and how to use Flat, Scope, other aspect ratios, how to configure the sound channels, how to include subtitles and make VFs, how to create encrypted DCPs and not lose access to them, but the result can be much, much, very much better.
And that learning curve less steep with all the help one gets from DCP-o-matic (and what about its community) than other professional and expensive software.

P.S. I should mention that I have received a DaVinci Resolve DCP export once that didn't quite tick all the naming-convention boxes, but was close enough and I was happy with the fact that it ticked all other boxes.

Jim, +1
I can totally relate to what you write.

[Jon Dent]

My favored workflow is exporting a DCP from Resolve and then re-wrapping it's audio and video tracks into a new DCP with DOM. That way you get the speed advantage of Resolve's j2k GPU encoder (provided that you have the studio version of course).

[Ioannis Syrogiannis]

For those that arrive in this thread from a web search and are not more familiar with cinema, I would like to point a few instances where I find that tutorial to lack important information or to mispresent the reality:

1) Filename "2025(space)DCP" (No mention to Composition Name Generator<Composition Settings. I didn't know that menu was there, but then again, no user seems to notice either. I found a concise video on that obscure menu. https://youtu.be/zY1W1kZlN04)

2) "...1.85:1 is what we see on a television at home completely filled with the image on the screen...(?)
...Some of the theaters will have the ability to change the mode that their projector presents in, but I would not recomend relying on that. They might have a reason why they don't wan'a change it..."?

3) "2K DCI Flat on 200Mbit/sec is still(!?) considered high quality".

[Jon Dent]

He's close but skips over so much.

Yes, 200Mbit on a 2k 24fps DCP is considered high quality. Some might even consider it overkill.

1.85 is not full screen on a home TV unless your image settings are f**ked up.

The composition name generator is ESSENTIAL if you want your DCP to be taken seriously.

And why is he leaving the "Interop" checkbox marked?

All that being said I don't think I'd ever recommend Resolve to produce a truly professional DCP. It doesn't offer encryption (unless you pay for EasyDCP plugin), and it doesn't export any of the certificates or metadata that something like DCP-o-Matic or Easy DCP will include.