Digital Cinema Content Conversion

Introduction

This is a step-by-step guide for converting a video to a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) which we can play from our digital projection system. The main steps are:

1. Log on to the WSCDCP account on 192.168.1.36. All necessary software is installed on this computer.
2. Obtain the highest quality copy of the source video you can.
3. Set up an appropriate sequence in Premiere Pro, based on the aspect ratio and frame rate of the source video.
4. Export the soundtrack as a multi-channel WAV file, after volume correction in Soundbooth.
5. Export the picture sequence as JPEG2000 files from Premiere Pro, after any necessary scaling, cropping and masking.
6. Combine the sound and picture streams into a DCP using OpenDCP.
7. Ingest the finished DCP and ensure it gets tested before use in a playlist. You will need a qualified projectionist to help with testing.

Logging in to WSCDCP

1. From a computer at Filmsoc, open the Windows Remote Desktop Connection wizard from the start menu. In the computer field, type "192.168.1.36" and click Connect. (If this doesn't work contact the IT officer.)
   
   

   Connect remotely to 192.168.1.36
   
   
2. When prompted, enter the username "wscdcp". The password follows the usual Filmsoc password convention. Hit OK. If a window pops up saying "The identity of the remote computer cannot be verified. Do you want to connect anyway?", press Yes.
   
   

   Connect using username "wscdcp"
   
   
3. You should now see the Digital Content Conversion desktop. The necessary software (Chrome, Explorer, OpenDCP, Premiere Pro, Soundbooth and VNC Viewer) is all pinned to the taskbar in the bottom left.
   
   

   Desktop on wscdpc
   
   

Choosing good quality source videos

The most important factor about choosing a video to convert is what quality it is. There are pretty much two factors which affect the quality of a video - the bitrate and the resolution. The bitrate is the amount of information contained per second, and the resolution is the number of pixels in each frame.

Ideally, of course, you want to start with something high bitrate and high resolution. A great place to find HD Trailers at a good bitrate is hd-trailers.net, which has pretty much all recent trailers. The best ones to go for tend to be the HD-trailers own videos (as they don't have watermarks), but they often don't exist, in which case the Apple trailers tend to have the biggest file size.

If you're looking for a trailer from pre 2010, though, chances are you won't find it on HD-Trailers, and it's a bit harder to find good source material. Some videos have high resolution but low bitrate (HD videos on Youtube, for example), and some have high bitrate and low resolution (ripped from DVD, for example). With the digital projection system we use, bitrate seems much more important than resolution, so if you have a choice of source videos, keep that in mind.

Setting up the Workspace

Use VLC to find aspect ratio, frame rate and number of audio channels

Make a new folder in Documents/conversions/ as a workspace to store all the relevant files for the trailer.

Create a new Premiere Pro project in working folder

Choose appropriate sequence settings from custom presets

Ensure the video frame rate matches the sequence

Ensure the video frame rate matches the sequence

Scale video to correct size, ensuring any watermarks are cropped off, as well as getting rid of black bars on the sides or top and bottom.

Cover MPAA logo, if present, with black video

Exporting soundtrack

Edit audio in Soundbooth using Render and Replace

Save soundtrack as multichannel WAV, ensuring Sample Type is set to 24 bit. You'll need to give it a new name; call it something like trl_sound.wav.

Exporting picture sequence

Export picture as sequence of JPEG 2000 images.

Make sure the aspect ratio is correct (1998x1080 for Flat and 2048x858 for Scope). Also, make sure you save the j2c 's in its own folder within the working folder e.g. TRL J2C (can be done by clicking 'Output Name'.)

Creating the DCP

Open OpenDCP to create the DCP for the trailer

Create audio MXF. Change MXF type to WAV and Sound Input Type to Multi-Channel. The input file should be be the trailer audio WAV file. The output should be called sound.

Create picture MXF. Select the folder in which the j2c's were exported to. Call the output picture.

Create DCP XML files.