OpenDCP HOWTO — a work-in-progress

This is being updated and revised pretty regularly (except when it's not), so check back frequently.

• This recipe assumes you have a digital master .MOV of your film that is Rec709 1920x1080 23.976fps with 48.000kHz audio
• Speed up your audio to match the 23.976fps to 24.000fps speed up of the image
  I have two pathways for doing this. Choose one:
  1. The "Cinema Tools" way
     • Cinema Tools
       • Make a duplicate of your digital master .MOV file.
         This is very important as you do not want to run the Cinema Tools conform on your original!
       • Launch Cinema Tools (part of Final Cut Studio)
       • Choose File/Open Clip and select the COPY of your .MOV digital master
       • Click the Conform button under the screen and choose Conform to 24.0fps
         This converts your MOV to 24.000fps with 48.048kHz audio.
         Note there is no Save dialog. The conform acts directly and immediately upon the file you previously opened. You've been warned.
         Also note this recipe only uses the audio from this file you conform in Cinema Tools.
         FWIW, here is a sample file before and after. I'd love to find a Linux command line utility to do this!
       • Quit Cinema Tools
     • Quicktime Player
       • Launch Quicktime Player and open the copy of your digital master that you conformed in Cinema Tools
       • Choose File/Export and choose Sound to WAV Stereo, 24bit, 48.000kHz
         Note this step resamples the audio back to DCI-compliant 48.000kHz
       • Quit Quicktime Player
     • Audacity
       • Launch Audacity and open the file
       • Split the stereo track to two mono tracks
       • Choose Export Multiple and select Other Formats, WAV, 24bit
       • Quit Audacity
  2. The "Sox" way
     • Quicktime Player
       • Open the digital master .MOV in Quicktime Player
       • Choose File/Export and select Sound to Wave in the pop-down menu and choose 24bit and Best in the Options button
         For the puporses of this demo, let's call that the file foo_23976.wav, since it's the audio corresponding to the original 23.976fps program.
     • Sox
       • On the command line or Terminal
         sox foo_23976.wav foo_24fps.wav speed 1.001   to speed up the audio program
         sox foo_24fps.wav foo_24fps_L.wav remix 1     to split out the Left channel
         sox foo_24fps.wav foo_24fps_R.wav remix 2               and the Right channel
         
     
     
  3. The pure command line way, with ffmpeg and sox

     	# extract stereo audio from .MOV and upsample to 24-bit
     	ffmpeg -i  foo.mov -acodec pcm_s24le  foo_23976.wav
     	
     	# speed up audio to match 23.976-to-24.000fps image speed up
     	sox  foo_23976.wav  foo_24fps.wav  speed 1.001001  
     	
     	# split out the Left channel
     	sox  foo_24fps.wav  foo_24fps_L.wav  remix 1     
     	
     	# split out the Right channel
     	sox  foo_24fps.wav  foo_24fps_R.wav  remix 2 
     	
     	# make a mono mix 
     	sox  foo_24fps.wav  foo_24fps_mono.wav  remix 1,2
     	
     	# make a mute channel
     	sox -v 0  foo_24fps_mono.wav  foo_24fps_mute.wav
     	# or this does the same thing
     	sox  foo_24fps_mono.wav  foo_24fps_mute.wav  vol 0
     	
     	
     	# get info on a file, useful for getting the number of samples
     	soxi foo.wav 
     	# note that the following unfortunately returns a "samples read" value that is twice the actual number of samples in the file
     	sox foo.wav -n stat
     
     	

• After Effects
  • Launch After Effects
  • Choose File/Project Settings, select "32bit Float" and "HDTV Rec709"
    (Not "HDTV Rec709 16-235")
  • Choose File/Import and select your original digital master MOV
  • In the Project Window, select the file you just imported, right click and choose Interpret Footage/Main...
  • Click on the Color Management tab and choose Select Profile "HDTV Rec709". Exit Interpret Footage
  • Drag the clip to the Make Comp icon at the bottom of the Project window.
    Now your movie is in an After Effects composition.
  • Select Composition/Composition Settings...
  • Deselect Lock Aspect Ratio to 16x9, and set the Width to 1998. Exit Comp Settings
  • Select Layer/Transform/Scale to Comp Width
    This will get rid of the pillar bars on the left and right.
    Note: if you have scrolling credits that were well-designed to not stutter (i.e., scroll rate is even multiple of frame rate),
    then you should split the layer and reset the scale to 100.0% for your credits, since scaling breaks the scroll rate--frame rate relationship.
    (Sorry, this isn't the place for an After Effects basics lesson.)
  • Choose Composition/Add to Render Queue
  • In the Render Queue, click on the Output Module for the comp you just added.
  • Choose Format: Tiff Sequence
  • Choose Depth: Trillions of Colors
  • Switch to the Color Management tab of the Output Module, and confirm that the Output Profile is "Working Space - HDTV Rec709"
  • Exit Output Module Settings
  • Select an appropriate destination for your render, click Render, and go to coffee/lunch/dinner/drinks/bed as appropriate
    This will take one to several hours depending on the length of your film and the speed of your machine.
  • When the render is complete, quit After Effects
• OpenDCP
  • Follow the instructions for OpenDCP given here: http://code.google.com/p/opendcp/wiki/Documentation
  • Note in the JPEG2000 tab, you should turn OFF the DPX Logarithmic setting. (Yes, your source is TIF but it's not Log and I'd rather play it safe.)
  • You should note when you get to the last tab ("DCP") that the durations of your Picture and Sound are identical, which was the point of this recipe (along with correct color processing).
  
• Getting it onto the drive
  • Get a drive and chassis
    I got a CRU DX115 chassis (p/n 6607-7100-0500) from Amazon.
    To mount the chassis in my Linux/Windows box, I got a CRU DX115 internal 5.25" receiver (p/n 6616-6500-0500) from NewEgg.
    To mount the chassis on my MacPro, I got a CRU DX115 external receiver (p/n 6603-5701-0900) from Amazon.
    I had a new Samsung 830-series 64GB 2.5" SSD, which I mounted in the DX115 chassis.
    More details
  • Format the drive with a MBR (Master Boot Record)
    Note: Do NOT format with a GPT (GUID Partition Table). We're going old-school for maximum compatibility.
    I used the MacOS Disk Utility, pending figuring out how to do this under Linux
    If you're not sure, you can use gparted and choose View/Device Information. If the partition table is "msdos" then it's already MBR.
  • Partition the drive as Ext2
    I mounted the drive on my Ubuntu Linux machine and ran gparted and partioned the drive as Ext2
    Take note of the partition's path, such as /dev/sdb1
    Note that /dev/sdb is a drive and /dev/sdb1 is a partition. You want the partition.
  • Set the drive's inode size to 128
    Still in Linux, open a terminal and enter the command
    mke2fs -I 128 /dev/sdb1    (Don't use my example /dev/sdb1 but rather your own path from in the step above)
    sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sda2 is a helpful tool that one can use to confirm the inode size.
  • Copy the DCP to the drive
    I switched over to Windows 7, on which I had previously installed Ext2Fsd to enable me to mount the a Linux Ext2 drive.
    Copy the contents of the DCP to the rool level of your drive.