The festival is in February.  I'm just happy I was able to get the DCP (and DVD) to them.

I work with engineers so I gook CJ Fynn's sage advice and found somebody to help me.  I used DCP-o-Matic to build the DCP.  That was pretty easy.  It just took about 4 hours on my laptop at work.  Unfortunately, I started the build at 3pm on Friday and had to wait until 7pm for the job to complete.  

An engineer gave me access to an ubuntu linux box so formatting the USB Flash drive to EXT4 was a simple point and click affair.  I shared the DCP folder on my laptop with the linux box so I could copy the DCP to the USB.  The fun part was discovering the DCP I created was 24gb and I had purchased 16gb USB drives.  So I had to drive down to Fry's, purchase a 32gb USB drive, format it, then copy the DCP folder structure.  The copy itself took 7 hours so I went home and came back Saturday morning to find the copy had completed.  

Next time I will give myself more time to do the DCP build and copy.  Burning a DVD is much faster.  

Thanks again for all your help. 

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 9:29 AM, cjflynn@digitaltesttools.com <cjflynn@digitaltesttools.com> wrote:
On Jan 15, 2017, at 00:10 000AM, Joseph Verrico <jjverrico@gmail.com> wrote:

Turns out this was pretty easy using ubuntu linux.

Absolutely marvelous to hear. And now, it is Sunday. When is/was your screening? Was that a success as well?

Do any of the instructions need changing for accuracy or clarity? 
Did you use any links that proved helpful? 
Did you find a person to help you? 
How long was the process once you started on the path?
Do any of the instructions need changing for accuracy or clarity? 

C J Flynn

On Jan 15, 2017, at 00:10 000AM, Joseph Verrico <jjverrico@gmail.com> wrote:

Turns out this was pretty easy using ubuntu linux.

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 9:07 PM, cjflynn@digitaltesttools.com <cjflynn@digitaltesttools.com> wrote:
It’s good to be bold. Continue. cjf

On Jan 10, 2017, at 20:48 000PM, Joseph Verrico <jjverrico@gmail.com> wrote:

It's a 15 minute short film.  I haven't created the DCP yet but I can't imagine its going to be larger than 5 GB.  The MP4 is only 1 GB.  

I really appreciate your help on this.  I am going to try to pull this off with the tools you've shared.  If not, I will look for somebody to do it for me.  I have until the end of the week so I have some time.

Thanks again for your help.  I may post other questions as I attempt this feat of strength.  

Joseph

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 8:36 PM, cjflynn@digitaltesttools.com <cjflynn@digitaltesttools.com> wrote:
Hi Joseph

I have several Windows machines here, but they are set up for testing other applications. So I can’t test this for you now. (I do most everything on a Mac.)

I’ve done a quick Google and a couple of ext2/ext3 drivers for Windows. One seemed open source and current <https://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd/>. One seemed low-cost and current <http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/linux-partition-manager.htm>. There might be others.

They look simple to install and use.

The other alternative – which is what many of us have on our Mac and Windows systems – is to download and install the free and open source Virtual Machine Manager “VirtualBox", then install the free and open sourced “Ubuntu" Operating System. Suddenly you are a Linux person. It may not be the thing to do now as you are trying to finish a project, but it only takes a few minutes to install each, then open the Terminal and put in the commands. It will take a few seconds with a hammer figuring out how to steal the USB drive from the Windows system to allow the Linux system to write to it, and another few to figure out how to create a share folder on your Windows drive to the Ubuntu, but it isn’t rocket surgery. 

My actual recommendation is to find a friend who can do this for you. Or wander the local college with a sign on your chest. It will take them seconds, plus the few minutes to transfer the data from one drive to the other.  

How big is your DCP that you need to put on the USB drive?

C J Flynn


On Jan 10, 2017, at 19:48 000PM, Joseph Verrico <jjverrico@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank for the information.  I was hoping I could format a USB memory stick to EXT2 on my Windows machine and then copy the DCP file structure onto that EXT2 formatted USB memory stick.  I don't have Linux on my Windows machine.  I don't know Linux.  Is this possible?

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 5:01 PM, cjflynn@digitaltesttools.com <cjflynn@digitaltesttools.com> wrote:
Leslie is correct that the DCP creation platform is not relevant. 

But I think it is a mistake to follow the advice of submitting your work on the opposite format of what the festival have asked for…even if they asked in an odd sort of way.

It is true that some software versions of some media servers will accept FAT32. But there are some that don’t and the festival seems pretty specific about what they want. They do that because there is only one formatted drive specification that all cinema systems must use. 

That is the EXT2 that Leslie mentioned. 

And, make certain that if someone makes this drive for you that they make the inode size 128, since that is in the DCI and ISDCF and SMPTE specifications. 

And, if the drive was originally formatted in FAT32, you’ll be limited to a 4 Gig file size, regardless of the size of the drive. First format in exFAT, or leave it with NTSF if that is what it was bought as. 

Here is what I do.

The ISDCF document gives the following command line in a linux type system.

mkfs -t ext3 -I 128 -m 0 /dev/xddN

with xddN being the drive ‘name’, which is most often something like ‘sdb1’ – you can find that name by the command 

sudo lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL

Then unmount with 

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

And here are two other formatting commands that work. Myself, I prefer the last one since it allows me to name the partition as it is being made.

sudo mke2fs -t ext3 -I 128 -L DCPs 0 /dev/sdb1 – slightly different command set

sudo mkfs.ext3 -I 128 -m 0 -L your-chosen-name-of-drive /dev/sdb1 – this one adds a disk name (change "DiskName" to 'my_dcp_drive' or whatever name you want to give it) while formatting and partitioning...change that 'sdb1' to the proper partition number.

Formatting the disk is not so quick – Those Superblocks might take a few minutes to assemble.  

Follow up by giving permissions to the drive with: (755 is usually recommended, but I use 777 for myself)

sudo chmod -R 777 /media/Your_Login_USER_NAME/your-chosen-name-of-drive

You might find that you need to change ownership 

sudo chown owner:owner /media/owner/your-chosen-name-of-drive

I usually put my name twice, such as 'cj:cj', then '/media/cj/ctt_dcps'

I hope this helps. I’d hate you to have a black screen after getting this far. Good luck. Tell us how it worked out and what you ended up doing.
 
C J Flynn
 

On Jan 10, 2017, at 15:45 000PM, Leslie Hartmier via DCPomatic <dcpomatic@carlh.net> wrote:

No, the platform you use to create the DCP is not relevant.  They may be wanting the content on a EXT2 drive.

If it is small enough, you can provide it on a USB thumb drive formatted using FAT32. (Most USB drives come formatted that way.)

Leslie
From: dcpomatic@carlh.net
Sent: January 10, 2017 4:28 PM
To: dcpomatic@carlh.net
Reply-to: jjverrico@gmail.com
Subject: [DCP-o-matic] DCP for Linux

Hello

I've used DCP-o-Matic on a Windows machine to create a DCP for a short film I made.  Worked great.  I entered the short film in a film festival and got accepted.  They are asking me for a Linux compatible DCP.  Do I need to create the DCP on Linux for it to be Linux compatible?

Thanks

Joseph 
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