What is a DCP?
DCP stands for Digital Cinema Package which is the required format for playing films in a theater such as AMC, Regal, Draft Alamo, and more than 200,000 theaters throughout the world. DCPs are designed to make it easy for the projector to present your film in the best quality and resolution while ensuring the playback of your film is presented correctly. The rules for a DCP are defined by several important industry groups (ISDCF, SMPTE, and DCI). This ensures that any correctly formed DCP can play on any DCP-enabled projector throughout the world.
Why is DCP required? In short, because your fellow filmmakers and studios wanted a visual standard that was the best possible for the available technology to distribute their films. The audio and video capabilities far exceed a basic mp4 you might generate straight out of Adobe Premiere or Resolve. The group that originally standardized the technology was driven by the University of Southern California Entertainment Technology Center, i.e. the USC ETC, which became known as the Digital Cinema Initiatives or DCI, the standard is now managed under SMPTE, of which AutoDCP is honored to be a member.
A Digital Cinema Package is just that, a container or group of nested folders with very specific naming requirements. The folder structure and naming is very precise. That is why it is very important that you don’t rename files within a DCP or move them around. It is very easy to make a tiny mistake that will render your film unreadable by a digital movie projector. Thankfully, AutoDCP outputs DCPs already correctly formatted for playback at your favorite cinema.
Here are some basic rules…
- It is critical that you do not change or rename any files contained within the folder as this will corrupt your DCP.
- When copying DCP’s, simply copy the folder, don’t try copying the individual files indepently otherwise again its is very likely you will accidentially corrupt the DCP.
- Don’t zip your DCPs, a projectionist can’t work with zipped DCPs.
- Do not include any file or folder in your DCP folder which is not related to the DCP, ie don’t copy other files or folders into your DCP folder, again this will corrupt your DCP
- Only send DCP’s using tools which can work with folders and large files, like Dropbox client app installed on your desktop computer, don’t try using browsers whether Chrome, IE, or Safari to handle DCPs. Internet browsers are NOT designed to handle folders and often corrupt your DCP.
- If you copy your DCP to an external HDD, that HDD must be formatted windows NTFS, a projectionist will not be able to read your apple formatted drives, don’t give them one.