FinalDCP works with both standard DCP formats: Interop and SMPTE. While SMPTE officially supports more frame rates at 2K and 4K actually Interop is still used by most cinema servers. Due to this fact FinalDCP supports both modes. You can change the mode in the menu bar “Mode”:
1. Main Window
When you start FinalDCP a blank project window will be shown. The main window is separated into four setting taps (from top down): General Settings, Composition Play List (CPL) Settings, Reels and the RenderManager Connection status:
2. General Settings
The General Settings tap is used to manage the Destination Folder (main project folder) and the Render Folder (temp folder) for your project. This tap also contains the “Create DCP” button to start the rendering process of the reels in your CPLs:
2.1. DCP Destination Folder
Within the DCP Destination Folder Settings you can choose the paths where to safe the “DCP” subfolder that contains all .mxf files of your project, the “SHA1” subfolder for support information as your main destination folders and the “JPEG2000” subfolder as your rendering folder that contains all single frame files (you can add all frames in this folder to one of the reels by drag and drop one file of the batch, read more at chapter 4. Reels):
The Destination Path and the Rendering Path both are linked to the same path by default. The paths are linked to each other when a connected chain symbol is shown next to the paths. In this case both settings will use the given destination path for files and subfolders. By clicking the chain symbol or changing the Rendering Path you are able to unlink the paths and choose different locations. An open chain symbol is shown if he paths are unlinked:
3. Composition Play List (CPL) Settings
Within the Composition Play List (CPL) Settings you can add various CPLs. For each playlist you can adjust multiple 2D and 3D settings. The Composition Play Lists define the playback order during presentation. The default CPL at FinalDCP startup is named “My Movie”:
You can add a new CPL by clicking the “+” symbol. New CPLs are named “My Movie” and counted up.
By double-clicking into a CPLs name you can change the title. By adding a file to the first reel of the CPL this CPL will be automatically renamed to the first 40 chars of the filename or until the first underscore (_) in the file title. To remove a CPL including all reels of this CPL click the “-“ symbol:
For each CPL element you have created you can adjust its settings separately. The settings include container options like the resolution, frame rate and aspect ratio. It also contains country-specific options like the language, territory and rating (here the rating options are contextual to the territory):
In regard to the industry recommendation by the Digital Cinema Naming Convention FinalDCP creates the ContentTitleText element of a CPL automated on the settings. The Digital Cinema Name is divided into fields separated by underscores (_) and sub-fields separated by hyphens (-) to make as much information visible as possible. To overwrite or rename the automatically generated title change from option “Naming Convention” to “Content Title Text”. For further information about the Digital Cinema Naming Convention standards go to:
www.digitalcinemanamingconvention.com
4. Reels
In the Reels section you can add and edit video, audio and subtitle files of your CPL items. Each CPL can contain multiple reels. The reels are separated into subfolders for files of the categories VIDEO, AUDIO and SUBTITLE. For each file the source information (length, bit mode, fps, width, height, channels) is shown:
Add an empty reel by clicking the “+” symbol. The new reel is named “Reel” and counted up. By double-clicking the reel name you can edit the title of the reel. The filenames of the processed DCP files will be named as the subfolders of the reels to the following scheme:
ContentTitleText + reel name + format (video: “j2c.mxf”; audio: “pcm.mxf”; subtitle: “sub.xml”)
By double-clicking the subfolder filename you can edit the title.
To add files to your reel you can both drag and drop your files to the subfolder of the reel or navigate to the source file by clicking the “+” symbol next to the subfolder. To remove files from your reel simply click the “-“ symbol left to the file or remove the reel including all files by clicking the “-“ symbol left to the reel:
The source information of each file in your reel is shown on the right of the row. The first row of your reel also shows a message that your video and audio files are of matching length or not. If the lengths are not matching you might need to adjust the frame rate of your audio content. You can adjust the frame rate file-by-file by choosing the target frame rate in the dropdown menu in the column “Source FPS” or by choosing the frame rate for all files in a subfolder in the very first dropdown menu of the audio subfolders row:
You can also adjust multichannel audio files in FinalDCP. The identified audiotracks are automatically assigned to the channels left (L), right (R), center (C), low frequency (LFE), left surround (Ls), right surround (Rs), left center (Lc), right center (Rc) and displayed by green lights:
You can re-assign the channel for each track by clicking into one of the target channels. Only one track at a time can be assigned to a channel. Therefore the previous track on this channel will be automatically re-assigned to a free track.
5. RenderManager Connection
The bottom status bar shows the active connection to the RenderManager in your network. The status shows either the local server ID and IP or returns an error that the connection to the RenderManager is lost: