Creating a DCP-o-matic Workstation
Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2020 9:06 pm
Hello,
I'm using this shutdown period to research building a new dedicated workstation for converting digital film files to dcps using DCP-o-matic. We've been using DCP-o-matic for years, including recommending it to all of our rental clients. As a cinema, we've never wanted to be in the 'business' of DCP creation but we're finding the burden increasingly being placed on our shoulders and at the last minute. Our current average transcode time is about 13 hours for a typical feature film. Ideally we'd like to bring that down to 30 minutes or less, as we still need 30-60 minutes to ingest on to server.
The broad strokes of what I have in mind would be an Ubuntu OS, Ryzen Threadripper 3970X, 32 GG of RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. Does anyone here have experience with a similar system and can give an estimate for DCP-o-matic creation rates? Is Cinebench the closest benchmark I should be looking at for performance, or is there something closer out there? I'm also planning on putting a blu-ray optical drive in, to enable ripping of optical media and converting to DCP, and the planned installation of USB 4.0 when it comes to market. Will it be more efficient to write to internal SSD and then transfer to a portable HD Dor write directly to portable HDD? Any important considerations when selecting a motherboard for this application other than the correct socket?
Thanks,
Al
I'm using this shutdown period to research building a new dedicated workstation for converting digital film files to dcps using DCP-o-matic. We've been using DCP-o-matic for years, including recommending it to all of our rental clients. As a cinema, we've never wanted to be in the 'business' of DCP creation but we're finding the burden increasingly being placed on our shoulders and at the last minute. Our current average transcode time is about 13 hours for a typical feature film. Ideally we'd like to bring that down to 30 minutes or less, as we still need 30-60 minutes to ingest on to server.
The broad strokes of what I have in mind would be an Ubuntu OS, Ryzen Threadripper 3970X, 32 GG of RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. Does anyone here have experience with a similar system and can give an estimate for DCP-o-matic creation rates? Is Cinebench the closest benchmark I should be looking at for performance, or is there something closer out there? I'm also planning on putting a blu-ray optical drive in, to enable ripping of optical media and converting to DCP, and the planned installation of USB 4.0 when it comes to market. Will it be more efficient to write to internal SSD and then transfer to a portable HD Dor write directly to portable HDD? Any important considerations when selecting a motherboard for this application other than the correct socket?
Thanks,
Al