Batch DCP Slide Creation

[chrisclarke]

Hello,

Tasked with the tedious job of creating many DCP slides in multiple ratios I've been experimenting with the dcpomatic2_create command line tool on a Mac with Automator which is a bit or a more interesting challenge for me. I have a bit of knowledge of using FFMPEG from the command line and from this have created the below as an Automater Quick Action for setting up the DCP-o-Matic projects.

I have the Quick Action "DCP - 10 second slides" to Run the Shell Script below on any files or folders:

Code: Select all

shopt -s extglob
for f in "$@"
do
	/Applications/DCP-o-matic\ 2.app/Contents/MacOS/dcpomatic2_create -o "${f%.*}" -c PSA -s 10 -t fades -n "${f//+(*\/|.*)}" "$f"
done
 

Code: Select all

-t fades

uses a template I've called fades which adds a 2 second fade to the start and end of the 10 second slide. It will also take the name of each source file as the basis for the DCP.

The next step is to encode all these. So the next Quick Action runs the below to encode them:

Code: Select all

for d in "$@"
do
	/Applications/DCP-o-matic\ 2.app/Contents/MacOS/dcpomatic2_cli "$d"
done

All working pretty nicely. A couple of things I'd like to improve. To be able to have a hyphen or other separator in the final DCP name. To either have it combined all in to one Quick Action or if done separate able to do the encode in the Batch converter for progress bars and have the option of adding all the "Films" to the batch converter in one go.

Sharing if useful for anyone else or if anyone has any has any experience or ideas with this sort of workflow

Chris

[IoannisSyrogiannis]

A "like" is in order here, but nowhere to be found, for sharing.

I meant to ask, with no intention to suggest you should:
Why did you choose to make many slide DCPs instead of fewer, longer ones?

Data volume?
Inflexibility on frequent changes?
Preparing each for different occasions?

2+2 seconds of fade in/out seems to me a lot, on a 10 second slide. Isn't it?

[chrisclarke]

These were all for a film festival. Multiple slides / slates in front of each one so end up with over 100. Most unique to a certain film others generic and reused.

I think 2 seconds is about right when you have a holding slide before a film that will either fade up or down along with the cinema lighting or non-sync fading out.