In most cases, some adjustments would be made to DCP-o-matic's settings once the content has been added. For our simple test, however, the default values will suffice, so we can go straight onto making the DCP.

Choose Make DCP from the Jobs menu. Before encoding your DCP, DCP-o-matic will run a series of checks on your film to look for various conditions that might cause problems when playing back the DCP. If any potential problems are found, DCP-o-matic will show you a list of hints. Each hint describes the condition that was found and gives advice on how to resolve it. If hints are found and reported, you can either Make DCP anyway (without adjusting any settings), or Go back in order to make adjustments before encoding the DCP.

If no hints were found (or you pressed Make DCP after hints were displayed), DCP-o-matic will encode your DCP. This may take some time (many hours in some cases). While the job is in progress, DCP-o-matic will update you on how it is getting on with the progress bar in the bottom of its window, as shown in Figure 3.6, “Making the DCP”.

When it has finished, the DCP will be written into its own folder inside the film's folder. You can copy this to a projector via a USB stick, hard-drive or network connection. See Chapter 14, Generated files for details about the files that DCP-o-matic creates.

Alternatively, DCP-o-matic can upload your DCP directly to a projector or Theatre Management System (TMS) that is accessible via SCP or FTP across your network. See the section called “TMS preferences”.