Digital Cinema Package (DCP) creation for film festivals and theatrical presentation.
Home Planet Post,sponsor of Santa Barbara Film Festival can create DCPs from virtually all video and media file formats.
Home Planet Post, Inc. in downtown Santa Barbara (walking distance from all theater venues) has been local production sponsor of the Santa Barbara International Film festival since 2005 and is considered an “accredited” professional facility by SBIFF. As sponsor, we have always given great prices to films accepted to SBIFF. For the past three years, we have successfluly deliverd 100's of DCPs for our clients. We have now extended our special discounted rates on DCP services to participants of all film festivals…
Generally, our rates range between $150 and $295 for short films and $295 and $395 for feature films. Please call or email for a quote specific to the individual needs of your film projects.
805-201-2618
tom@homeplanetproductions.com
Preparing Files for DCP
If your film is mastered in 1920 x 1080 aspect ratio/raster format you will be going to a 2K DCP. If you have a 4K film or HFR (High Frame Rate) Film, contact us for more info.
2K DCP can either be “flat” or widescreen anamorphic “scope” aspect ratio. For example, if your film is standard 1920x1080 HD or 1280x720 (720HD) then your film will be "2K flat". If your film is in a wide screen 2K format or widescreen within the 1920x1080 format you can make a "2K scope" DCP.
A 2K flat DCP ends up as 1998 x 1080 file while a 2K scope DCP is 2048 x 858. You can deliver your master file to Home Planet in one of those 2K aspect ratios but we recommend that if your native master format is 1920x1080HD or 1280x720HD then you deliver it to us in these same native dimensions.
Frame Rate/Frequency for DCP
It is quite common for the master frame rate / frequency of a film's camera original or master format to be in 23.98fps rather than 24fps even. Although DCPs are 24fps EVEN not 23.98. We reccomend that when you output your master file that you export its native frame rate frequency rather than convert to 24fps etc (i.e. if your native frame rate/frequency is 23.98 or 29.97 do not convert it t o24 fps or 30fps even)
Please make sure your master file is at least ProRes 422 HQ or equivalent media file quality with a good indicator being that your master file is at least 1 Gigabyte per 2 minutes of film’s run time.
Festivals will often allow DCP frame rates of 24, 25, and 30 fps. Occasionally some may limit films to 24fps only due to limitations of the DCP playback server/projector system they are using. Please check with the individual festival or theatrical venue to confirm, or foward us thier DCP specifications if possible. And of course feel free to contact us with any questions.