Blackmagic Forum

Hello,

I am making my first DCP for a film festival, and ran into a snag. My film is in stereo, but since a DCP requires 5.1, I have been trying to figure out the right conversion process. I have been attempting to follow a few different tutorials, but the most direct one stopped abruptly after the following steps:

1: Create six mono tracks and label them L, R, C, LFE, L SUR, R SUR
2: Set my stereo track to mono, source channel 1
3: Duplicate this track, drag into R channel. Set to source channel 2
4: Change bus format to 5.1 sur
5: Check Bus Assign and ensure all tracks are set to Bus 1
6: Manually adjust panning settings for all six tracks

The tutorial then pivoted to talk about video information and never went back, but is that all there is to sound prior to the Deliver page? I feel like I should have all six tracks filled with an audio clip, since other tutorials mention creating duplicates for all six tracks, but I don't know if this is for Stereo audio specifically. Any help with this process would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

It might not be typical, but you can make a stereo DCP.

DCP's do NOT require 5.1 it is recommended because some theaters do not sound as good in 2.0 You can make a 2.0 (stereo) DCP for sure BUT make sure that you name it and tag it as 2.0 (stereo) in the naming.

That said, there are some plugin's that can make a 2.0 into 5.1 but it is a "fake" 5.1

I would just make a 2.0 DCP correctly.

Glenn Sakatch wrote:It might not be typical, but you can make a stereo DCP.

Could you elaborate on how to do this or point me in the right direction for any instructions on this? I only see tutorials on 5.1., and when I tried to export a Stereo DCP, I received an "invalid audio track count" message (cut out the extra tracks, set the single audio track, clip type, and bus format to Stereo, set it to Stereo in Deliver page). Thank you!

I use Easy DCP, and there is a stereo preset.

I'm guessing you are using Resolve.
Is your audio set to stereo?
Is your output set to Stereo?
Have you built a stereo bus in the Fairlight page?
Your errors seem to indicate you are trying to do a 5.1 dcp with a stereo source. Try doing a stereo dcp with a stereo source

The first place I would look to solve this is here:

https://www.waves.com/plugins/dts-neural-surround-upmix

(Though I've never actually done it and don't know how well it works.)

loggyloo wrote:

Glenn Sakatch wrote:It might not be typical, but you can make a stereo DCP.

Could you elaborate on how to do this or point me in the right direction for any instructions on this? I only see tutorials on 5.1., and when I tried to export a Stereo DCP, I received an "invalid audio track count" message (cut out the extra tracks, set the single audio track, clip type, and bus format to Stereo, set it to Stereo in Deliver page). Thank you!

To be honest if you don't know these basic steps I would not make your own DCP until you do and I would hire someone to do it for you.
There are many steps that can go wrong in DCP creation.
This link might help but is behind a paywall: https://mixinglight.com/color-grading-t ... esolve-15/

I spent some time learning and testing DCP creation before I started offering it as a service.
There is nothing like being in a theater and having a bad DCP playing back.

Or try to find a software Dolby Prologic decoder to run your stereo track through, creating something like a 3.1 ‘Dolby Surround’ style file for printing to DCP.

loggyloo wrote:

Glenn Sakatch wrote:It might not be typical, but you can make a stereo DCP.

Could you elaborate on how to do this or point me in the right direction for any instructions on this? I only see tutorials on 5.1., and when I tried to export a Stereo DCP, I received an "invalid audio track count" message (cut out the extra tracks, set the single audio track, clip type, and bus format to Stereo, set it to Stereo in Deliver page). Thank you!

I use EasyDCP PLug in to make my DCP's but I think that""invalid audio track count"" error you are getting is because it thinks DCP's should be made as 5.1
But if you have only 2.0 track and all your track, bus, output settings are correct and your export audio settings are correct and your DCP naming for audio is correct you should be okay. BUT like I said you really should test this out in a theater.