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ext3

Now, you have a hard disk to put your DCP on, but you’ve learned it needs to be ext2/3 formatted. What’s that? Every operating system has it’s own way of formatting hard disks and other media. What formatting does is putting a certain file system on the disk to make your computers Operating System (OS) able to read and write it. OSX/macOS uses HFS+ and APFS, Windows uses FAT and NTFS while Linux can use a lot, amongst which ext2 and ext3. The vast majority of digital cinema servers are Linux machines, which can read FAT and ext2/3. Some systems can access NTFS and/or ExFAT and sometimes HFS+, but it is not something you can rely on. FAT does only accomodate for max 4GB filesize so if you did not make a very short film, ext2/3 is the only option when you want to be sure your DCP is accessible everywhere. Ext3 is the same as ext2, but journaled, which means things go quicker than in ext2.

Before i continue on ext2/3:

What about HFS+, ExFAT and NTFS ?

Quite some cinema servers can read NTFS disks and/or ExFAT and/or HFS+. If you have to make one disk for one festival or one theatre it is worth asking them if they can accept HFS+, ExFAT or NTFS disks, as this may be a lot easier for you because HFS+ is an Apple file system, ExFAT can be used by both Windows and Mac, and NTFS is a native Windows file system. If you use a Mac to copy your DCP to a disk, try to remove invisible files and folders, like .Trashes/ . This can be done on a Windows machine if it's capable of accessing HFS+. Even easier is using Clean Eject. It is a nice tool to get rid of all invisible files and folders.

The best thing is to get software that enables you to read AND write to ext3 from Windows or Mac. DuckDuckGo can help you easily. This might cost you a few bucks but will save you a LOT of time. Check if the software has good references, you better not pay for something not worth it.

You can try GParted Live. It is a Linux program that you can run from a USB or CD-ROM drive without the need to install Linux. With this you can format the disk in ext2 or ext3. But this jumps only one of the two hurdles. You still need a way to read and write to ext2/3 from the OS that you made your DCP with.

DCP-o-Matic Disk Writer

DCP-o-Matic has a new feature that enables you to put one DCP on a USB drive while formatting it to ext2. I did a short test and it worked perfectly. I assume it takes some time if you have larger file sizes. The Disk Writer tool will format your chosen drive so it comes with some warnings and it will erase everything on the disk of your choice. So be careful not to wipe the wrong drive. The tool will let you put only one DCP on the USB drive (as far as i am aware of), so if you want to put more DCPs on one drive you'll need another method.

Linux

If you will make DCPs more than once it's best to have a system running Linux. With Linux you can format ext2 or ext3 as well as access the disk that your DCP is on. These are the options if you decide to go for Linux:

There are many Linux distributions. I choose Lubuntu 18.04 It’s lightweight but also connected to the established and well maintained Ubuntu. I did not manage to copy to external drives with newer versions of Lubuntu.

Once you have Linux installed:

  1. Make sure any data on the disk you will be using to put your DCP on is backed up! The disk will be completely erased! Double check and then connect this disk. Erase all partitions and make one new empty partition with MBR and eject the drive when ready. (In OSX/macOS you use Disk Utility for this; select MBR in Options; ctrl+click on the drive to eject).
  2. Once Linux is running, install GParted (If not already present)
  3. Connect the drive from step 1 and format it using GParted. Be sure to choose ext2 or ext3. The default ext4 will give you a disk that will not be recognized by most cinema servers!
  4. Once the disk is formatted to ext3 (or ext2), check if it is MBR and inode size is 128 Bytes. If this is correct than you can start copying your DCP to this disk. Best is to use Grsync or command line rsync for that. If you have the machine with your DCP and the Linux machine in a network, you might try to use ftp for the copying, be sure to set transfer mode to binary.
  5. If you want to be shure the DCP is transferred correctly, install Digital Cinema Tools in your Linux OS, and run dcp_inspect on the folder that is your DCP on the ext3 disk. This will take quite a while. Errors will mean your DCP is not usable. Another way to check is to have DCP-o-matic Player load the DCP and then do a Verify. Remember that even one single faulty bit will often prevent the DCP from being playable! After all that, unmount the disk and eject it.
  6. Ship your DCP, read about that in my DCP article or on KESE

Please look at my Links page for more detailed info!

Henk Rhebergen, edited april 2023