Dolby SCC2000 Secure Content Creator

Digital Cinema Content Encoding and Packaging for All Users

As digital cinema grows globally, one of the biggest challenges is content creation. Getting content, be it a feature film, concert, advertisement, or trailer, onto digital cinema screens can be costly and time consuming. Advances in digital postproduction, such as 4K digital intermediates (DIs) and higher bit-depth color, have increased the demands on digital cinema content creation. Meanwhile, cost of entry has discouraged all but the largest facilities from investing in the tools to create final digital cinema distribution files, known as digital cinema packages (DCPs).

JPEG 2000 compression for D-cinema, either at 2K or 4K, is a task that demands large amounts of processing power in order to be done in a realistic amount of time. In the high-pressure movie postproduction world, this is time that should be as short as possible. Most current hardware and multiprocessor one-box solutions are limited to slower-than-real-time encoding. A different approach is needed to achieve quick turnaround of content. Creating a DCP should be quick and painless. Easy-to-use interfaces and simple procedures remove the complexity from the task and give users the confidence that they can get it right every time.

Encryption is the essential component of digital cinema that secures the DCP from source to destination, and protects valuable content from theft. Encryption should be seamlessly integrated into the DCP creation process and be a robust, reliable, and assured process.

Introducing the Dolby SCC2000 Secure Content Creator

Introducing the Dolby^® SCC2000 Secure Content Creator, a scalable solution to digital cinema compression, packaging, and encryption. It offers a comprehensive suite of software tools for the creation of DCPs ready to go to cinemas. The hardware is designed to work both as a stand-alone unit and for integration into postproduction DI facilities by high-demand users. The secure key generation option offers key delivery message (KDM) creation and management via the Cosmos digital cinema database, operated by Dolby content-protection subsidiary Cinea.

JPEG 2000 Encoding Enlarge The SCC2000 is designed to work as either a stand-alone JPEG 2000 encoder or integrated into a render farm for high-speed encoding. Each render farm unit, or node, works independently on a batch of image frames dealt out by the SCC2000. By optimizing central storage and render node setup, real-time or faster 2K and 4K JPEG 2000 encoding is achievable. Moreover, the system is expandable to meet growing needs as business expands. The Dolby JPEG 2000 encoder software generates 2K or 4K files to the DCI specification. The encoder utilizes unique optimization that allows the user to select profiles for different content types, such as live action or computer-generated images, to provide the best-quality results from encoding. Other user-definable features, such as target bit rate, allow each encode to be tailored to individual needs. Quality-control tools then allow analysis of the encode, providing peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and bit-rate graphs and values for each encode.

Composer Enlarge Dolby Composer software allows users to simply and quickly put together a DCP composition. With a drag-and-drop interface, audio, images, subtitles, and package attributes like encryption, content type, and metadata are all easily added together to form the final DCP. Dolby Composer also makes it easy to manage multiple versions based on common assets in a single project, and to add secondary tracks such as narration.

Packager Enlarge Dolby Packager software creates the distribution DCP, taking the assets for one or many DCPs and creating all associated files required for the distribution media to ensure safe delivery and ingest into the server. Essential checks on data integrity require asset maps and packing lists, and Dolby Packager makes generating these files quick and easy.

Cosmos Database Enlarge The SCC2000 integrates seamlessly with the Cosmos database, a highly secure off-site backed-up database that offers simple and reliable administration of KDMs. Access via a Web interface allows users the maximum in flexibility, while 24/7 hotline support from Cinea assures effective and trustworthy KDM management.

For more information about this product, available training, and support, please contact us.