Legacy ImageMagick Discussions Archive

I am trying to write television.user.bits into the DPX header:
convert R:\dpx_01.dpx -define dpx:television.user.bits=AA:BB:CC:DD R:\ub_aabbccdd.dpx
to create a userbits value of AA:BB:CC:DD

When checking the output of this operation with
identify -format "%[dpx:television.user.bits]" R:\ub_aabbccdd.dpx
I get 00:00:00:00 as the result.

It seems to me that letters are completly ignored but also with numbers I can only write the last two digits into the user bits:
-define dpx:television.user.bits=01:02:03:04 results in 00:00:00:04

Anybody got an idea what I am doing wrong?

Thanks, Andreas

The user bits are set correctly but there is a bug when ImageMagick reports them. We will have a patch in ImageMagick 6.5.4-1 Beta by sometime tomorrow. Thanks.

Hi magick,

seems you are right regarding writing userbit values like 20:20:20:20, I can confirm that other applications (tested with Iridas FrameCycler) can read these properly.
But I still can´t get values like AA:BB:CC:DD working. Userbits may contain characters 0-9 and a-f, so AB:00:06:05 would be a vaild userbit value.
Best, Andreas

So user bits can support hex values. Can you point to any docs on the web that discuss user bits as hex values? We have never seen this before and want to ensure it part of the DPX specification. Thanks.

Hi magick,

sure user bits support hex characters, but it is actually pretty hard to find these informations on the web, here is a link to the manual of the SONY HDCAM SR recorder SRW-1: http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/3854913071.pdf, linked from http://www.sony.co.uk/biz/support/ShowE ... ype=manual

On page 68, "To record user bits" it reads "By setting user bits, you can record up to eight hexadecimal digits of information (data, time, etc.) in timecode tracks."

Another source, the manual of ARRIFLEX 416 camera: http://www.arri.de/fileadmin/media/arri ... 120407.pdf on page 18:
"Note: Userbit values are hexadecimal so available characters are 0 – 9 and A – F."

Quite often characters A-F are used for a, b, c-camera etc. It would be pretty surprising to me if the DPX specs for user bits would not support these characters.

Best, Andreas

Ok, give us a few days to apply a patch to ImageMagick 6.5.4-2 Beta to support hex user bits. Thanks.