Welcome to BigScreenBiz.com

JUst finished reading John Fithian (pres of NATO) report of digi cinema. He seems optimistic that there may be a roll out this year. The quality is fine/ I've seen it over and over/ but if it breaks?/ and who pays?/and if it fails?/ and, and, and......... I don't see it for the forseeable future. Am I out of it? How long until we all have to deal with this by tooling up?

---

Michael Hurley
Impresario

I'm guessing that DC will be an ongoing thing within the next 5 years... What concerns me is how complex the system will be, and the cost... I'm an old timer and I refuse to mortgage my soul to buy a new technology that I won't be around long enough to justify the cost... Profit margins are about half what they were in this business when I started... Yes, the amounts are higher now, but only because of inflated prices, not the number of customers... I fear that the costs of DC will put a lot of us little guys out of business, along with an even shorter window to ancillary markets... That's the fly in the ointment... The benefits of DC are almost entirely to the studios, NOT the exhibitor!...

[This message has been edited by outaframe (edited March 24, 2005).]

Being clearly somewhat behind the "top tier" of potential digital venues, I watch the larger markets in my area to see what's moving in the digital world. So far, the entire state of Washington has a grand total of ONE digital setup, which was installed at the Cinerama Theatre for Star Wars.

I'm still watching for any real excitement at the boxoffice over this stuff. So far, 35mm with a decent projector, a good lamp & a case of Film Guard seems fine to me.

I'd like to see what NATO says about the big Warner Bros. video fiasco at Showest this year.

So what happened?

They were showing the film Miss Con2 and at some pint it had no sound and then they had to stop and crank up ye old reliable 35MM to the rescue.

---

Michael Hurley
Impresario

OK, that happening just reinforces the complexity issue... The common garden variety DVD, and the player for it have already been around for several years and NORMALLY play flawlessly... All the extra complexity of the delivery system is the thing which tends to drive up the cost AND make the thing less reliable, but the primary function of all this is to discourage piracy NOT improve the end result... IF they would use the existing DVD technology and concentrate on gaining more resolution and sufficient light for a big screen, DC could be infinitely more affordable and available VERY SOON... They are primarily interested in protecting their cash cow, rather than cost or reliabity... Problem is, as soon as they eventually decide on a security system, ten million hackers will be hell bent on cracking it... Controlling WHO has access to the DVDs COULD accomplish the same security AND make DC a going thing tomorrow morning...

Outaframe is a little optomistic. Even "controlling" the issuance of DVDs would not stop the problem of piracy, since there will always be some manager or employee who is willing to download the disc's contents to someone who pays enough bucks, and it is only a day or two before hundreds of copies are winging their way around the world by FedEx of the like.

But Outaframe is quite right about the hacking. Within a year or so, some guy with more time than money will crack the coding and the physicals and sell the cracking system to any all with the dough to pay for it. As the old saying goes: 'If a man can invent a lock, there is always another man who can invent the key." Just read the book "Code Breakers" about the secret rooms of guys who broke all the unbreakable codes of World War II. True, computers make it more difficult, but then other computers will be tasked to attack the other computer's code as soon as it is released. Hollywood is fighting a loosing battle; it just doesn't know that it has lost yet.

Here's some new information off IMDB....Hollywood's major studios are close to an agreement to finance the installation of digital projectors in theaters across the country, Investor's Business Daily reported today (Tuesday), citing unnamed people in the industry. The agreement would end the years-long standoff between the studios and the theaters over who should pay for the digital projectors. Theaters have long held that they would receive little benefit from the new apparatus (although Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner who also owns the Landmark Theater chain, announced recently that he plans to install them in his theaters in order to present concerts, sports events and other live entertainment). IBD said Walt Disney, Sony and Warner Bros. plan to raise some $3 billion for theater owners to use to buy the digital projectors. There was no mention of the four other major studios in the article. Sony, one of the three studios involved in the deal, may have a special interest in promoting the digital rollout since corporate sibling Sony Electronics has developed the ultra-high definition projection system that Landmark is planning to install in its theaters.

I worry about all the great stories I read here about the good folks who revive or even build a theatre or drive-in in smaller towns that need a boost, often for modest reward. Even if all current operators, no matter the size, got d-projectors for free, I assume newcomers wouldn't and therefore I assume no more "revivals" would occur. And that's a real shame...

One of the odd things is that NATO/ Fithian speculated that there may be "one chance only" at digi equipment if there is a industry wide roll out and if you miss it you are on your own.

At Show West they were able to start up a 35mm when the projector failed. What would we do?

---

Michael Hurley
Impresario

What do you do now if part of the system fails? Try to get it fixed and running ASAP. I know it doesn't happen often, but even the best maintained systems can have a problem. And the problem is not always mechanical. We had a wiring problem one day with the power feed to our LED reader that was somewhere between the projector and the sound system. The show was running fine and then all of a sudden we had no sound. The problem wasn't even near the projector, where you would think it would be with the vibrations of the machine working something loose.

"At Show West they were able to start up a 35mm when the projector failed. What would we do? "

Call Kodak!
http://www.kodak.com/go/dcinema
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/digital/services.jhtml

Most of the problems that unexpectedly shut down the show for Digital Cinema seem to have been related to the server or operating system, not the projector itself. Here is information about Kodak's LINUX-based Digital Cinema Operating System, which is being designed for reliability:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/digital/operatingSystem.jhtml?id=0.1.4.30.10&lc=en

---

John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Customer Technical Services
Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Telephone: +1 585-477-5325 Cell: +1 585-781-4036 Fax: +1 585-722-7243
E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

John,

What happened with Kodak's pre-show system on independent night at Showest? We were watching the pre-show for "My Summer of Love", when, during the Mandy Moore video it stopped and up popped a bunch of programming screens!

First that I've heard of that. I was not at ShoWest, so I'll check with those who may have had their fingers on the controls that night (not that they would admit to that if there was a problem ).

---

John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Customer Technical Services
Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Telephone: +1 585-477-5325 Cell: +1 585-781-4036 Fax: +1 585-722-7243
E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion