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I believe this has been addressed before, but I can't find where. Apologies if this is old hat.

So...how do y'all do your pre-show with digital? I'm mainly referring to content that isn't supplied by the studios (local ads, etc.). Is there a format that can be loaded into a digital server and then arranged along with all the other elements?

I've mostly just played music for our pre-show up to now, but I'm ready to kick things up a notch or three, do some local ads, add pics and such. I've always figured I'd just burn those things onto DVD. That would be fine, but it would be even easier if I could just load them onto my server with the rest of the program.

Any thoughts?

You can load a slide show onto the cinema server, but it needs to be in a DCI compliant format. There is software available that does this, including something from Do Re Mi (if that's what you're using). Not sure what the cost is.

Another, and probably better alternative, is to install media players at each projector (such as an xbox 360) and network them to a basic computer. This advertising computer can be part of your theater network, so all you have to do is copy the slides from your office computer into a dedicated folder on the advertising computer. The Xbox's or other media players will be capable of streaming the slide show directly from advertising computer. This will be much less time consuming and flexible than constantly ripping DVD's.

We have media projectors installed in each theater that are automated to turn on/off when the digital projectors turn on/off. We have a very simple computer setup using Power Point to loop a slideshow all day long. Apparently a lot of theaters use their digital projectors to run screen ads, but I didn't want to do it because the idea of running my Christie bulbs for 12 hours a day freaked me out. Of course, with our setup we are somewhat limited. We don't do audio or video ads. Just still slides.

Also, with VPFs, I was under the impression that our integrator gets a cut of screen ad revenue, and I didn't want to share.

we run our powerpoint pre show on DVDs and send them to the projector. It is really pretty easy. Yes, that means running your bulbs longer but it is awfully simple to operate. I have to schedule it on the server about 25 minutes before showtime but what I'm scheduling is about five pieces of 10 second black segments with macros embedded to turn on the projector, turn it to the DVI input, turn down the house lights, etc. Sound more complicated then it is.