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http://www.filmjournal.com/Article.cfm?PageID=71915540

When we hear 'digitally remastered classic' these days, we really don't think about the venue. Until now. This month in Film Journal International, BigScreenBiz-friend Andreas Fuchs introduces Emerging Cinemas, a new venture that plans to set up a network of digital theatres in the grand old palaces of the past.

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Oh, great---just what we need---- a big screen tv in our grand old palaces.

The article says:

"With many years of experience in the high-end home-theatre industry, Cozzi will lead the search for the system providers. 'We are talking with all manufactures,' Rebo explains. 'Tremendous strides have been made in the projection and storage technologies of digital cinema over the past 18 months. Candidly, it's not so much a technical question at this price point. All the projectors on that quality level will make a wonderful picture. It's a function of the size of the screen and the content shown. Most of the offerings are already video‑driven and we are not looking at contrast levels that Hollywood is demanding for their big-budget features. The DLP ‘dark’ cinema chip technology is great, but, frankly, overkill for what our needs are. The average screen size of our target venues is in the neighborhood of 20 to 24 feet."

I interpret this as accepting lower contrast ratio, less light, and less resolution than even the current Digital Cinema systems.

Another question is how they get digital transfers made for their small market. For the cost of high definition digital mastering of these classic movies, they could make quite a few new 35mm prints, and show them on the existing film projection equipment with much higher image quality than the equipment they propose. Or do they plan on showing low quality NTSC or PAL DVDs?

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services
Entertainment Imaging
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