Digital Fear and Loathing in Orlando

I was not able to make it to ShowEast this year as there was simply too much going on back in Europe to take time out. Things are storming ahead, I am feeling very optimistic, we got an AMAZING price on hard drives, plus there is some exciting news to come from Norway/NORDIC.

However, there has been some fireworks in Orlando and fortunatelly Variety was there to capture the moment. Apparently our friends at Technicolor got beat up pretty badly on the digital cinema panel, at least as recounted in the Hollywood Reporter article "Panel: Cooperation key to digital future" where it says:

Technicolor president of theatrical services Joe Berchtold, who is launching a beta digital program in theaters, parried with competitor Chuck Goldwater, president of digital theater provider AccessIT Media Services Group, over the failure rate of current digital projection.

"Up to 5% of digital screens have problems where you miss one or more show a day," said Berchtold, though Goldwater and others disputed that number.

20th Century Fox senior vp and general sales manager Chris Aronson said his company had a 99.5% success rate, and Rave Motion Pictures CEO Tom Stephenson cited a 1% failure rate.

Berchtold added that digital cinema needed to become less complex and that there needed to be more accountability from suppliers.

"We are accountable," Goldwater said. "We started before everyone else, which is why we are where we are today. We began with no conflicts and no legacy in the business we're seeking."

Ouch! Once again I'm glad we at Deluxe decided not to roll-out digital equipment, not least as our help line is nevertheless sorting out equipment and integrator problems in cinemas that have nothing to do with the DCPs we make and send out.

In other news, there were details on the Beowulf digital 3D screening (An epic 3-D bow for 'Beowulf' - THR; 'Beowulf' gets 3-D bigscreen bow - Variety) and news about how well Sony's SXRD performed in the test with the DLP 2K, which resulted in a both a press release (Sony SXRD 4K Technology Gains Major Studio Support Following Industry Technical Assessment) and an article (Sony 4K projector gets go-ahead from Hollywood), though no sign of Disney or Universal joining the 4K party still yet. All this AND Rocky Balboa. But like I said I did manage to get a top deal on hard drives in the meantime.