Odeon's two all-digital multiplex plans revealed

It's been the biggest open secret in Britain's small digital cinema community, but now the cat is officially out of the bag; Odeon has retrofitted two multiplexes with digital for every screen. An article in The Guardian (Celluloid dreams set to disappear in a digital puff) pre-empts Odeon's official announcement by a week:

Next week the UK's largest cinema chain will announce that it is to convert two of its big multiplexes, one in Hatfield in Hertfordshire and another in London's Docklands, to digital projection.

Odeon already has 30 digital projectors dotted around the country, but these two multiplexes will be the first in Europe to dispense with film altogether.

I'm sure Rupert Gavin is too clever to have ordered the 35mm projectors to be ripped out, but this would indeed be Europe's first multiplexes with all screens digitally enabled. The test should enable Odeon to test how digital copies move between screens for holdovers, as well as things such as alternative content and advertising in digital. (Though in fairness to the UK Film Council, Odeon already has a small multiplex that is 75 per cent converted to digital - London's Odeon Covent Garden, where screens 1,2 and 4 have been digitally equipped as part of the DSN plan).

It will be interesting to see if any of Odeon's cinema competitors follow suit.

I get quoted at the end of the article, defending film as an archive medium. Not only does it make me sound like Denis Kelly (though I stand by what I am quoted as saying), but I have also been promoted sideways to Deluxe Laboratories from Deluxe Digital Cinema! Never mind that I was interviewed mainly about digital and supplied a lot of the background information, but that's what journalists do. I should know, I used to be one. Overall, it's a good article and I'm glad that the Odeon news is out. We look forward to supplying them with plenty of digital titles in the months and years ahead.