Microspace reveals US and European ambitions

It is often the case that small and smart companies profit in major transitions such as the digital cinema conversion. Microspace is shaping up to be just that, having doggedly persisted where larger corporations like Boeing and Elsacom have had little impact. Now it looks set to be in 500 North American locations by the end of 2008, which is impressive if you consider that this represents ten times that number of screens. But the company's ambitions do not stop there, according to this article from THR:

Meanwhile, the company is looking to grow in new markets. "We are looking to Europe being our next area of expansion," said Curt Tilly, Microspace's manager of digital-cinema distribution.

Methods of delivering digital-cinema content include shipping hard drives and satellite distribution. "For a small number of locations, satellite delivery for any industry doesn't make a lot of sense," Tilly said. "Our rough break-even point, we think, is about 400 locations. We can go back to the studios with 400 locations and say that we can be more cost-effectlve than the process of duplicating drives, shipping drives, tracking drives and getting them back. There are also advantages with security; satellite delivery is getting more secure than a hard drive.

It will be interesting to see how they tackle a heterogeneous market like Europe. 400 might not sound that much, but taking into account the different release windows, lack of pan-European exhibitors of sufficient size (even Kinepolis and UCI aren't big enough) and different wishes from different studios and their service companies (Fox still aren't keen on satellite last time I checked).

Microsapce will also face competition from European competitors. Just don't expect them to be Astra or Eutelsat. The European Microspace is out there, but keeping a low profile at the moment.