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.

The perils of not encrypting your ODS content

Maybe they figured that no one would be interested in it once it was not live. Maybe they thought that the file would be too big for anyone to re-distribute. Maybe they just didn't think that anyone would be interested in Phil Collins.



Whatever the reason, it appears that the Genesis live concert that was beamed to cinemas in UK (Vue) and Sweden (Folkets Hus) and Spain and Ireland, was sent over satellite UNENCRYPTED in full 720p 5.1 channel glory. And, yes, someone pulled down the signal to their home for free and recorded it.

Here is the website that describes how it happened (it is in German, so here is a Google translation into English). The technical level of detail is impressive:

Bertragen wurde das Konzert in Kinos in England, Irland, Spanien und Schweden. †Bertragungsdaten: HDTV 720p - 16:9, mpeg2, Dolby Digital 5.1 EX. - Bilder vom Mitschnitt der LiveŸbertragung fŸr die schwedischen Kinos, unverschlŸsselt (!) auf Thor (1¡W 11531V 13333 7/8), gesamt 17,7 GByte, ca. 160 Minuten. Zu Anfang gab es die Einblendung des Genesis-Logos und ein kleines Video mit diversen Covern der Studioalben der Band gefolgt von einigen Backstageaufnahmen.

Even at 17.7Gb I'm sure it is only a matter of time before it appears on P-2-P file sharing sites before too long. High def porn and 'Serenity' already is.

Jack Valenti, we hardly knew you

I once bumped into Jack Valenti in a corridor in Bally's hotel in Las Vegas during a ShoWest. What intrigued me was that he was merrily munching from a bag of popcorn. Forty years of working for Hollywood and he still hadn't tired of the white stuff! Though he was more of a friend of the studios than cinemas - not surprising as the former paid his wages - it is appropriate that his memorial service was held at the ArcLight Cinema Dome in Los Angeles. Both the LA Times and New York Times were there to record the event.

For someone so much in the industry's eye it turns out we knew very little about the man himself, at least based on what his daughter had to say about him. From the NYT:

Ms. Valenti said her father had called her “my tumultuous daughter,” and there was much history, and much love, between them. “I was a moody and emotional kid,” she said. “But thanks to my lovely team of therapists, that he shelled out for, I’m able to embrace our past.”

Her father was also the kind of man, she said, “who shows up at his daughter’s birthday party at 1 a.m. so he can give her a hug.”

Saying her father had “more energy than me and all of you,” Ms. Valenti lamented what her father would miss: movies, elections and “the conversations about how incompetent the president is.”

“I hope I’m not betraying his confidence,” she quickly added.

While in the La Times Hollywood's Who's Who line up to pay tribute without getting too sentimental or reverential:

"He was the human equivalent of the iPhone," Steven Bochco, the creator of "NYPD Blue," said during the service. "He was a small, sleek package with irresistible features."

While he will never live down his 'VCR-Boston Strangler' comment even in death it is good to hear him getting recognition for the work he did for the likes of Friends of the Global Fight. A little bit of Hollywood history dies with him.

Korean TV show goes big in Japanese cinemas

With Transformers upon us, The Simpsons Movie just over the horizon and Sex & the City big screen adaptation confirmed, it's interesting to see television shows in their original format making it onto the big screen. The show the single-handedly made Korean culture a hit in Japan will be re-screened in cinemas in Tokyo, according to Screen International article:

A special version of Korean hit television drama Winter Sonata will be screened at Toho's flagship Roppongi Hills cinema in Tokyo.

All 20 episodes of the series will be shown on Tuesday mornings from July 10 to September 11, featuring extra footage only shown once previously on NHK's BS satellite channel and unavailable on DVD. BM Inc is handling the theatrical distribution of the series.

As Roppongi Hills is one of Tokyo's key multiplexes, Winter Sonata is fighting for screen space against Harry Potter And The Order Of The Pheonix, a live-action feature based on hit TV anime Saiyuki and the latest installment in the popular Pokemon franchise, all opening on July 14. Seven of the cinema's nine screens will show the episodes on July 17.

All of the multiplex's nine screens had show the last episode of Japanese TV drama Hotelier (a re-make of a Korean series by the same name) and set a one-day record of 2,000 admissions. This is said to be "part of an increasing trend of TV viewership in cinemas" in Japan.

I do not know what they charged for tickets, or even if they could - the article reveals that the screening had sponsors - but it is interesting to see this happening in the home country of high definition, which has been slow to embrace digital cinema.

How to make European cinema sexy

Post-Expo summary of European situation

I'm too lazy and busy to do a post-Cinema Expo summary, but fortunately FJI's new digital cinema editor Bill Mead has already done the work for me in this article. It is an excellent snapshot of where things stand in Europe:

Nowhere else in the world is the digital-cinema rollout more complex than in Europe. Compared to the U.S., where similar virtual print fee (VPF) arrangements have prompted an initial first wave of installations from exhibitors, Europe has more difficulty finding the common ground among the exhibitors, distributors, and digital-cinema providers on which equitable financial sharing arrangements can be built. In Europe, as elsewhere, the question of "who will pay" has evolved into a series of follow-up questions about how to develop equitable cost-benefit sharing deals that are fair today and are sustainable in the future.

Europe is a diverse market. Not only are there cultural factors but business and economic factors contributing to rollout complexity. There are more than 800 distributors operating in Europe and the mix of Hollywood studio and locally produced content varies by country, typically averaging around 70% imported titles. 35mm prints tend to be crossed-over between theatres more than in the U.S., so any print savings have to be spread across multiple theatres. There are also more theatres which are either part-time or with a relatively low annual number of admissions. Overall lower screen counts result in lower economy of scale from creating digital copies.

The article doesn't include details of AAM's two VPF deals, but I'm sure that will come in a future issue. For now, hats off to FJI's new digital cinema editor for a strong start. Andreas Fuchs has pulled the heavy European digital cart at FJI all by himself for too long.

Good article on Technicolor's digital effort

Business Week has a good article on Technicolor's efforts in the digital cinema space. It gives both historical and current market context:

Technicolor, which was bought in 2000 by Thomson (TMS ) of France for $2.1 billion, is up against an aggressive new entrant, Access Integrated Technologies (AccessIT), as well as Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (DCIP), a joint venture of the three biggest theater chains, Regal Entertainment (RGC ), AMC Theatres, and Cinemark (CNK ). This summer could be the tipping point in the digital transition, as the number of U.S. theaters capable of showing movies in digital form finally exceeds 10% of the 35,000 U.S. screens. "This is a disruptive technology environment," says AccessITCEO A. Dale "Bud" Mayo.

Technicolor was founded in Boston in 1915. Swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks was enchanted by the possibility of making a pirate movie in color and relied on Technicolor's cameras to shoot The Black Pirate in 1926. The company received important boosts from Jack Warner, Warner Bros. co-founder, and Walt Disney. By the 1940s the phrase "Color by Technicolor" in a film's marketing campaign could boost ticket sales as much as 30%. But in the '50s, Eastman Kodak Co. (EK ) introduced a less expensive film stock that could run through any camera. That forced Technicolor into the business of processing film and manufacturing prints.

This month marks the anniversary of the Technicolor-Kinepolis announcement and to date only some 30-odd screens in Kinepolis' chain have been converted and no VPF deal has been announced for Europe. It is too soon to write off this deal, but it does illustrate the hurdles that European digital cinema business plans still face.

'Grease' director goes 3D for mobile phones

'Nightmare Before Christmas' took the honour of first re-rendered 2D-into-3D away from 'Grease', which appears stuck in the Dimensionalization(tm) equivalent of development hell. Yet the director behind the film, Randall Kleiser, appears to have caught the stereoscopic bug (along with Lucas, Cameron and half of Hollywood). The Hollywood Reporter has a story that he and his business partner have patented a technology for stereoscopic display in electronic screens:

Director Randal Kleiser and inventor Michael Mehrle are introducing a technology designed to enable the viewing of 3-D content on such mobile devices as PDAs and iPods without the use of special glasses.

Their startup, Neovision Labs, has developed this unique technology called iFusion, which is patent pending.

In addition to offering a new capability to consumers, Kleiser, whose credits include "Grease" and "Honey I Blew Up the Kid," and Mehrle believe this unique technology has the potential to help forward the 3-D movement by giving the studios a venue in which to repurpose their 3-D-produced content after its theatrical release.

It is not aimed at cinemas, but they are already going digital 3D anyway, but for the great market beyond:

The attachment would be secured over the device screen. Mehrle said the attachment would be marketed as an accessory for hand-held devices and would list for about $50.

This technology does not convert a 2-D film to 3-D; rather, consumers would download 3-D content to the device for viewing. The content could be animated or live-action films produced in 3-D or films that were produced in 2-D and later converted to 3-D (like "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas"). In addition to features, 3-D shorts, 3-D special-venue films and other such content could be used with the system.

The content has to be specially encoded for this application. "Basically, it's zero added costs. You can do it on a laptop," Mehrle said.

Kleiser said he hopes this development would help grow 3-D production. As a director, he is excited about the possibilities that 3-D offers to filmmakers. "The director wants to make the audience feel visually like part of the story; that's what 3-D does," Kleiser said. "Directors have another tool that they can use for dramatic emphasis. (Images) could come out of the screen into their faces, the way we would use a close-up."

Let's see if 'Grease' in digital 3D comes to a cell phone near you any time soon.

Fithian slams Arts Alliance's VPF plan

No one goes to the ICTA seminar expecting fireworks, but that's what we got this Sunday morning.

The normally sedate technology seminar tried something different when it invited the heads of NATO and UNIC. Having first talked about windows and piracy (sorry, 'movie theft'), we soon got on to everyone's favourite topic - digital cinema.

Without mentioning Arts Alliance Media by name - he is much to smart for that - John Fithian slammed the VPF business plan that was set to be unveiled the following day by AAM. I don't know if he had heard them trailer the announcement at the RAAM conference the previous week but he didn't need to as the details were all over the trades. Here is what the Hollywood Report wrote:

"At CineExpo we will be announcing that we have a VPF deal for Europe," AAM's Fiona Deans told delegates at the RAAM Digital Cinema conference in London on Thursday. "It might not be what everyone wants, but we think it is a fantastic opportunity for cinemas to digitize with distributors contributing."

It certainly wasn't what Fithian wanted to hear. Here is what he said at the ICTA event.

"Just because someone announces a deal with a couple of studios for a handful of territories doesn't make it right and doesn't mean it is happening."

He went on to characterized it as an 'attempt to fragment the market' and even called it 'bullshit' (yes, really).

What he must have particularly objected to was the following bit from AAM:

In a bid to encourage early adoption, Deans warned that the VPF deal wasn't "for an unlimited number of screens."

"We have a fixed number of screens that we can roll out to," she said. "And once those screens are signed up, we will have to go back to the studios and see whether they want to keep contributing at that level. This is obviously an incentive for people to start talking to us sooner rather than later."

Fithian was not swayed by this argument, calling for exhibitors to 'look at the fundamental economics of the deal.' He drove home the point by saying that "third-party integrators who go around and threaten to 'come and get it now because it will run out soon' have flawed economics." His words, not mine.

Fiona may just be echoing what some studios have been saying but it is not impressing the most important representative of the cinema industry. And what NATO believes, UNIC and European exhibitors are not likely to argue with it. Let's not forget that it was Fithian who helped kill off the premature original Technicolor digital cinema plan (PDF) in 2001.

It will be interesting to see how AAM will respon to this at tomorrow's Cinema Expo panel. I for one am expecting more fireworks.

China makes real on its digital cinema promise

I've always joked that the easiest way to make digital cinema happen is if you can write it into your Five Year Plan ('Comrades, a digital cinema within bicycling distance for every farmer, worker and soldier!' as Mao might have said). And for a while China was at the forefront with digital cinema through the government-led 100 digital screen test network.

Unfortunately the timing was such that the deployment that started in 2002 took place in the middle of the 1.3K to 2K transition and the growth stalled after the first 100. In the last year, however, there are renewed sign that China might once again take a Great Digital Cinema Leap Forward. The latest piece of news is that China Film Group and the somewhat unlikely partner Shougang Steel are to build 2,000 digital screens. This is what the Hollywood Reporter had to report on it:

Dubbed China Film Group & Shougang Digital Cinema Building Co. Ltd., the joint venture, first unveiled to local media last week, believes the use of digital cinema technology will help stem some of China's rampant movie piracy problem.

Last year, about 93% of the discs sold in China were illegal copies, costing moviemakers upward of $2.6 billion in lost ticket sales, according to MPA estimates.

"The goal of our cooperation is to build digital cinemas across the country," Han Sanping, CFGC's board chairman told the official Xinhua news agency. "We will build about 2,000 new digital screens before the end of 2008."

But it looks like the construction might stop before it's even began due to the fact that a construction ban kicks in ahead of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. But it is a much needed growth for the exhibition sector in China. From the same article:

China now has about 3,000 modern movie screens, only 124 of which were digital in 2005, according to a recent report from the Nielsen Co. and Screen Digest. The number of digital screens in China rose from just 93 in 2004, with growth led by China Film, with 91 digital screens, and Stellar Film, with 27.

China Film's digital screens account for roughly half of their total 180 screens, a total that makes it the second-largest distributor in the country after Shanghai United Cinema Circuit, the report said.

What will they show on the digital screens? Well, in other Chinese digital cinema news ScreenDaily reports that Shrek 3 will get a digital-only release on 150 screens in China, which means that Hollywood titles are starting to return in digital after the studios put a halt to digital screenings, again because of piracy issues.

See 4K for yourself at Los Angeles' Landmark Westside Pavilion

Marc Cuban's Landmark cinemas gave Sony cause for concearn a year and a half ago when they announced at CES that they had chosen DLP Cinema projectors as the preferred technology, having previously sworn by 4K. They later said that they were still committed to 4K and that committment has been proven with the opening of their new showcase cinema in Los Angeles.

This is what the Hollywood Reporter had to say about it:

The debut of Landmark Theatres' new flagship complex called the Landmark, which opens Friday at Los Angeles' Westside Pavilion, prompts a closer examination of 4K resolution digital cinema, which represents four times the picture information found in today's commonly used 2K digital cinema resolution.

The Landmark opens with three theaters equipped with Sony's SXRD 4K digital cinema projectors. These -- and one at the Landmark-owned NuArt -- represent the only screens in Los Angeles that offer 4K projection for paying audiences.

Landmark already has ordered about 25 4K projectors from Sony, which is the only manufacturer offering 4K digital cinema projectors to theater owners. In addition to Los Angeles, there are installations in Landmark theaters in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington. Plans are to also install 4K technology in Baltimore and Denver.

They make a lot about the audience being given the chance to see the 4K quality for themselves, though at present this seems confined to a few trailers and special footage from Sony Pictures, while they wait for films shot using the new 4K cameras. But read to the end of the article and you discover that "The Landmark opens with a total of 12 auditoriums, three with 4K projection, three with Panasonic 2K digital cinema projectors and all 12 with film projectors. "

Never mind that Panasonic don't make 2K projectors in the commonly accepted sense of the word (2048x1080 DLP Cinema chips, as opposed to 1920x1080 standard DLP), it's 35mm that still rules the day. In the meantime, Landmark is having an open relationship with Sony and TI.

Kuwait - latest country to be "first" to switch to digital cinema

The list of countries planning to be 'first' to switch over all of its cinemas to digital is growing. Kuwait now joins the ranks of Ireland, Luxembourg, Singapore, and Norway in this non-Olympic competition sport. This is what an article Kuwait on the cusp of a D-cinema revolution from ArabianBusiness.com has to say:

Kuwait is set to become the first country in the world to boast an all-digital cinema (D-cinema) network, under an auspicious plan by the country's dominant cinema chain, Kuwait National Cinema Company (KNCC).

KNCC, which operates the Cinescape chain in Kuwait, recently contracted Indian company Real Image Media Technologies (RIMT) to develop a pilot D-cinema project installed in its flagship Kuwait City cinema multiplex. The project involved the installation of Real Image's Qube high definition XP-D DCI compliant digital cinema server and a Cinemeccanica 2K digital projector.

I'm not sure what they mean with statements like that the installation "surpasses the 2K quality standard agreed upon by the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI)." (Do they mean 4K? I don't think so.) The article is right, however, that Kuwait like much of the Middle East is a unique market in that it has films from Hollywood, India (Bollywood) and Arabic Countries. As such, the deal is a coup for RIMT.

However, I'm less sure of the 'first country' thing. For a starter, I'd be tempted to take a handful of 2K projectors to Andorra claim to have switched over an entire country to digital. Kuwait, Singapore and Luxembourg are independent states, but they are also those odd questions in Trivial Pursuit's Geography category. The article itself tells the full story of the numbers, in that "KNCC plans to digitise 40 existing cinema screens and establish a further 50 digital theatres across Kuwait over the next 12 months." For it to count I'd say you need to get up to at least 100 for it to count.

So it's still a race between Ireland or Norway - and my money is firmly on Norway being first.

Pirates 3 tops Spider-Man 3 as widest digital release

My friends and colleagues at Deluxe were as always too modest to shout that the digital cinema release of 'Spider-Man 3' was the largest ever, hitting over a thousand digital screens across the world. That record was, however, short lived, as 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End' looks set to go even larger. This from a press release from an article in the Hollywood Reporter:

"At World's End" will be the first feature to be released on more than 1,000 digital cinema screens domestically and will be the first movie to bow on more than 400 screens internationally, Buena Vista Pictures domestic distribution president Chuck Viane said.

As of Monday, "Pirates" was set to open on 1,064 digital cinema screens domestically and an additional 410 internationally. Viane said the number could rise before this weekend's release.

"It went up 20-something (screens) in the last few hours," he said.

There are 3,229 domestic digital screens. Precise international figures weren't immediately available, but the pace of digital installations in the U.S. and abroad has quickened dramatically during the past 18 months amid major rollout financing.

What with 'Spider-Man 3' still playing in plenty of screens and 'Shrek 3' also occupying its fair share, this record is all the more impressive.

Why the smallest cinemas matter

I spent the past weekend attending the annual get together of Våra Gårdar, whose 70-odd cinemas account for just one per cent of Sweden's box office and is run by the temperance movement, in Leksand, Dalarna. Was a mad, desperate or starved of sights of the Swedish countryside to be attending an event like this. None of the above.

At the moment the battle is on for how to finance the digitisation of the largest cinema chains in Europe. An old friend joked about how in the next few months the eager European third
party integrators will step off a plan from LAX, waving the VPF (virtual print fee) document above their head and proclaiming 'Digital Cinema in our time!' But the trick is not how to make a deal with the Hollywood studios but how to make a deal on the local level, most importantly of all, one that takes account of all cinemas, large and small.

I joked a while back about the need to launch a 'No Cinema Left Behind' plan for digital, which has been taken up in the US when J. Wayne Anderson was elected MD of the Cinema Buying Group, L.L.C. (CBG). But so far that has not been headed. Sadly there does not seem any concerted effort to do this, either at a national or pan-European level. Instead we still get the occasional misguided call for 'European' digital cinema standards (whatever those are).

The truth is that those that best understand how to save the small cinemas are the people who run the small cinemas themselves. It was these people that I had the privilege to meet, talk to and get to know in Leksand, which also happens to have one of the most beautiful cinemas in the whole country (sorry, no picture). Despite the town just having 5,000 citizens, gets first run films such as Spider-Man 3 and Pirates 3. The team from Fox Sweden were even there to hand out donuts from the Simpsons Movie mobile. And as further recognition of the big-small importance of the event, also attending was Sweden's Minister of Culture, the head of Swedish Television, and the new head of the audience department for the Swedish Film Institute. I won't go into detail about everything that was said, including an off-the-record lunch with the Minister, but I think Sweden has the ability to tackle this issue head on. The answer is not just to try to throw money at the problem.

As a bonus on the trip I also got to visit the only Scandinavian cinema museum, located two hours outside the capital Stockholm but well worth the trip. Have a look for yourself at Biografmuseet, even if it is in Swedish and fall in love with the very idea of cinemas and realise why it is worth saving in the digital age.

Dolby's server good enough for FIPS

With MPEG-2 soon a distant memory for Hollywood-quality digital cinema servers, the next big hump is FIPS compliance. The magic number to learn is 140-2 and servers that have Level 3 validation will soon be the only ones good enough to play Hollywood content. Dolby is one of the first manufacturers to claim to have achieved recommendation for it, according to their press release:

InfoGard Laboratories, an accredited Cryptographic Module Testing Laboratory under Lab Code 100432-0 of the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program, submitted the recommendation for the Dolby Digital Cinema server to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validation, as outlined by the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) specifications.

Through this achievement, Dolby Digital Cinema has moved further toward comprehensive DCI compatibility.

...

Achieving FIPS Level 3 compliance would mean that the Dolby Digital Cinema server meets the highest level of protection required by DCI to prevent thieves and hackers from accessing the "master-quality" motion picture files used in digital cinema systems. FIPS are security standards developed by the NIST and cover detailed specifications for physical and mechanical design, electronic circuitry, software, interfaces, and algorithms.

Though they have not put out a dedicated press release about it, Sony have achieved this too. At their presentation earlier this week, they told the brave souls that stayed for the in-depth techy talk just what the testing involved. Amongst other things the testers would insert inflatable balloons that would then be expanded so that the casing is dented enough to insert a hand, finger or instruments. It would seem that both Dolby and Sony are thus balloon-safe.

Bill Mead gives d-cinema global overview

For those of you that missed Bill Mead of DCinemaToday fame give his presentation of the state of digital cinema around the world at ShoWest, now is your chance to catch up. An article published in Film Journal International gives a condensed version of the talk. It is worth quoting the first few paragraphs:

By this spring, approximately 3,000, or three percent, of the world's estimated target screens (100,000-plus) will have been equipped with DCI-specified digital projectors and servers. Of the early adopters, approximately two-thirds are in North America, with the rest spilt between Europe and Asia. Significantly, most of the installation occurred in the past 12 months, making 2006 stand out as the pivotal year in the digital conversion timeframe.

Almost 50% of the world's d-cinema installed base can be attributed to one organization, Carmike Cinemas of Columbus GA, who early in 2006 made the extraordinary commitment to equip all of its 2,300 screens with digital projection. Working with Christie/AIX, North America's leading d-cinema systems provider, Carmike has already converted over 1,350 auditoriums to digital. Christie/AIX is a partnership formed in June 2005 between projector manufacturer Christie Digital and d-cinema business provider AccessIT of Morristown, New Jersey.

The United States had an astounding growth in 2006 of over 400%, from just over 500 to over 2,000 installations by year's end. The rapid pace was driven by the maturing and acceptance of digital conversion plans, the convergence of various proprietary formats into the soon-to-be-ubiquitous DCI JPEG2000 MXF format, and an ample supply of U.S. digital titles. By mid-year 2006, virtually all Hollywood studios were making their major "tentpole" titles available in the DCI format, with over 100 titles distributed in the U.S. in 2006.

It gives the facts straight and without editorialising, plus you don't have to put up with the non-working A/C system that those of us who sat through the one hour presentation had to suffer. But it was well worth it.

Sony shows off its new 4K projector

Sony has taken the wraps of the latest generation of 4K SXRD projectors and invited the whole world to come and see it. Well, maybe not the whole world, but it seemed like most of the key cinema moves and shakers came to London for the two one-day events.

Once again the event was held at the Odeon Leicester Square, but unlike the previous time Sony demoed the 4K there, this time it went much smoother. It's no secret that Sony has had a bit of a management shake up for its digital cinema business in Europe recently, but it seems like things are paying off with a good product and a clearer strategy.

There was a lot of press coverage about the event, though for all those of you that cannot read the Norwegian article, you will have to make do with the IDG/PC World write up:

The projector, which was used earlier this month to project the "Spiderman 3" movie at its world premiere in Tokyo, is a giant. It stands more than 1.5 meters high, is 1.4 meters deep and 74 centimeters wide and weighs 300 grams.

At its heart sits a 4.2kW bulb (an average household bulb is about 60W) and light from here is bounced off mirrors and through a prism to be split into red, green and blue streams. Each of these goes through a 1.55-inch flat-panel display based on Sony's SXRD (Silicon Crystal Display) technology before being combined and magnified through a lens as wide as a man's hand.

The result, as Sony demonstrated on Wednesday, is a spectacular image that's a rank above what you might be used to seeing at the movies. The projector outputs an image with 4,096 pixels by 2,160 pixels resolution, which is double that of HDTV both horizontally and vertically to result in more than 8 million pixels versus about 2 million on HDTV.

So far, so pedestrian and unspectacular. But the image that it put up on Britain's largest cinema screen looked very good. You will have noticed that the shape has changed too. Gone is what I though looked like a hulking giant black cyclopic toad and now we have something that more closely resembles 35mm and DLP Cinema projectors - if only it was a little less wide to fit more easily through the doorway of the average projection booth. It has been recommended for FIPS certification (as I discussed in the Dolby article).

What is equally impressive is the business side. Sony seem to 'get it' more than they did even 12 months ago. The pricing of the projector is reasonable at 75,000 euro (sans lens) and they are even hinting at a financing vehicle to help pay for it.

But some things remain frustratingly unchanged. The article says that "Sony launched its first 4K digital cinema projector two years ago, but it's only in use in four of Japan's roughly 3,000 cinema screens, the company said." That ignores the 11 4K SXRD projectors that have been sold in Norway - MORE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD (including Sony's native Japan) - of which four are in cinemas or screening rooms, i.e. as many as Japan. Do not ignore your biggest customer, however small, or risk driving them into the arms of the competition.

But, like I said, overall it was an impressive presentation and while there are issues to be resolved with the projector technically and the organisation around it, at least it shows that Sony are heading in the right direction.

Digital cinema comes to Kuwait

Kuwait looks set to be the first Arabic cinema to install a 2K digital cinema system, though Isreal beat them to it in the Middle East region. According to the press release this could shortly be followed by a complete conversion of the participating exhibitors entire cinema network:

Kuwait National Cinema Company (KNCC), one of the largest theatrical exhibition companies in the Middle East, the Chennai-based Qube Cinema, Inc. and Cinemeccanica Theatrical Equipment Co.,(Italy) have partnered to bring the first digital cinema to the Middle East and Gulf Region. A pilot DCI quality digital cinema is under installation in KNCC's theatre (Cinescape) in Kuwait City using a Qube XP-D DCI Compliant digital cinema server and a Cinemeccanica 2K digital projector.

This pilot phase will, if successful, be followed by a complete digitisation of KNCC's screens all over Kuwait and upcoming cinemas in Gulf States, i.e. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar. KNCC and Qube Cinema also plan to setup a digital cinema mastering unit in the region to convert Arabic content to DCI compliant Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs).

Interesting to note that it is Qube supplying the server. Although they haven't made a great fanfare about it, GDC Technology supplied the first digital cinema server to Africa (Kenya, if memoriy serves me correctly) and the likes of Qube and GDC could come to dominate 2K/DCI deployments in developing nations, given their lower costs and better understanding of these markets.

Disney goes very big with Robinsons

Thomson has put out a press release trumpeting just how wide the have released the digital 2D and 3D version of Walt Disney's Meet the Robinsons. This is how many:

Technicolor digitally mastered and distributed Meet the Robinsons for 892 screens worldwide. Domestically, the feature was distributed to 582 screens in Disney Digital 3-D (TM) and 138 screens in digital 2-D. The feature was distributed internationally to 105 screens in 3D and 67 screens in 2D. In addition, Technicolor created all traditional 35mm film prints for the release.

"Thomson is very pleased to have participated with Walt Disney Pictures to the widest digital cinema release to date," said Curt Behlmer, executive vice president of Technicolor Theatrical Services and COO of Technicolor Digital Cinema.

I beleive that the previous record was held by SPE's Casino Royal, done by Deluxe, even though it only went out in 2D and had a limited international play. It is interesting to note how few screens showed it in 2D, with digital 3D ones outnumbering them 4-1. This means that digital 3D will soon be the ONLY way to release (computer) animated films and that children will compain if they get taken to a 2D rather than 3D showing.

I'm reminded of the friend's daughter who complained that the television set upstairs was broken because she could not pause it. Digital changes expectations and consumption preferences.

Getting national(istic) about digital cinema

Even those of us ho did not attend NAB2007 and the Digital Cinema Summit could not fail to notice that Germany has been profiling itself particularly prominently this year. The Germans have been part of the digital cinema scene for a while, particularly in recent months through the work of Fraunhofer, but this is the largest concerted effort yet to group it all together under one banner. There was even a press release issued about it:

Under the heading "D-Cinema and Beyond," the full digital-cinema process chain was presented to the professional public. The event was realised by "Invest in Germany - Land of Ideas" a common project of the initiative "Germany - Land of Ideas" and the federal investment promotion agency "Invest in Germany". The presentation centred on the 5k Multi-Projection technology developed for digital cinema by the Fraunhofer Society's Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) in Berlin.

Source: Germany - Land of Ideas
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Apart from the Fraunhofer Institutes in Berlin and Erlangen, the cooperation partners also include the camera manufacturer ARRI, T-Systems' Media&Broadcast arm as a service provider to the media and broadcast industry, and the software and hardware manufacturer DVS.

It reminded me of the effort last autumn to bring together various French digital cinema interests under the ISA banner, particularly for the screening of the 4K mastered 'Paris Je Taim' at the ETC (link to PDF), which united CN films, CST, Doremi, Eclair Digital Cinema, Open Cube, SmartJog and Thomson Content Security (but not Technicolor). And the first one ever was ofcourse the UK's Department of Trade and Industry that united Britain's various manufacturers and interest parties through the Electronic Film Group. Italy has also attempted this type of thing, but on a much smaller scale (primarily Elsacom and Marina Studios) and I guess it would be possible to include Japan's original T-Joy consortium under this banner too.

Do such groupings work? The track record seems to be that they can raise awareness in the short term and pull off individual demonstrations and events, but work less well for establishing a long term united business. Ironically, digital cinema is too small to depend on all the businesses in one country being a perfect match. The ideal grouping is often an international effort with servers, projectors, and software coming from different countries. The countries that have done best were those that had a strong government drive to push together hardware partners with the cinemas, something that appears neglected in groupings such as those of France and Germany.

Countries that did well in this early on were China and Singapore. Today the crown is carried by Norway, thanks to the D-Cinema Alliance that has managed to get all stakeholders around the table to thrash out a roadmap for the all-digital future. Just don't expect them to sponsor a breakfast or coctails in Las Vegas.