Petteri Pyyny
13 May 2002 13:43
Boeing has announced that it will launch digital cinema at 22 theatres in U.S. and at one in the UK in this month. This means first real push to finally replace the old distribution model of movies where actual film rolls are transferred from studios to each and every movie theatre physically.
Boeing Digital Cinema has its cost -- the equipment which includes satellite dish, server, digital projector and wiring is appx. $150,000 per theatre. It is believed that Boeing has given radical discounts or has offered revenue-sharing schemes for theatres.
By using digital cinema equipment, studios can transfer the movies over the satellite or fiber-optic cable connections directly to theatres over a connection which is heavily encrypted in order to prevent piracy. Theatres can run digital copies virtually forever, while regular film has to be replaced relatively often since it tends to gets worse after number of viewings.