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Full wall? How about a cloud? LaserMAME (warning: server sends out the wrong MIME types)

First, I have to say, driving past a computerized billboard with a fifty-foot-wide BSOD (or Windows logon screen) hovering prominently on the side of the interstate is a vastly amusing experience. Three weeks ago, a Toyota dealership off of I-405 provided me with this lovely visual gag.

What I'm really wondering about, though, is this. Ever since I first started reading about Boeing's Digital Cinema, I've been curious whether people would now start to use theaters for things other than feature films. Once the medium for displaying visual and auditory effects shifts from film to bitstreams, one could conceivably show the World Series, the State of the Union address, reruns of the Simpsons, or the 2004 Iron Chef Steel Cage Deathmatch Season Finale, in real time or through rebroadcasting. I don't know that these things would necessarily draw large crowds, or that you could get them to cough up much money per person for this, but you'd still be selling plenty of overpriced Ju Ju Bes and Fizzy Sugar Water(TM), and wouldn't be paying for the rights to show a new release instead.

What I'm really asking is: given the interesting things people find to do when the size of their display changes drastically, what new and interesting things would you do with a digital cinema?

Finally, if you were a theater owner, would you choose to get your digital bitstreams off an encrypted copper/fiber network, off of encrypted ROM/DVDs, downlink from SATCOM, etc? How do the relative merits stack up?

Selling a 3 Silo, 65k sq/ft 1 Mile Nuke Rated site, Near Denver... a Tour of a site 5 miles away Missle Silo Tour This site is the same design except that it hasn't been vandalized, has power, and is not flooded (except silo's) Comes with complete Plans Serious Inquiries Only misslesilo@lasers.org Must be sold before end of September, 2002 also 15k sq/ft underground storage at another hardened facility $2.50/ sqft.

We are Setting up LaserMAME, on a 30 foot screen at CA Extreme... to save money we are using a Control panel that's already on the West Coast, I hope they have a Heavy Spinner on it... excuse the bad pic, it was taken during setup on a 40' x 60' Screen, before we tuned the projector.. at Six Flags Darien Lake, Buffalo http://download.lasers.org/tempest_masterof.jpg or Asteroids http://download.lasers.org/lasermamedusk.jpg

We are Setting up LaserMAME, on a 30 foot screen at CA Extreme... to save money we are using a Control panel that's already on the West Coast, I hope they have a Heavy Spinner on it... excuse the bad pic, it was taken during setup on a 40' x 60' Screen, before we tuned the projector.. at Six Flags Darien Lake, Buffalo http://download.lasers.org/tempest_masterof.jpg or Asteroids http://download.lasers.org/lasermamedusk.jpg

I want to play Tempest on the side of Stone Mountain.

LaserMAME. Laser projection isn't as simple as it looks, and it's taken about 20 years for the tech to get cheap enough to filter down to the geek level, but it's here.

(For the simpler graphics of SpaceWar, it could probably be done for less than $1000 in used/reconditioned parts, and would make an excellent science project if you've got high-school age sproggen.)