Will Digital Cinema Wipe-Out Today's Movie Theaters?

Phantoman asks: "I work for the Campus Cinema at University of California Davis and we are looking into getting a Christie or Barco DLP system for Digital Cinema projection. Now if this is the wave of the future I ask you all to compare 35mm to Digital. The price tag on a digital setup is roughly $140,000. Without content. 35mm isn't all that cheap, but if my old Century 35mm projectors break I can get replacement parts for usually less than $100-300. If something goes wrong with the DMD (digital micromirror device) I have a feeling those digital projector parts are going to cost me big. Are the movie theater chains going to get stuck with big costs down the road because Hollywood producers want to save money and have tighter control over distribution? As if they didn't a monopoly already: it costs us between $500-1000 (or half of our profits, whichever is more) for each night we show a movie!" At those prices it doesn't sound like digital theaters will overtake 35mm theaters anytime soon, but what would happen if Hollywood suddenly got the "bright" idea to limit 35mm reel distribution within the next few years?

"Digital is all well and good for the production end, but is anyone going to be able to foot the cost for digital on the presentation end or are we going to end up a straight-to-video world? Also, If anyone wants to help donate to a nonprofit for our digital system, email me. We were the second school to have 35mm, I would like to be the first to have digital."

Comments

$150,000

[mosch]

$150,000 will get you a projector that does 45-bit color, at a whopping resolution of 1280x1024. Yes folks, that's correct, DLP cinema which Lucas likes so much is 1280x1024.

Here's to hoping that digital cinema will be put on hold until it's better, and that Lucas will never be allowed to write love scenes again.

Re:Digital Cinema

[foobar104]

The big advatage of Digital is being freed from having only a set number of titles you can run. Digitial takes up no space, doesn't wear out (media, not projectors) and you can run any title at any time.

That might be true if we were using eericson's digital cinema system, but that's not at all how it works in my neighborhood.

The d-cinemas I've been to all use the Technicolor Digital Cinema system, which consists of an embedded computer system with hard drive storage and a point-and-drool interface. The system interfaces with audio processors, a digital projector, and an automation system. Movies are loaded into the system on DVD-ROMs, although Technicolor also advertises satellite or broadband delivery as options.

Each auditorium has one AMS system showing one feature on one projector. The box essentially has no in and no out except for encrypted transports, making it pretty secure from piracy. There is, of course, always the possibility that somebody will steal the DVD-ROMs and crack the encryption, but you can never get rid of every possible weak link.

A system like the one you describe-- in which the content lives on a central data storage system that feeds multiple projectors in a theater complex-- would probably never be practical. It'd be too big and expensive, or too insecure, or both.

Digital cinema is really, practically, no different from traditional film cinema. Take the canisters/discs up to the projection booth, load 'em in the projector, and play the movie. When the run is finished, put the reels/discs back in the canisters/FedEx envelope and send 'em back to the distributor.