UK to Build Network of 150 Digital Cinemas

mikael writes "According to this article at the BBC, a network of 250 digital screens in 150 cinemas across the country is being planned. Each film is losslessly compressed from 1 Terabyte down to 100 Gigabytes and encrypted onto a portable hard disk drive with a key unique to each cinema, which is then delivered to the cinema. Each cinema projector will be capable of showing films at resolutions of 2048 x 1080 pixels. "The key benefit is the distribution and screening of documentaries, British and foreign language films, as making a digital copy is considerably cheaper than spending over £1500 pounds to make a copy of a single film". Other benefits include better picture quality and the ability to show more films each day." The UK Film Council has a brief overview of the project as well.

Comments

DRM for the movies, and more....

[Brian the Bold]

So what this will usher in (sorry!) is the ability of the distributors to decide whether or not a multi-screen cinema can show a film on the screen they wish or whether they will be unable to fit their business model by moving a more popular title into their larger theatres. I'm sure all the projectors will be heavily secured to prevent any kind of local control of content, it will all be imposed from on high by the Cuban cigar smoking types with the large waist lines, paranoia and fat bank balances.

Hope I'm wrong, but history suggests I'm probably not....