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India's Bollywood Opts for Low-Cost Digital Cinema
Makarand writes "While Hollywood is yet to figure out who will pay for the costly
$100,000 digital projectors required for the digital roll-out of
films, the Mumbai (India) based film Industry (called Bollywood)
is settling for cheaper projectors of a bit lesser quality
available at one-third the price, to proceed with their digital roll-out.
Industry officials call this cheaper version of the digital cinema the 'E-Cinema',
in contrast to the 'D-Cinema' which Hollywood is waiting for. Over
1000 films are made each year in India and just 1 film in 12 makes a
profit. Transporting conventional celluloid prints to remote towns
gives video pirates plenty of time to copy and make prints. Digital
cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase
its profits."
True. However, that's not the problem. It dosen't really matter how hard it is to copy a film, it's currently happening.
At the moment, with film, it's not economic to roll out a film everywhere at once. Therefore there is a time lag between the first showings, and when it's available to view locally. This time lag is where the pirates are operating. If you can remove this lag, then one of the benefits of pirated films (faster access) is removed. Digital projectors bring the benefits of digital copying to the movie producers, as opposed to currently, where only the pirates are reaping the benefits.
As I understand it then, Bollywood is trying to defeat piracy by starving the pirates of a market.