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."

Comments

Re:only 1 in 12 makes a profit?

[metlin]

The film industry in India is a little more complicated than that, and even one movie that may turn a profit usually tends to bring in a whole lot of money that would cover the losses of several failed movies.

And relative to Hollywood, the amount invested in Indian movies is far lesser, so that's another reason.

Finally, the Bollywood has a lot of families which have been in the industry for a long time, so money isn't really a problem for a lot of them - they'd rather waste a lot of money making absolutely crappy movies just to launch a new actor or an actress from their family.