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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."
Only 1 film in 12 makes a profit? Perhaps the films are not intended to make a profit, but instead are money laundering?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
that this will cut down on piracy, but it will certainly be interesting to watch what happens. This is one area where DRM would work very well. There are others, of course, but this one application is a good place for DRM and encryption etc.
Besides, all those call center reps need a night out once in a while
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Its movie about Indian but not a bollywood movie. The movie was made in UK
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.
BUT I found a press release from RealImage which explains that the distribution method is by satellite.
So I'm assuming they'll use an encrypted satellite feed to send the movies to theaters.
Reading some of their other press releases gives some good info: The distro method is web based, so theaters can pick whatever they want from a server.The other tidbit i picked up is that "The films in the MPEG 2 format will take 20 hours to download depending on the connectivity"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Then you see 30 indians break into a dance while the evil killer is running away WHILE singing AND dancing.
;-)
I took a business trip to India a couple of years ago, and happened to see a bit of Indian MTV in my hotel. All of the Indian singers had vast throngs of dancers. Whenever an American or European act came on, it was jarring to only see the singer and four of five dancers. It looked like they just couldn't get the budget for a full-scale production.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of watermarking showed up in DVD's soon.
This is actually pretty unlikely for the near future. Commercial DVDs are generally stamped on a die rather than burned like a CD-R; I'm not quite sure, but I assume burning a DVD would take at least ten minutes on home equpment and this could probably be cut down a little, but one minute or even thirty seconds would probably be too much time on industrial presses. And the machinery required for burning high volumes would be much more complex and error prone than stamping. Stamping greatly reduces the cost and increases the durability of high volume runs, but pretty much ensures that every copy is identical, so watermarking would not be realistic, AFAIK. As for the small volumes sent out for promo copies and advance screeners, those could realistically be burned, and so watermarking those makes some sense and that is where you hear about this being done.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Actually, this really isn't true.
The music industry and the film industry rarely have people crossing over.
They work together very closely, as music is a very important part of the scene, but singers rarely become actors and vice versa.
However, every Ms India / Ms India who became Ms World / Universe / Foo automatically has a long acting career ahead of her
Do the terms E-Cinema and D-Cinema have anything to do with the fact that 99% of films that are coming out these days are B movies?
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Low-cost digital cinemas should theoretically slash distribution costs, but I suspect the cost savings will be a negligible percentage of the total cost to make, publicize and distribute the film. What the shift WILL do is slash the cost of distributing the 11 out of 12 films that are money losers in a manner that will transform the industry. Currently, movieplexes *have* to play stinker films for a short while, because the print is couriered to them and there aren't extra prints of the popular films to replace them. The distributor manufactures hundreds of prints of marginal films, and wants to see at least some return on their investment. So the film lingers for a few weeks in the cinema. With digital distribution, money losers can be quickly deleted from distribution at not cost -- it's not like there are hundreds of film prints that suddenly become worthless.
Who mods this crap up? I think the moderators today are angry programmers replaced by H1 visa guys.
I'm American born, of Bangladeshi descent and here's the deal. Most Indian movies suck. I would not watch them until very recently. And I learned something: there are some good ones. Most of them are crap.
But most American movies suck too (Stealth, anyone? The Island? Right before I left the country there was not one good movie coming out in theatres).
Until you've seen Lagaan or Monsoon Wedding or Earth (with, like Lagaan, features Aamir Khan, India's Mifune Toshiro, and is based on Bapsi Sidwa's excellent Icecandy Man/Cracking India novel) you've got no real right to malign the entire Indian movie industry.
That's not even mentioning Sajity Roy whose Apu trilogy is a classic of world cinema, of whom my favorite director, Kurosawa Akira said:
"The quiet but deep observation, understanding and love of the human race which are characteristic of all his films, have impressed me greatly... They can be described as flowing composedly, like a big river. Mr Ray is a wonderful and respectful man. I feel that he is a 'giant' of the movie industry."
"Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon."
Let's not forget the work of Indian disporia: Bend it Like Beckham, the Sixth Sense, and other films which to varying degrees benefitted from Bollywood influence.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Here's a better article:
:-P
http://www.bollywhat.com/darkside.html
(As we Indians say: "Google zindabad" long live google)
Bollywood is used to identify the 100 plus Hindi cinema coming from Mumbai (Bombay). India has major film producing centers in Chennai for Tamil films (Madras), Hyderabad for Telugu films, Bangalore for Kannada Films, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi (Cochin)for Malayalam Films, Kolkatha (Calcutta) for Bengali films, Guwahati for Assamese films etc., where the other 900 plus films are made every year.
What you see in theaters in UK/USA/New Zealand/Australia/other countries are Hindi films catering to the Non-Resident-Indian audience. And most cities will have one or two theaters that cater to Tamil films, Bengali films, Malayalam films, Kannada films and Telugu films.
The examples you gave were of poorly made films. To understand Indian cinema, try the films of Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravindan, Shaji N Karun, Shyam Benegal, Ketan Mehta, Girish Kasaravalli etc. You will not be disappointed.
Tat Tvam Asi
Bollywood has discovered a very effective method of preventing illegal copying of their films.
They make mostly Hindi musicals.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
So Indian movie production companies are an insider industry controlled by several families. Many crappy movies are produced, but the profits from just a few hits sustain those companies. And many of the so-called new talents are actually related to higher powers in the movie industry.
How is this different from Hollywoood?