LOS ANGELES and REDMOND, Wash., April 3/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today Landmark Theatres and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - News) announced that they are equipping 177 screens in all 53 Landmark Theatres across the United States with digital cinema playback systems based on Microsoft® Windows Media® 9 Series. This unprecedented agreement represents the largest digital cinema theater circuit installation to date in the United States.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTL OGO )
For the first time, a critical mass of the independent film industry's infrastructure will be wired for digital distribution. This helps address the escalating costs of releasing theatrical films, which weighs heaviest on the independent sector, as it must pay the same costs to release a film as the major studios. The creation of a complete digital alternative represents a major breakthrough in these economies that will help guarantee greater diversity and access to the marketplace for independent filmmakers and distributors alike.
"Landmark's mandate has always been to build an alternative infrastructure dedicated to the enhancement and proliferation of independent film," said Bert Manzari, executive vice president of Landmark Theatres. "We exhibit over 250 films a year, and all too many of these films succeed or fail due to market economics rather than artistic accomplishment."
The newly outfitted theaters will be able to screen films encoded digitally in Windows Media 9 Series, which enables high-resolution, theater-quality experiences with up to 7.1 channel surround sound. The network rollout is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
"Landmark Theatres' commitment to specialty film and its established leadership in the independent exhibition space offers Microsoft the perfect opportunity to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the independent film community," said Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft. "Moviegoers get the high-quality theatrical experience of Windows Media 9 Series, while producers and distributors benefit from the cost savings associated with mastering and releasing films digitally."
Landmark President and CEO Paul Richardson was a featured presenter at a symposium on digital cinema at this year's Sundance Film Festival. "What has impressed me most is the enormous breadth of interest in digital cinema that has been generated since the festival. I've been contacted by key distributors, investment bankers and members of the creative community, all of whom want to know when we can deliver a complete solution to digital distribution," Richardson said. "I believe that we will look back at this moment as one when we were able to fundamentally change the business model in a way that will allow far more of these films to compete successfully."
Working with Microsoft and Landmark to deploy the network will be Digital Cinema Solutions (DCS). DCS will supply its solution, the Cinema System, which has powered the BMW Films Digital Cinema Series in 25 theaters since November 2002. The DCS Cinema System employs a networked PC architecture that integrates into existing theater infrastructure. Once the network is in place, Windows Media 9 Series allows films to be sent to theaters over private networks, on CD-ROM or on DVD-ROM, all protected with Windows Media Digital Rights Management technology.
"The independent film space has largely been ignored by digital cinema," said Jim Steele, president of DCS. "The small, current base of digital cinema installations targets the largest screens and multiplexes focused on mainstream Hollywood blockbusters. The program announced today by Landmark and Microsoft will change all that because it creates a nationwide network of independent digital cinemas, effectively solving the 'chicken and the egg' problem for the independent film community by allowing them to move forward for the first time with wide-scale digital distribution."
WM9 is an implementation of MPEG-4, it's just a proprietary one. It uses the same I-frame and compressed p-frame concepts as mpeg-4. DIVX is another well-known implementation. Also X-Vid.
WM9 is a good mpeg-4 implementation. It has slightly better results than Divx 5 or X-vid from what I've seen (with the same file size). If they start doing High Definition transfers of movies and showing them digitally in the theaters, thats a great thing. I don't understand why you'd need a super-advanced codec to do it other than publicity, though. Mpeg-2 works for High Definition just as well, the file sizes are about 30% larger though.
If there's a reasonable power supply, you could put these things on predator drones and wipe out the enemy without ever landing ground troops. Would also make a great crowd control weapon.
Also, regarding your ballistics argument, there's no better ballistics than PERFECTLY flat, and speed of LIGHT shells ! You'd never miss!
Anybody else think thats a little strange?
Also, what happens when there's a dust cloud and enemies hiding behind it? Wouldn't that tend to disperse the beam?
How lethal would this be? Could enemies protect themselves from it by wearing reflective clothing?
This is exactly how the cheats for Americas Army work, they modify the Direct3D framework to color models, put a crosshair right on the heads of people (which you can see through walls) and more. As far as I can tell it's totally undetectable by the "client" program.
Slashdot Mirror
LOS ANGELES and REDMOND, Wash., April 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today Landmark Theatres and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - News) announced that they are equipping 177 screens in all 53 Landmark Theatres across the United States with digital cinema playback systems based on Microsoft® Windows Media® 9 Series. This unprecedented agreement represents the largest digital cinema theater circuit installation to date in the United States.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTL OGO )
For the first time, a critical mass of the independent film industry's infrastructure will be wired for digital distribution. This helps address the escalating costs of releasing theatrical films, which weighs heaviest on the independent sector, as it must pay the same costs to release a film as the major studios. The creation of a complete digital alternative represents a major breakthrough in these economies that will help guarantee greater diversity and access to the marketplace for independent filmmakers and distributors alike.
"Landmark's mandate has always been to build an alternative infrastructure dedicated to the enhancement and proliferation of independent film," said Bert Manzari, executive vice president of Landmark Theatres. "We exhibit over 250 films a year, and all too many of these films succeed or fail due to market economics rather than artistic accomplishment."
The newly outfitted theaters will be able to screen films encoded digitally in Windows Media 9 Series, which enables high-resolution, theater-quality experiences with up to 7.1 channel surround sound. The network rollout is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
"Landmark Theatres' commitment to specialty film and its established leadership in the independent exhibition space offers Microsoft the perfect opportunity to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the independent film community," said Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft. "Moviegoers get the high-quality theatrical experience of Windows Media 9 Series, while producers and distributors benefit from the cost savings associated with mastering and releasing films digitally."
Landmark President and CEO Paul Richardson was a featured presenter at a symposium on digital cinema at this year's Sundance Film Festival. "What has impressed me most is the enormous breadth of interest in digital cinema that has been generated since the festival. I've been contacted by key distributors, investment bankers and members of the creative community, all of whom want to know when we can deliver a complete solution to digital distribution," Richardson said. "I believe that we will look back at this moment as one when we were able to fundamentally change the business model in a way that will allow far more of these films to compete successfully."
Working with Microsoft and Landmark to deploy the network will be Digital Cinema Solutions (DCS). DCS will supply its solution, the Cinema System, which has powered the BMW Films Digital Cinema Series in 25 theaters since November 2002. The DCS Cinema System employs a networked PC architecture that integrates into existing theater infrastructure. Once the network is in place, Windows Media 9 Series allows films to be sent to theaters over private networks, on CD-ROM or on DVD-ROM, all protected with Windows Media Digital Rights Management technology.
"The independent film space has largely been ignored by digital cinema," said Jim Steele, president of DCS. "The small, current base of digital cinema installations targets the largest screens and multiplexes focused on mainstream Hollywood blockbusters. The program announced today by Landmark and Microsoft will change all that because it creates a nationwide network of independent digital cinemas, effectively solving the 'chicken and the egg' problem for the independent film community by allowing them to move forward for the first time with wide-scale digital distribution."
WM9 is an implementation of MPEG-4, it's just a proprietary one. It uses the same I-frame and compressed p-frame concepts as mpeg-4. DIVX is another well-known implementation. Also X-Vid.
WM9 is a good mpeg-4 implementation. It has slightly better results than Divx 5 or X-vid from what I've seen (with the same file size). If they start doing High Definition transfers of movies and showing them digitally in the theaters, thats a great thing. I don't understand why you'd need a super-advanced codec to do it other than publicity, though. Mpeg-2 works for High Definition just as well, the file sizes are about 30% larger though.
If there's a reasonable power supply, you could put these things on predator drones and wipe out the enemy without ever landing ground troops. Would also make a great crowd control weapon.
Also, regarding your ballistics argument, there's no better ballistics than PERFECTLY flat, and speed of LIGHT shells ! You'd never miss!
Work it into the budget, and get them to do something interesting so that it makes slashdot.
It's not the military's fault that all the hippy crap you want to hear about is boring and doesn't make it onto slashdot.
Anybody else think thats a little strange? Also, what happens when there's a dust cloud and enemies hiding behind it? Wouldn't that tend to disperse the beam? How lethal would this be? Could enemies protect themselves from it by wearing reflective clothing?
... and it's not funny now. Wtf.
This is exactly how the cheats for Americas Army work, they modify the Direct3D framework to color models, put a crosshair right on the heads of people (which you can see through walls) and more. As far as I can tell it's totally undetectable by the "client" program.
Nothing new. Wonder why it took so long for New York to get it? My parents live in LA and they don't have it either. Strange.