Coming to a Theater Near You: Digital Films
By Bernhard Warner
Dec. 24, 2003, 12:18
LONDON (Reuters) - Grab the popcorn, cinemaphiles. You may
be about to sit through one of the best movie sequels in years:
digital cinema.
"The digital image is brighter, sharper, the
colors are more crisp and the image is a bit steadier," says
Patrick von Sychowski, an analyst with Screen Digest, the
British-based media research firm.
After years of Hollywood hype, 2004 could
truly be a watershed year for digital cinema. A recent surge
in investment by theater chains and technology companies means
the number of digital projectors in cinemas will more than
double to over 400 in the next 12 months, Screen Digest reports.
There's no guarantee the technology will make the next Jennifer
Lopez-Ben Affleck film more watchable, but at least the final
product will look better. As always, whenever art and technology
collide, snags emerge. Installation costs for cinemas are
high and the major studios are slow to churn out fully digitized
blockbusters until technology standards and anti-piracy measures
are resolved.
But cinema operators, eager to show off their
new digital projectors to the public, aren't waiting for Hollywood.
A host of European chains have begun to show digitized rock
concerts, documentaries and features from independent filmmakers.
"The new technology, we see, gives the local filmmaker the
chance to exhibit to a bigger audience. Those films that do
not get a chance under the 35-millimeter distribution model,
will get a fresh chance," said Steve Perrin, deputy head of
distribution and exhibition of the UK Film Council.
The film council has committed some $39 million
(20 million pounds) to pay for the roll-out of 250 digital
screens across Britain by 2005.
BLOCKBUSTER ON DEMAND
Since the mid-1990s, champions of digital cinematography such
as George Lucas and Steven Soderbergh have hailed it as a
triumph over the 19th Century breakthrough of celluloid film.
Stored as a digitized image file, the technology offers a
better medium to enhance special effects, and playback quality
will not deteriorate over time.
A digital film can be beamed to theaters via
satellite, optical discs or fiber optic networks, potentially
eliminating that exasperating several-month lag overseas viewers
must endure for a big Hollywood production. And subtitles
can be swapped in and out minutes before show time. At the
theater, a digital film is stored on a computer server connected
to a digital projector. The projector is equipped with a state-of-the-art
computer chip that cleans up the image -- capable of showing
35 trillion color variations.
Since the Lumiere brothers and D.W. Griffiths
pioneered the medium 100 years ago, filmmakers have had to
live with the reality of scratches and hairs marring some
frames, and hisses and pops distorting the sound.
Digital cinematography promises to remove
these headaches. What you will get is ear-popping digital
surround sound and crisp images. "It's great for your standard
Bollywood song and dance," von Sychowski said.
It's not surprising then that India has embarked
on one of the most ambitious digital cinema investment programs.
Mukta Adlabs Digital Exhibition Limited (MUKR.BO) and Hong
Kong-based Global Digital Creations Holdings Limited (8271.HK)
this year have teamed to wire up an average of 20 Indian cinemas
per month.
New investment is also under way in China,
Britain and Sweden, making it likely that Europe and Asia
will quickly surpass the United States -- the early digital
cinema pioneer -- as the new world capitals.
REWRITING THE HOLLYWOOD SCRIPT
The biggest advantage for the moviegoer, says Peter Wester,
project manager for Swedish cinema chain Folkets Hus och Parker,
will be most visible not on the marquee -- not necessarily
the screen.
A cinema can download a digital version of
the film on a computer hard drive and show it as long as the
audience shows up. No longer are theaters bound to the major
studios' distribution schedule, he said.
"The average rise of income for us is 25 percent
after one year," he added. It can cost thousands of dollars
for a cinema to get a Hollywood blockbuster film at or near
the release date. A theater operator, therefore, often has
little choice but to show the movie as often as possible before
returning it to the distributor.
A digital version, because it can be easily
reproduced, shipped and stored, costs less than $20 per copy,
according to cinema exhibitors. It also allows the cinema
operator to free up their viewing schedule, perhaps opening
up the odd week-night slot for an art-house title.
And, the build-out is expensive. It costs
a cinema operator an estimated $125,000 for the equipment
and installation of a digital projector and server. The costs
are decreasing, with widespread roll-out expected to halve
deployment cost.
The biggest obstacle though is Hollywood.
The Walt Disney Co., through its partnership with Pixar Animation
Studios Inc. (Nasdaq:PIXR - news), and Warner Bros. (NYSE:TWX
- news), are the only studios producing blockbusters in digital
film.
The Disney-Pixar film "Finding Nemo" and Warner
Bros. "The Last Samurai" were two of a handful of big digital
releases this year.
"That's the big unknown," von Sychowski said.
"It's a matter of how much will the major studios commit to
this."
(The PluggedIn column appears weekly. Comments
or questions on this one can be e-mailed to bernhard.warner(at)reuters.com)
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