Thomson announced that its Services division has reached digital cinema usage agreements with DreamWorks, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. to accelerate the deployment of digital cinema systems in North America. In addition, the company is in late stage negotiations with Twentieth Century Fox, New Line Cinema, and The Weinstein Company, and expects these studios to be part of the initial deployment.
Under the separate, long-term agreements, each of the studios has agreed to distribute content digitally throughout the United States and Canada, and pay a virtual print fee for screens equipped with Technicolor Digital Cinema systems, beginning as early as the first quarter of 2006. Studio support for Technicolor Digital Cinema covers an initial rollout of complete digital projection systems in up to 5,000 DCI-compliant screens over the next 3-4 years. It is the strategic intention of Thomson to deploy at least 15,000 digitally-equipped screens in the United States and Canada, through the initial rollout and additional phases, over the next 10 years.
The studios included in this announcement have accounted for over $5.4 billion of the $7.2 billion total year-to-date box office revenue in North America in 2005. Thomson is currently in negotiations with other film studios to expand the range of its non-exclusive content agreements. Thomson is also in ongoing discussions with regional and national exhibition chains to finalize plans to begin the deployment of digital cinema installations in early 2006.
Under the business model for the digital cinema rollout, the studios will continue to book films directly with exhibitors, and if a booked screen is equipped with a Technicolor Digital Cinema system, the studio will pay Thomson a virtual print fee for usage of the digital equipment. Current estimates of the total cost of installed digital cinema systems are in the $90,000 – 100,000 range per screen.
The article is a boring press release. But, this could make for some dynamite movie watching.
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Well, he could have had some exposure. Now, he gets nada from here.
I can’t wait! Right at the climax, the movie stops and we see a dialog on the screen: “MPlayer.exe has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. An error log is being generated.”
6 months and the hacks will be on the Internet
Well, they might as well. Modern day 35mm prints are so amazingly, crap that this low res digital shite might actually be better to watch.
Isn’t this 4 year old technology with Attack of the Clones?
Just like audio CD’s, the movie theater is quickly becoming a dinosaur. A select group of people will continue to attend, but for the vast majority of people the “movie theater” experience will become much like the “live theater” experience… something to do on a special occasion for a special reason, when there is good justification. 9 out of 10 movies these days don’t benefit from “big screen” or the horrible prices they charge for admission. We are now paying $10-$12 for a ticket, which is $40+ for a family of 4, plus another $25 in popcorn and soda, plus gasoline, all for a bad movie, sticky floors, obnoxious neighbors, etc, all presented on a screen that is starting to look like the same size that I get at home. A family of 4 can watch 60+ movies from Netflix for the price of a single movie at a theater, all in the convenience of home. And popcorn is 25 cents instead of $4.50.
Some movies definitely benefit from the large screen experience, but they are truly few and far between.
My prediction: the movie theater will go ‘back-to-the-future” with huge screens, showing a single ‘special event’ movie that makes it worth the effort to go to the theater and pay a premium price. Everything else will be ‘straight to video’, where it belongs.
And on this digital projection thing… what’s in it for me? All it does is eases movie distribution, but the quality will be the same or less than current film technology. So unless it reduces admission prices (HA!), this is irrelevant technology from a consumer perspective. It’s still the same movie.
And BTW… in a world where people are actually excited about watching movies on a 2.5 inch Video iPod, it is hard to explain the ‘big screen’ justification for the need for movie thaters.