Christie's CP2220
It’s been a busy week for Christie. The company’s CP2220 was the first series 2 digital cinema projector to pass the Compliance Test Plan (CTP) put in place by Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) to gauge whether equipment meets their published specification. As well, they announced the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Shenzhen, China.
While many d-cinema equipment manufacturers claim their products are DCI compliant, it wasn’t until October of 2007 that a testing process was made public and testing entities were selected. Christie can now officially say the CP2220 is DCI compliant, having fully passed all tests that make up the CTP, including procedural and design reviews. Because Sony says the SRXR320 is compliant on their website I’m not sure if it’s the first digital cinema projector to pass the CTP, or just the first series 2 projector to pass it.
In the press release announcing the test results, John Hurst of CineCert, one of DCI’s icensed testing entities, said:
“We are very pleased to confirm that the Christie CP2220, featuring Texas Instruments’ Series 2 DLP Cinema technology, has passed all the requirements of the CTP.”
Passing the CTP is a huge milestone for a d-cinema technology vendor as it is the only way for equipment to become DCI compliant. Hollywood studios require all equipment playing their content to be DCI compliant. In making sure a piece of equipment meets all of the DCI specifications, one of the CTP’s main goals is to verify a device’s interoperability and content security features.
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The long awaited compliance test plan (CTP) has at long last been published by Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) on its website. This plan will allow the independent verification of digital cinema equipment as being ‘compliant’ (a much misused word in digital cinema circles) with the DCI specifications and - more importantly - the emerging SMPTE and ISO standards. From the press release:
DCI is considering several entities that have expressed interest in becoming licensed facilities to perform the tests detailed by the Compliance Test Plan. A selection process is underway, and testing entities are expected to be named in the near future.
In a joint statement, the DCI member studios said, “We are very pleased with the quality of work performed by CineCert. The test plan is comprehensive and provides the necessary insight and guidance to manufacturers, integrators and exhibitors on the details required for testing and compliance.”
John Hurst, Chief Technology Officer of CineCert, added, “CineCert is grateful to DCI for the opportunity to apply our expertise to completing the Compliance Test Plan. We hope the Plan helps create an atmosphere of certainty in manufacturing, purchasing and deploying digital cinema equipment.”
The last point is particularly important, as for five years digital cinema equipment have operated in a great deal of uncertainty what the Hollywood studios will and will not approve of as far as the technology goes. This should now eliminate that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dolby was first in line to get this stamp of approval for their server, seeing that they are already the first to have earned FIPS certification.
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