Tag Archives: CineLive

Cinedigm’s Partnership For FIFA World Cup Makes Sensio

June 10, 2010

Cinedigm Sensio World Cup.jpg Last week Cinedigm announced a partnership with Sensio that will allow them to bring the FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament being held in South Africa this month to theatres all over the world. What’s more, the matches will be shown live and in 3D.

The press release sent around to promote the partnership was was pretty standard, but there was one sentence that raised a question for me:

“To kick things off, the companies will use Sensio’s technology and Cinedigm’s theatre technology design to bring select matches from this year’s FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament in Live 3D to hundreds of theatres around the world.”

My curiosity wasn’t necessarily stirred over which of the matches would be shown, because the release goes on to mention they’ll start with the quarterfinals. Instead, I was left wondering what “Sensio’s technology” actually was and how Cinedigm, a leading North American digital cinema integrator, would utilize it to project a live broadcast of a World Cup Soccer game in 3D. The rest of the press release only served to make me even more inquisitive, especially upon reading:

“…Cinedigm’s extensive experience in bringing live 3D sporting events to U.S. theatres through Sensio 3D format and CineLive technology.”

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted in Alternative Content, Technology

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Cinedigm Scores Big With Live 3D Broadcast of NBA All-Star Event

By J. Sperling Reich

February 16, 2009

Cinedigm Live 3D NBA All Star Poster On Satruday evening Cinedigm continued its ongoing effort to bring popular sporting events in 3D to North American movie theatres by broadcasting the NBA All-Star Saturday Night to more than 80 venues in the U.S. and Canada. Since this type of alternative content is all the rage these days I decided it was high time to check out what all the buzz was about. I’m quite happy I did.

Previous Cinedigm live 3D events were allegedly riddled with technical problems. At the Fedex BCS National Championship Game in January the transmission often flipped the left eye and right eye causing theatre patrons to instinctively rip their 3D glasses off so as not to become nauseas. There were tons of walkouts at theatres that chose to show the event.

I would have assumed that Valentine’s Day would have provided stiff competition for Cinedigm in attracting patrons to the event, but at the Mann Chinese 6 in Hollywood, almost every one of the 290 seats were occupied. Tickets for the event were a steep $20, though that didn’t seem to deter diehard NBA fans. In fact, it wasn’t hard to spot fans milling about in the parking lot of the Hollywood+Highland complex on their way into the theatre; they were the ones wearing their favorite team’s jerseys.

Fan Expectations

Though I’m not all that knowledgable about the NBA All-Star game, I was lucky enough to find a seat smack dab in the center of the theatre next to Bradley Bandara, a 24-year-old Portland Trailblazers fan. Bandara learned about the 3D livecast on SportsIllustrated.com and decided to drive the 40 miles from his home to attend. (Others I spoke with drove between 5 miles and 30 miles to get to the theatre). Bandara is such a huge fan of pro-basketball that he used to hold viewing parties of the All-Star Saturday Night festivities when he was in high school.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Posted in Alternative Content, Digital 3D

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AccessIT To Beam Live 3-D Events To Theatres

By J. Sperling Reich

June 5, 2008

Having announced their CineLive offering at ShowEast in October of 2007, and with the success of the live 3-D broadcast of a Dallas Maverick’s basketball game, AccessIt announced on Monday that it would be beaming live events in 3-D to 150 cinemas throughout the United States. The offering will commence immediately in 50 theatres equipped with 3-D digital cinema technology and is expected to grow to the full 150 sites by the end of 2008. The Bigger Picture, AccessIT’s alternative content subsidiary, will handle the distribution of the live events.

In the press release announcing the program, Bud Mayo, the chairman and CEO of AccessIT, stated:

“By deploying these systems now, we hope to encourage more live 3-D programs to accompany our proven 2-D live broadcasts. The expansion of pre-recorded 3-D content has broadened the addressable market considerably during the past year and we are committed to providing more choices for theatre owners and content providers alike.”

CineLive is a joint venture between AcessIT, International Datacasting Corporation and Sensio Technologies Inc. AccessIT will install CineLive in the top 100 markets in the U.S. and use its proprietary satellite network to transmit the live events to digital cinema systems it has installed at customer’s theatres. Presently, AccessIT has deployed such equipment on over 3,700 screens throughout the country in its first phase and plans on entering its second phase of installations on more than 10,000 screens later this year.

With the right promotion and marketing, the concept could prove to be a winner in attracting patrons to exhibitor’s theatres on days in which attendance would otherwise be relatively low. After all, during the NBA playoffs and the recent Stanley Cup Finals sports fans ventured to arenas and stadiums to watch their teams compete in away games on jumbo screens. With a quality 3-D broadcast, exhibitors could easily woo such fans into venues that are potentially closer to their homes. Concerts for some of the hottest musical acts should also be an easy sell, what with good concert tickets being nearly impossible to obtain, not to mention prohibitively expensive.

Now all exhibitors have to do is get a liquor license so they can serve beer, and potentially spring for a few security guards to keep any rowdy fans in line after they’ve downed a few pints.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Posted in Alternative Content, Digital 3D

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Disney digs ESPN sports with AccessIT

By Patrick von Sychowski

February 14, 2008

Trust Disney to have foresight and show initiative when it comes to alternative content in digital cinemas. While the NFL is sending cease and desist letters to Wisconsin cinemas showing Packer games, Disney has teamed up with AccessIT through its ESPN division to screen live HD college football games in Texas cinemas. From the press release:

This is the first time Disney, ESPN and AccessIT have joined forces to provide a live sporting event to paying audiences following tests last year. It is also the first event at which AccessIT’s CineLive(TM) technology, providing live 2-D and 3-D streaming of alternative content to theatres, will be employed for a major sports spectacle since the product was announced last fall.

“One of the many reasons we’ve supported AccessIT’s leadership in transitioning the industry to digital cinema is to be able to provide events such as this one to eager audiences,” said Chuck Viane, President, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Distribution. “Fans get to enjoy the action of often sold-out games and the camaraderie of others without having to travel great distances, and each one gets the best seat in the house.”

Given Disney’s long history of digital 3D involvement – or Disney Digital 3D(TM), to give it its proper name – it should be no surprise if we are less than a year away from the first Disney/ESPN Digital 3D sporting event.

It reminds me of a digital cinema conference at least five years ago (a different eon in digital cinema terms) when I sat next to Bob Lambert, Disney’s Corporate Senior Vice President, Worldwide Media Technology and Development , listening to a panel discussion about alternative content. At one point he turned to me and said, “we’ve brought the cinema into the living room, it’s only natural that we take the living room back into the cinema now.” Surprised that a studio guy would be so cool about alternative content, I asked him if I could quote him on that. He thought about it for half a second, and said, “sure, why not.”

Now it helps that Disney happens to own ESPN, but mainly this has come about because there are a lot of very smart people working at Disney when it comes to digital. And Bob is a real mensch, as well as being one of the people who got digital cinema started way back in 1999, though like his then colleague Phil Barlow, is too modest to accept the full amount of credit that he deserves.

So a small amount of credit to Bob as well for the latest development.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Posted in Alternative Content

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