Tag Archives: Screen Digest

IBC Highlights Developments In Digital Cinema

September 19, 2010

Digital Screen Penetration (June 2010).png

Digital Screen Penetration of Total Screen Base

There is no question that the IBC conference, held annually in Amsterdam, is primarily aimed at broadcasters and those that supply or service them. After all, the B in IBC stands for broadcasters. However, the conference has always managed to find room for the motion picture industry in some form. Over the past decade that has mostly meant dedicating a day’s worth of seminars to digital cinema or stereoscopic production.

For IBC2010, the conference turned to David Monk, the the CEO of the European Digital Cinema Forum (EDCF), who put together a three hour panel titled “State Of Play: Developments In Digital Cinema”. (Full disclosure: I was a member of the panel). Monk chose David Hancock to start off the proceedings in an effort to provide some context for the many speakers that were to follow. As a senior analyst for Screen Digest, there are few who know the world of digital cinema as well as Hancock and so I wanted to relay some of the key points of his presentation.

Hancock’s presentation, titled “Digital Cinema: The Tipping Point Is Coming”, was filled with valuable numbers, statistics and informative graphics. He began with the following:

There are 109,000 modern cinema screens worldwide. Of these, 22,000 have been converted to digital. This means the industry is 21% of the way through the digitization of the world’s cinema screens.

According to Hancock’s research, digital cinema growth began in earnest in 2005 after recommendations for standards were released. Initially it was the United States that took the lead in rolling out digital as the rest of the world only tested the waters with the new technology. Digital roll outs in Europe began in earnest during 2008. ” Over the past 18 months the number in the territory has nearly tripled.

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Cinema Expo Thoughts: David Hancock of Screen Digest

By J. Sperling Reich

July 20, 2010

The final entry in our series of posts presenting the comments of industry participants on last month’s Cinema Expo provides us with some valuable information.

David Hancock’s name will sound familiar to anyone having worked in motion picture exhibition or digital cinema over the past decade. He is the head of film and cinema at Screen Digest where he works as a senior analyst publishing numerous research reports on the industry.

Hancock moderated a panel discussion at Cinema Expo which reviewed the progress of digital cinema rollouts in Europe. Here are his impressions on last month’s conference:

David Hancock of Screen Digest

This was a very good Cine Expo. Thanks in great part to the efforts of Phil Clapp, the Chief Executive of UK Cinema Exhibitor Association, and Ad Weststrate, President of UNIC, who brought a strong European flavour to the seminar programming, there was much to be learned in both these formal events, as well as the more informal surroundings of the bars.

For me, there were two things that stood out at this year’s Cine Expo. The first was alternative content, which is now clearly on the map and was on most people’s lips. From almost a pariah subject a few years back, there is now strong interest from exhibitors in tracking down new content. The call for content is matched by the need for a central information point where exhibitors can view what is out there. Some exhibitors and content providers have been working in this area for many years, and it is good to finally see the rest of the market catch up with them. Their skills and experience will be in demand in the next few years. There were two panels on this, one on Monday and one on Thursday.

The second is that digital cinema is finally a mainstream movement. Left and right, people were taking deals, with integrators, projector companies, banks etc. In fact, there appears to be a projector shortage now and people are on waiting lists. It is rather strange, having spent so long talking about the future is coming, to talk about this in the present tense. It is even weirder that we are talking about projector shortages when in the past, the opposite was the case.

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Screen Digest’s David Hancock Discusses Europe’s D-Cinema Funding Shortfall

By J. Sperling Reich

July 7, 2010

Europe's Digital Shortfall (Courtesy Screen Digest)

On June 21st, just in time for Cinema Expo, Screen Digest published a report titled “Digital Cinema Moves Into The Mainstream“. Twelve pages in length and with 10 tables and charts, the report uncovered a significant “digital shortfall” in the amount of financing required to convert all of Europe’s screens to digital. David Hancock, a senior analyst at Screen Digest, authored the report and we asked him to shed some light on its key findings. (The interview appears after the jump).

Details From The Report
Not counting Russia there are roughly 32,600 screens throughout Europe for which a digital rollout will cost EUR €2.1 billion (or USD $2.65 billion). Of those screens 23,800 are covered for digital conversion through virtual print fees offered by Hollywood studios. Upwards of 5,000 screens will be handled directly by theatre owners themselves. Theoretically that means there is funding of EUR €1.65 billion (or USD $2.1 billion) for d-cinema conversions, leaving a gap of EUR €450 million (or USD $568.4 million) to cover all Europe’s screens.

And who is being left out of the funding equation? Well, it’s mostly art houses, seasonal theatres, repertory venues and mobile cinemas.

The United Kingdom and The Netherlands have set up special funding groups to help solve this problem. Support funds have also been established in such countries as the Czech Republic, Finalnd, France, Germany, and Sweden. On region in Poland plans to pull money out of a tourism fund and Italy is giving tax credits to any theatre which converts. The European Union is offering assistance through its MEDIA Programme.

Driven mostly by 3D content, the number of European screens equipped for d-cinema at the end of the first quarter in 2010 had risen 16% over 2009 to 5,333, or a full 15% of the region’s screens. Presently 75% of all digital screens in Europe are 3D capabe. Thanks to competition among France’s largest exhibitors, the country leads the 3D screen count with more than 700. The U.K. and Germany are second and third hovering around the 500 screen mark.

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DTS Digital Cinema Sold To Unknown Satellite Company

By Patrick von Sychowski

May 17, 2008

So long and thanks for all the Guinness – DTS has put an end to the corporate Seitensprung that was DTS Digital Cinema, which has been picked up by UK satellite company Beaufort International Group Plc. Here is what the press release on DCinemaToday.com had to say in the opening paragraph:

Beaufort International Group Plc announced today that it has acquired the business and assets of DTS Digital Cinema from DTS, Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Beaufort made the acquisition through its US subsidiary, Beaufort California, Inc. Chris Thomas, Beaufort California, Inc.’s CEO, commented, “We are very pleased to have made this acquisition. DTS is an established brand in the cinema industry, and provides a solid foundation for us to develop our plans in digital cinema.” Thomas continues, “DTS has laid the groundwork for us with its 15-year history in providing the highest quality digital audio for film to over 30,000 screens worldwide.

The price has elsewhere been quoted as $3.3m, which puts it at leas than half of the previously disposed Lowry Digital Images (sold last month to Reliance for $7.5m). From the press release we learn that Beaufort “will continue to use the DTS brand for the foreseeable future under our agreement with DTS.” Strangely there appears to be no website for Beaufort, so it is up to the trusty analysts at Screen Digest to drill down into the deeper meaning of this buy:

Datasat is a deliverer of media content through its wholly-owned (mainly) satellite networks, and the acquisition fits into a strategy of widening their reach to the digital cinema space. Up to now, Datasat’s content delivery strategy has focused on areas where high quality, secure file trasnfers are necessary, and has avoided media and broadcast industries. However, with the introduction of digital cinema, which needs very secure networks for large files (as opposed to live feeds or pre-recorded broadcasts) this move makes sense. Currently, company operates in five broad industrial areas: corporate, diplomatic, emergency, security, medical.

Nowhere is there any mention of Ireland, perhaps wisely as the nationwide Irish conversion to digital cinema is a standing joke in digital cinema circles. While there have been some positive noises about the DTS Digital Cinema hardware and platforms, it remains to be seen how the de-merged company will succeed against the likes of Doremi and Dolby, which unlike DTS is holding on very hard to its digital cinema division.

DTS meanwhile goes back to focusing on consumer products licensing, which seems to be a profitable field judging by this article; DTS shares jump as 1Q profit rises on sales.

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Posted in Mergers & Acquisitions

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No Shortage of D Cinema Conferences

By J. Sperling Reich

April 5, 2008

It seems as if not a week goes by in which there isn’t a digital cinema conference being held somewhere in the world. This has never been more true than during the month of April 2008. At least three conferences will be held in three different countries focusing on the emerging technology taking over cinemas worldwide.

In Oslo, Norway, Film & Kino, the main organisation responsible for representing government owned cinemas in 149 municipalities, is hosting a conference on April 7th and 8th aimed at educating the country’s theatre personnel and cinema managers on digital cinema advances being made both domestically and internationally. That’s probably not a bad idea, since unlike other Scandinavian countries, most European countries and the United States, the government is actually subsidizing the rollout of digital cinema in Norway. The Nordic Digital Alliance and NORDIC launched the first phase of trials in 2006 by converting 21 screens in 15 cinemas to D cinema. Now the Magnus Barfot cinema in Bergen has been completely converted to digital and the second phase of the project, which moves beyond technical beta tests, should commence by late 2008.

With 20 cinema complexes (36 screens) participating in the second wave of conversions, Lene Løken, head of Film & Kino reports:

“We are planning for a big digital rollout in 2009. . . Phase two is looking into how smaller cinemas can be hooked on bigger cinemas in terms of organisation, technical aspects and digital knowledge. We also investigate alternative content programming such as opera or ballet and want to do trials with satellite screenings. Also, we are in discussions with US studios for them to share the costs of conversion to D cinema. We’d like to agree to a joint-venture so that Film & Kino will pay a share, US studios another share via the Virtual Print Free model, and cinemas/municipalities another share. We believe we will have an agreement with US studios in due course this summer.”

Then, on April 12th and 13th in Las Vegas, the NAB Show opens with the the Digital Cinema Summit. About 650 people, most of them technically inclined, will hold panel discussions for two days about the the industry’s transition to digital cinema. The summit is held every year at the start of the NAB Show and because it comes so soon after ShoWest a great deal of the material covered is a rehash of information previously presented to the exhibitors and distributors in attendance.

For instance, discussions billed as “Report from NATO”, “Thwarting In-theater Piracy” and “The Exhibition Perspective: Truth and Consequences in the D-Cinema Rollout” will no doubt cover familiar ground, however it’s a safe bet that the “News from DCI” panel will be standing room only. What makes the summit a newsworthy event each year is the range of the topics covered and the often technical nature of the discussions. The “Report from the ASC: Look Management and its Relationship to Digital Cameras” and “Practical D-Cinema Mastering” are perfect examples. The NAB Show website states:

Topics to be addressed at the Summit include digital cinematography, stereoscopic production, art direction, digital intermediate workflow, d-cinema mastering, 2D and 3D distribution, issues in exhibition, anti-piracy, and the progress of the standards process.

Finally, in London on April 16th, Screen Digest and the European Digital Cinema Forum are holding a conference titled “Digital Cinema and Film Distribution: Opportunities and Threats”. Rather than focus on issues faced by motion picture exhibitors, the workshops will focus on the role of distributors in digital cinema.

Some of the day’s panel moderators will include Screen Digest senior analyst David Hancock, EDCF president Dave Monk and Peter Buckingham from the UK Film Council.

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Beowulf Spells Bad News For Digital 3D Business

By Patrick von Sychowski

November 19, 2007

‘Beowulf’, the first ‘grown-up’ digital 3D release, is out and while it conquered the box office and heaps were praised on the 3D animation, the underlying numbers spell bad news for digital 3D.

There’s been an avalanche of press releases, news, announcements and comment pieces on the digital 3D aspects of ‘Beowulf’ in the run up to the films US and international release. Everything from the number of Russian screens showing it in digital and digital 3D (24, in case you can’t be bothered to click on the link) to how many countries will be showing it using the Dolby system (12) – though at 75 screens in total it is less than the 86 screens in the US that Dolby screened the first digital 3D films on two years ago, then using the RealD system. One of the best overviews is provided by the always-worth-reading Carolyn Giardina in The Hollywood Reporter (‘Beowulf’s’ bow takes 3-D to the next level). There we learn amongst other things that:

Real D was the first 3-D system out of the gate and represents the lion’s share of current installations. At press time, it was expected that there would be about 620 Real D-equipped auditoriums showing “Beowulf” in 3-D this weekend. Real D’s technique requires the use of a “silver screen” and “circular polarized” glasses. It enables 3-D on screens maxing out around 47 feet high. For any system, screen size comes down to how much light can get to the screen from the projector.

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Posted in Analysis, Digital 3D

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IMAX goes for digital cinema and 3D in 4K

By Patrick von Sychowski

October 22, 2007

Large format (LF) exhibitor IMAX is slowly pulling the curtains back on its long-gestating plans for digital cinema and how to hang on to the 3D cinema market segment, just as digital 3D is about to go mainstream with ‘Beowulf‘.

Few people remember that IMAX was once going to conquer the digital cinema space when it bought UK projector maker Digital Projection International (DPI), which was on of the the three DLP Cinema(TM) licensees. Having failed in this venture and hived off DPI to NEC (who have made an only marginally better job of it), IMAX promised that they would still show the world IMAX-digital with their super-secret projector project. Then things went quiet for a long time. Until now.

At the recently concluded ShowEast IMAX announced that it l install the first prototypes of its digital technology in mid-2008 in three of its theatres. According to the article in Hollywood Reporter:

Imax previously pointed to late 2008 and early 2009 as the likely rollout dates for its digital projection technology.

After the first six digital projection systems meet unspecified “performance specifications,” Imax said it planned to proceed with a full rollout in the last half of 2008.

The Imax digital projection system, now in development and trials, will enable theaters to receive movies on a hard drive for digital projection. That eliminates the need for costly and heavy Imax film prints that require loading via forklifts on clunky projection systems.

Unfortunately it is not only the ‘performance criteria’ that are unspecified, but the underlying technology as well. Fortunately there is more details in a news/analysis item from Screen Digest that tell us that:

No further details about the technicality of the system were revealed, but initially it was stated that each screen would be fitted with two Sony 4K digital cinema projectors, coupled with custom lenses, a high bandwidth server and Imax Image enhancement engine.

This fits in with previous speculation and rumours about IMAX’s plans. It also makes sense from a technical perspective because two IMAX projectors aligned would give enough brightness for a large format screen and also enable 3D with each projector providing left eye/right eye image. However, if I was Sony I would NOT be trumpeting this use of their technology, because it risks giving the perception that 4K is specialised large format (LF) standard for a niche market at a time when they want to compete with DLP 2K for the multiplex mass-market.

However, from a quality perspective it is true that 2K is closer to 35mm release print quality while 4K is closer to 70mm. It also highlights that at the moment you need two Sony 4K projectors to display digital stereoscopic images. But we won’t know the details for sure until 2008.

In the meantime IMAX have been quick to make sure that they too are part of the expected ‘Beowulf’ 3D bonanza by announcing that the film will go out in both digital 3D and on IMAX (traditional film) 3D. Having been the first to mass market 3D with ‘Polar Express’ IMAX have still not forgiven DLP digital cinema from snatching away the 3D crown in recent years and even went so far as to attempt to sue digital 3D companies In-Three – but failed.
In the meantime IMAX has been picking up new exhibitor deals, including a major one with Regal and even in Morocco.

To finish off on the subject of digital 3D, Wired has an article looking at the various aspects of 3D ahead of ‘Beowulf’ with some good insights for the average reader. Money quote:

But the spine-tingling moments weren’t when Ray Winstone, playing Beowulf, thrusts his sword at the audience — a 3-D cliché from the ’50s. They came when he faces a digitally enhanced Angelina Jolie playing the mother of the monstrous Grendel, in a dank, forbidding cave. Jolie makes for a stunningly seductive sorceress, so it’s all the more terrifying when her features momentarily morph into a death mask. A 3-D sword can make you jerk back in your seat, no question. But 3-D is even better when it draws you in — into the endless shadows of a cave, or into the vortex of a shrieking face.

The following day, the screenwriters were ecstatic. “It was like a third eye opened up in my forehead,” gushed Avary, who was already plotting out Beowulf when he wrote Pulp Fiction with Quentin Tarantino more than a decade ago. “It’s so large and extraordinary and hyperreal that I can’t be anything but giddy. When I left the theater, I wanted the rest of the world to look like that.”

Hollywood is betting that audiences will feel the same way.

Not just Hollywood, but IMAX and a lot of cinemas and equipment makers too.

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