Deluxe and Sony have both announced senior management appointments in their digital cinema divisions.
Deluxe has appointed former Loews Cineplex VP John Wolski to look after the exhibitor side of their digital cinema operation.
From the press release:
Deluxe Digital Cinema, a unit of Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc., has announced that John Wolski has joined as its new Vice President of Exhibitor Services. Wolski will be leading Deluxe’s relationship management with the exhibition community, helping to build a national satellite network, and representing Deluxe at major industry events and standards bodies.
What is most interesting about this is the implicit admission that Deluxe is now seriously exploring satellite distribution for their digital cinema films. This has many interesting implications, both for Deluxe, its studio clients and the US exhibitors as it would be the first non-integrator distributing DCPs to cinemas electronically, apart from Microspace’s limited distribution trials.
Sony has announced that SDDS and SBPE veteran Gary Johns is re-joining Sony as VP of its digital cinema systems division, having been a consultant for the company for the past four years.
From the press release:
Sony’s Digital Cinema Systems Division, which has sales, marketing and engineering teams across the country, was developed to market Sony’s 4K SXRD digital cinema projection system, including the projector, media block, storage and screen management systems, to motion picture exhibitors. These technologies have continually gained marketplace acceptance, including recent announcements by Landmark Theatres and Muvico Entertainment that they would be equipping their screens across the country with Sony SXRD 4K digital cinema projection systems.
The hope must be that Johns can use the experience from SDDS to convince exhibitors that Sony is serious about a higher quality cinema technology winning the day and that unlike SDDS they are in it till the end this time.
