Digital
Divide
Since ‘Attack
of the Clones’ exited
cinemas two years ago, few American exhibitors have taken
on new digital
cinema installations – but the story seems different
overseas, where a number of companies have been making d-headlines.
by
Alma Freeman
Moviegoers
in China last April who wanted to see Bugs Bunny and Pepe
Le Pew’s new
movie on the big screen didn’t just have the option
of seeing them in a digital cinema. It was their only option.
In a move that garnered worldwide
attention, Warner Bros. unleashed “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” there
without a single print or film projector. Utilizing a number
of the nation’s 54 public auditoria equipped with high-end
Digital Light Processing Cinema (DLPC) technology, the release
marked the first time a Hollywood studio had opted for digital-only
distribution and presentation. (As a bonus, because the Chinese
government allows an unlimited number of revenue-sharing
digital titles, “Tunes” carried the added benefit
of not counting against the nation’s annual cap of
20 foreign 35mm releases.) The idea of a digital-only release
of a major motion picture in the United States, meanwhile,
still seems years, even decades, in the future.
Largely overlooked at the time,
however, was the fact that China’s “Looney” rollout was small, isolated – and
unique. China Film Group (CFG), the government agency that
engineered the all-d release, reportedly has no current plans
to exhibit another U.S. release this way.
Some reports are even more misleading.
Over the last two years, while exhibitors installed new DLPC
equipment in only
15 public North American auditoria (bringing the continent’s
total to 88), reports of dramatic “d-cinema” activity
overseas have been pouring in:
• “India taking lead in digital cinema: By year’s
end, country to have more screens than U.S.,” boasted
a headline in Variety last November.
• “Brazil could soon have the largest network of digital
cinemas in the world,” gushed a headline in the United
Kingdom’s Guardian Unlimited last December.
• “Ranked second in the world in terms of digital cinemas,
China is eyeing building 2,500 more such cinemas within five
years,” confided a February story on the English-language
China View Website.
What, a casual industry-follower
might ask, is going on out there? Have digital cinema’s files, servers, studios,
consortiums, governments, and, finally, stars, somehow aligned
for every land mass except North America? Have Asia, Europe
and Latin America, beleaguered by piracy and a paucity of
celluloid prints, taken U.S. exhibition’s spot in the
digital-cinema vanguard?
Confusing Terminology
Answering that last question is tricky, say experts, because “digital
cinema” means different things to different people,
and too many compare apples to oranges.
•
The Variety scribe put India just five d-screens shy of surpassing
the United States, and already soaring beyond China. But
India’s “digital cinemas” do not use the
costly DLPC projectors U.S. and Chinese exhibitors use to
screen major motion pictures. India’s exhibitors are
using far less expensive non-celluloid projectors (commonly
known as “electronic projectors” or “e-projectors”),
much like those often used for U.S. pre-show cinema advertising.
•
Similarly, the expected 100 Brazil “digital cinemas” described
by Guardian Unlimited are expected to use an MPEG 4 compression
system with Microsoft Windows Media 9, a system generally
rejected by Hollywood as a viable standard for replacing
35mm.
•
As for the China View story, sources indicate the announcement
is misleading because all 2,500 of the “more such cinemas” will
actually utilize LCD projectors and TiVo-like servers, also
similar to U.S. cinema advertising systems.
| D-Cinema Glossary
Digital Cinema Initiative
(DCI) (n) a consortium
of seven major movies studios – Disney, Fox,
MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. – formed
in March 2002 and charged with establishing technical
standards and brainstorming business models for high
performance digital cinema.
Digital Light Processing
(DLP) (n) a Texas
Instruments “micromirror
technology” used in certain digital projectors
and TV sets.
Digital Light Processing
Cinema (DLPC) (n) the
highest grade of DLP, and the grade of DLP that
most closely
approximates projected 35mm film. In the United
States, all non-celluloid “digital prints” of
major motion pictures like “I, Robot,” “The
Village,” “Alien Vs. Predator” and “Collateral” play
only on projectors equipped with DLPC technology.
1.3K (adj) pertaining
to a visual field of 1,280 by 1,024 pixels. DLPC’s 1.3K chip was first
utilized commercially in May 1999 with the release
of 20th Century Fox’s “Star Wars: Episode
I – The Phantom Menace.”
2K (adj) pertaining
to a visual field of 2,048 by 1,080 pixels. DLPC’s 2K chip was first utilized
commercially in the United States in November 2003
with the release of Warner Bros.’ “The
Last Samurai.”
4K (adj) pertaining
to a visual field of 4,096 by 2,160 pixels. Sony
currently
intends
to
commercially introduce 4K digital cinema
projectors in 2005.
|
“If you say ‘I’m a digital cinema,’ there’s
nobody stopping you from saying that, even if you have a
$2,000 Sony projector, and I wouldn’t go so far as
to argue with that person,” says Bill Mead, creator
of the DCinemaToday Website. He points out that the term “digital
cinema” is comprised of two very generic terms and
that even a cinema owner projecting a DVD can legally and
legitimately claim “digital” status, because
he is technically correct.
Unfortunately, many engineers
and executives involved in the fast-growing field of digital
movie distribution and
exhibition simply don’t see it that way. They prefer
the terms “digital cinema” and “d-cinema” be
used only to describe expensive, ultra-sophisticated equipment
like DLPC’s, while the terms “electronic cinema” and “e-cinema” be
used to describe lower-end, less expensive non-celluloid
equipment. (Even among these professionals, however, there
is often confusion as to whether “d-cinema” should
be considered a subset of “e-cinema,” or an entirely
separate category.)
Too many journalists seem not
to be buying into the professionals’ terminology – while
too many laymen are simply confused by it. Using the dictionary
definitions, all DLPC systems can be described as both “digital” and “electronic,” and
so can all of DLPC’s cheaper and less-sophisticated
cousins.
One way to abate much of the
d-confusion, says Mead, would be to use the term “digital cinema” more sparingly
and the term “DLPC” more frequently, since only
projectors utilizing DLPC technology are currently authorized
to exhibit first-run major studio releases worldwide.*
Mead admits his is only a temporary
solution, since the major distributors will almost certainly
eventually allow exhibitors
to use sophisticated, non-DLPC technologies – Sony’s
anticipated 4K system, which uses “SXRD” chip
technology, is a likely example – to exhibit their
movies digitally. Another term (“High Performance Digital
Cinema”? “35-Comparable”?) could emerge
to describe DLPC and other, emerging formats that strive
to mimic 35mm.
Germ of Truth
But even when one sorts out the confusion precipitated by
the term “digital cinema,” there is no question
that, over the last two years, far more new DLPC systems
were installed overseas than in the United States.
Since the May 2002 release of “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack
of the Clones,” North American exhibitors have equipped
only 15 auditoria with new DLPC projectors. European cinema
owners, over the same period, equipped 21. Asian exhibs equipped
90 and, in March 2004, Asia overtook North America as the
continent with the most DLPC-equipped public auditoria.
Insiders agree that the stall in the United
States is largely a reaction to the formation of Digital
Cinema Initiative
(DCI). Created just two months before the “Clones” release,
DCI is a consortium of seven major movie distributors charged
with recommending technical specifications and brainstorming
business models.
The studios that formed DCI are excited about
the idea of 35mm-comparable digital projectors because they
would save
distributors the cost of striking celluloid prints, an expense
of hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Cinema owners,
however, have been slow to buy DLPC projectors because they’re
generally three or four times more expensive than their celluloid
counterparts.
Since the formation of DCI in 2002, most U.S.
exhibitors have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, hopeful
that DCI will
be able to engineer a plan whereby distributors, which would
benefit most from the switch, can somehow subsidize d-projector
installations.
John Wolski, Loews vice president of projection
and sound, says that although his circuit leads the “d-pack” domestically
with 17 DLPC installations (he is careful to point out that
all the systems were donated by 3rd-party players), the circuit’s
number-one motivation was to test the systems and work out
the kinks before a major rollout. But until a business model
is set, the circuit has no plans to move forward. Aside from
a 2K installation made in the spring that will be used solely
for industry screenings, the circuit hasn’t installed
a single DLPC projector since DCI’s formation.
Regal Entertainment Group (REG), the world’s largest
cinema chain, has installed more than 5,000 non-DLPC e-projectors
as part of its advertising and alternative content (business
meetings, concerts, etc.) network, but operates only four
DLPC projectors. “The only thing that will increase
the amount of digital cinema-quality projectors will be the
development of a studio-funded nationwide deployment and
financing plan,” says REG co-CEO Kurt Hall. “Until
then, the business model makes no sense for an exhibitor
given the cost of these higher-priced projectors.”
With the June announcement of DCI’s final technical
specifications, the last remaining obstacle blocking a full
conversion remains a viable business model, says Doug Darrow,
business manager of Texas Instruments DLPC products. “There
really aren’t any technical questions anymore, and
we’re getting close to the resolution of the business
model question,” he says. “After that, it’s
a question of, ‘How fast does the industry want to
go?’”
Subsidies Overseas
So if most American exhibitors have been waiting for a business
plan, why haven’t their counterparts overseas?
The simple answer is most exhibitors outside
North America haven't been as patient as their Yankee brethren.
While 113
Asian auditoria with DLPC is not inconsiderable, these facilities
continue to represent a tiny percentage of the tens of thousands
of cinema auditoria that dot the planet’s largest land
mass.
Meanwhile, most of the exhibitors who have
implemented DLPC equipment during the DCI era are taking
advantage of subsidies
engineered outside of DCI.
D-cinema subsidies are nothing new to U.S.
exhibitors. During the “Clones” rollout, says
Screen Digest analyst Patrick von Sychowski, the bills for
at least two thirds
of U.S. DLPC installations were footed by 3rd-party operators
like Technicolor or Boeing. Many very familiar with the digital
cinema landscape go further, indicating doubt that even one
U.S. exhibitor ever paid full price for its DLPC equipment.
Overseas exhibitors during the “Clones” era,
however, paid for their (much smaller number of) DLPC installations
mostly by “putting their hand in their own pocket,” according
to von Sychowski. Since that time, execs at the Belgium-based
cinema chain Kinepolis say they found a better way.
Kinepolis, which operates more DLPC installations
than any other European exhibitor, installed its 10th in
May. All
10 installations represent joint ventures between Barco (which,
like rivals Christie and NEC/DPI, manufactures DLPC projectors),
EVS (which builds servers), Screenvision (which books cinema
pre-show advertising) and Kinepolis. According to circuit
managing director Gilbert Deley, Kinepolis plans to follow
the same business model for its upcoming DLPC installations
in France and Spain.
“I knew DCI didn’t have the business model, but at some
point we had to step out of the chicken-or-the-egg situation,” remembers
Deley. “It was always studios saying, ‘We have
committed the standards,’ and exhibition saying, ‘We
won’t install until we know there are certain conditions.’”
Other investments in overseas DLPC installations
come from government initiatives charged with steering national
economies,
such as the CFG.
There are 7,000 commercial cinemas in China,
according to CFG chief technology officer Chen Fei, but most
are poorly
equipped. The top 1,000 sites in major cities account for
80 percent of the nation’s box office, which, says
Chen, makes for a very unbalanced cinema market.
Through state-owned CFG, the Chinese government
has funded 100 percent of the 40 DLPC facilities installed
since the “Clones” release.
“The Chinese government realizes that
digital movie technology is a good opportunity to push the
Chinese cinema industry
to reach [that of] the developed countries’ level,” says
Chen. With international standards yet to be created, he
says, it’s impossible to expect private exhibitors
to fund the rollout themselves. Rather, the Chinese government
intends to invest in a total of 100 initial DLPC installations
on an experimental basis to test their viability and work
out any kinks.
Adds Jack Kline, president of DLPC projector
manufacturer Christie Digital U.S.A., many Asian markets “are in
a position now where we were years ago in redoing all their
theatres. That’s a time when you are most apt to look
at new technologies because you are already in a process
of reinventing your cinema industry.”
Millard Ochs, president of Warner Bros. International Theatres,
says CFG donated all three DLPC systems at each of the circuit’s
three China sites. He adds that had the group not funded
the systems completely, with a price tag reaching between
$112,000 and $125,000 per installation, the circuit would
not have likely moved forward on its own.
“The Chinese government has taken an
initiative to place a digital system virtually in every cinema
in the country,
and as more digital systems are in place, they really feel
this is a great way to show local production as well as other
types of materials and information, [such as] the Olympics
and sports,” he says.
Many experts agree, however, that some governments
are bankrolling DLPC installations purely for the status
of having the best,
and having it early. The Infocomm Development Authority
of Singapore (IDA), a government body that promotes technology
and media there, made headlines in March when it (with
support
from the Singapore government’s Media Development
Authority) helped supply 22 2K DLPC systems to the local
Eng Wah cinema
chain. According to Thomas Lim, IDA director of digital
exchange, a government grant was presented to the circuit
in order
to defray some of the installation costs.
The Singapore deployment, says von Sychowski,
was designed to help achieve the government’s goal
of positioning Singapore as the global cinema distribution
hub for Asia.
One insider claims that a manufacturer even
tried to steer IDA toward cheaper projectors, advising that
2K wasn’t
necessary for smaller screens. IDA nonetheless insisted on
installing only 2K DLPC systems.
“When it comes to positioning their country
as a leader in high technology, claiming to have digital
cinema while it’s
an emerging technology is a lot cheaper, and much more practical,
than placing a person in orbit,” notes the insider.
Where’s The
Product?
“Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” released
in May 1999, was the first movie formatted for exhibition
on DLPC equipment. In the five years since its May 1999 release,
only 112 movies had received DLPC releases, according to
a March report from Dodona Research. The same report indicated
that while 55 percent of those titles played in the United
States, only 19 percent played in Brazil and only 10 percent
played Japan.
This lack of content over the years, says
Mead, has left a sour taste in the mouths of some overseas
exhibitors. Some
DLPC equipment remains switched off a good portion of the
time simply because there aren’t enough DLPC facilities
in certain territories to warrant the expense of adding subtitles
to a “digital print.”
In part to explore this kind of challenge
in various markets, says United Cinemas International (UCI)
CEO Joe Peixote,
his circuit purposefully scattered its six DLPC systems across
the globe, to Brazil, Spain, Austria, Germany and the United
Kingdom. During this testing phase, Peixote says he was quick
to discover that the lack of digital content was the biggest
challenge, most notably in the non-English speaking markets.
In response to this overarching dilemma, a
handful of overseas exhibitors have begun lining up local
and independent d-content
in an effort to reduce their reliance on Hollywood. Peixote
says he has indeed found it increasingly easy to find digital
content for his Brazilian sites, largely due to an abundance
of local DLPC-compatible titles provided by TeleImage, a
local post-production facility.
According to von Sychowski, TeleImage has
co-funded and installed seven DLPC systems throughout Brazil,
including the two UCI
systems, and has kept the screens well-supplied with content:
local product as well as Hollywood titles that are digitally
mastered in-house.
Across the pond in the United Kingdom, the
U.K. Film Council announced in July 2003 plans to outfit
the nation with DLPC
systems in approximately 250 auditoria. Once the network
of d-cinemas is in place, it is expected to function with
no reliance on mainstream Hollywood product.
Designed to increase the range of cinema available
in the United Kingdom, the state-owned organization will
offer digital
systems “practically free” to those exhibitors
who qualify and agree to play a certain amount of specialized
product each week, says Peter Buckingham, the group’s
head of distribution and exhibition. The Council also plans
to subsidize the creation of digitized “prints” the
DLPC equipment can utilize.
Details regarding the scope and timetable
for the U.K. DLPC rollout were expected to emerge by August.
Subtitling & Dubbing
Given how few DLPC screens exist in some non-English-language
markets, Hollywood distributors have been reticent to add
subtitling or dubbing to many of their DLPC-compatible
masters, says von Sychowski. One magic number, he adds,
appears to be 10. Until there are at least 10 DLPC projectors
serving German-language territories, for example, it will
not be cost-effective to add German subtitling to a movie’s
digital master.
“As long as it’s a single figure [1-9 DLPC installations]
the studios won’t bother … if it’s 2-figured
[10-99 DLPC installations] they will have to be persuaded,
and it’s not until we are talking about 3-figure deployment
[100-999 DLPC installations] that the studios will do this
automatically.”
In one of its broadest DLPC releases
to date, 20th Century Fox distributed “The Day After Tomorrow” to nearly
50 digital screens internationally. The process was not without
its headaches, says Julian Levin, the studio’s executive
vice president of digital exhibition and non-theatrical sales
and distribution. “It was a logistical nightmare, creating
the digital masters, putting together all the language and
subtitled versions that are required around the world,” he
explains.
Still, many within the industry foresee
a time when a single digital master will be distributed
to high-performance digital
cinemas all over the world, regardless of each audience’s
native language. DVD viewers can often, at the touch of a
button, add English, French or Spanish subtitles to a movie,
or change the content of the DVD’s audio track. Similarly,
digital projectionists in foreign-language territories may
soon, as a matter of routine, call up the appropriate embedded
subtitles or language-track.
An unlimited number of languages can
be added to the digital master, according to Scott Rose,
chief technology officer
for the Subtitling and Dubbing International Media Group.
It’s not as simple as a switch of a button or selecting
from a menu of languages like a DVD, he says, but the idea
is the same. In order to change languages today, files commonly
must be moved around on the server and registered for playout.
He adds, however, that this process will one day be simplified
and based on an automated playlist.
Captioning for the hearing-impaired
and soundtracks designed for visually-impaired can also
be included on a movie’s
digital master, says Charles Swartz, CEO of USC’s Entertainment
Technology Center.
DCI and the Society of Motion Pictures
and Television Engineers (SMPTE) DC 28 committee, he says,
are actively discussing
how best to coordinate the implementation of all these “optional” digital
master elements.
Digital cinema, says Christie’s Kline, “has the
capability of being the best thing that ever happened to
cinema or the worst thing … and the difference between
that is how it’s supported.” 
