DCI Expects Business Plan By September
Subsidies Looming
For Digital Cinemas?
LAS VEGAS – Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) is studying the idea of using a 3rd-party “financing entity” to expedite the conversion of cinemas into digital cinemas, it was revealed by chief DCI exec Charles Goldwater at a March 24 ShoWest presentation.

DCI officials have had “substantive talks” with JPMorgan about setting up such a financing mechanism, according to a Variety report.

Goldwater, however, told ShoWest delegates, “I can’t tell you today who or what that financing entity is or would be or how or on what terms the subsidy would be administered.”

Such a plan, one of several reportedly being considered by DCI, might see a financier create a fund that cinema owners would use to purchase projectors, servers and other equipment necessary to d-cinema implementation. Distributors, using monies normally earmarked to strike expensive cellulloid prints, would contribute to such a fund.

While Goldwater warned delegates that they should not assume “any conclusions or any agreements have been reached,” he did offer that he expected a business plan to be hatched before DCI’s planned September dissolution. DCI also currently plans to finalize d-cinema technical specifications by September.

The exec’s comments at ShoWest suggest distribution now acknowledges that exhibition is not in a position to unilaterally finance conversions to digital cinema. “The contribution toward the financing of digital cinema employment from the various industry participants, including distributors and exhibitors, should be relative and proportional to the potential benefits expected to be realized in digital cinema,” Goldwater told conventioneers.

A widely-held expectation is that exhibs would be free to use the subsidies to buy the d-cinema projectors, servers and other equipment from whatever vendor they choose.

Cinema owners keen to own and control fully any new equipment in their booths were generally said to be heartened by Goldwater’s comments. “First, the exhibitors are encouraged that the studios recognize a need to subsidize this transition,” noted NATO president John Fithian. “Secondly, the beauty of this business model, which is one under consideration, is that it maintains the relationships between exhibitors and our equipment suppliers. It will also maintain the relationship between exhibitors and distributors.”

 

D-Plans For Every Auditorium In 81-Screen Chain
UltraStar Cinemas
Plans Giant D-Rollout
SAN DIEGO – UltraStar Cinemas and American Cinema Advertising Network (ACAN) announced on April 2 plans to deploy DLP digital-cinema projectors to all 81 UltraStar auditoria by 2005.

Initial installation plans for UltraStar, which currently operates 11 California sites, call for equipping 20 auditoria with d-projection by summer’s end.

“This agreement puts UltraStar on track to become the first exhibitor in the world to be 100-percent equipped with DLP Cinema technology,” said circuit president and CEO Alan Grossberg.

Although financial terms of the deal were not released, ACAN, which has been involved with preshow slide advertising since 1982, is helping to finance the conversions of the circuit’s screens to DLP Cinema projectors, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In 2002, UltraStar, in conjunction with Boeing Digital Cinema, installed six 1.3k DLP d-cinema projectors in four of its sites for the release of “Star Wars: Episode II.”

San Diego-based UltraStar also announced that it has 44 screens currently in development.