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101 Irish and English
Movie Theaters Going All-Digital
• •
* Avica Technology of Santa Monica
will lead a project to convert 500 theaters at an estimated
cost of $50
million
• • Although digital
projectors have been slow in making their entrance into
American movie theaters, Ireland is forging ahead to become
the first country to convert all its movie theaters to
digital
projection.
• • Under a deal announced
this week by the Irish Film Board, investors led by
privately held Avica Technology Corp. of Santa Monica will
convert 500 Irish movie screens to digital projection at an
estimated cost of $50
million.
• • Separately, the
British Film Council awarded a $22-million contract to
privately held Arts Alliance Digital Cinema of London to
install 250 digital screens this
year.
• • Although the numbers
in Ireland and England are small compared with the 36,000
movie screens in the U.S., the campaigns are aimed at
Hollywood.
• • Seven major film
studios working as the Digital Cinema Initiative have
produced technical standards for digital projection but no
business plan for sharing the
savings.
• • Studios spend $750
million annually supplying copies of films to U.S. theaters
and $1.5 billion for theaters elsewhere in the world.
Distributing films by satellite could cut that bill in
half.
• • But the problem of
doing so without creating digital haves and have-nots among
studios, theaters and distributors has stymied Hollywood.
Weary of delays, technology firms are finding it easier to
work abroad.
• • Digital cinema has
been "struggling to get going for a number of years," said
Nicholas Clay, Avica's chairman and chief executive. The
company's hardware and software are used to distribute,
store and manage digital content in about 100 theaters
worldwide.
• • "It's no longer a
technology issue," Clay said. "We've created a technical
model and a business model and decided to demonstrate how it
can be done by building a system and operating it
ourselves."
• • Calling itself Digital
Cinema Ltd. Ireland, a consortium of investors led by Avica
will install the company's digital storage servers, players
and management software along with digital projectors made
by NEC Electronics Corp. of Japan. The projectors employ the
digital light projection technology developed by Texas
Instruments Inc.
• • In addition, Avica
will build and operate a satellite distribution system to
deliver content to theaters. Clay estimated that the total
cost would approach $100,000 per screen. All of the
equipment and procedures will comply with technical
standards, including film encryption, set by Hollywood.
Installations have begun, he said, and will be complete in
12 months.
• • Theater owners and
film distributors will continue to do business as they do
now, Clay said, but instead of shipping bulky film reels,
distributors will turn to Avica to ship digital files to
theaters for specific dates. Film studios will pay a
"digital print fee" that Avica and its partners will share
in proportion to their
investment.
• • Clay wouldn't disclose
the amount but said the digital fee was less than film print
fees, which average $1,500 to $3,000 per copy
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101
Irish and Enlish Movie Theaters Going
All-Digital
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