Category Archives: Integrator News

Building auditoriums for the Arts is a tradition from the Greeks. Projection has since been added.

SMPTE DCP’s are coming…

Jamie at CineTechGeek points out several of the changes coming with (and things to watch out for with) the imminent transition from the InterOp DCPs (Digital Cinema Package) to the fully compliant SMPTE DCP.

It is important to note that although he says that he has made sure that his clients are ready for the change in April 2011, not everyone needs to, or should, make the transition right away, when the transition begins. The full transition is expected to take a year and there are many reasons that changing is not optimum right away.

That doesn’t take away from the many good points that are made in this video: 
CineTechGeek » SMPTE DCP’s are coming

Update–UK Film Council’s Elimination Controversy

Last weeks story: New pilot scheme launched to open up digital cinema to rural North Yorkshire, shows how important the Film Council has been for getting digital cinema started and the focus maintained on the non-blockbuster sites. 

Mr. Hunt slammed the management for each making over 100,000 pounds. Easy pickings for a publicity fight in a recession. On the other hand, Mr. Hunt didn’t explain how much money the Film Council was handling each year, what it takes to find the talent to be responsible for that type of operation, and what it takes to get people who can work with high powered producers, directors, studio personnel, etc.


The Film Council began just 10 years ago, and not just for capitalizing several hundred digital cinema systems in the UK; for a summation on its history see: Skillset: The Role of the UK Film Council 


[Update]: Other interesting news: an entity set up (via the aegis of the UK Cinema Exhibitors’ Association) to assist small and medium-sized UK cinemas, now the independent group named The Digital Funding Group LLP, has appointment of Sir Hayden Phillips as its Chairman. The full announcement is in a pdf at the end of this article. 

 


The article doesn’t mention Mr. Hunt’s salary or whether he offered to lower it and his staff costs to assist in the effort.

 

Christopher Hampton, most famous for the screenplays of Dangerous Liaisons and Atonement, made the lede quote, and described Hunt’s the decision as a “thrashy response”. He said he knew of films that would never have been made without the council, according to the Guardian article.

The word “quango” is used. Its definition is: noun ( pl. -gos) Brit., chiefly derogatory — a semipublic administrative body outside the civil service but with financial support from and senior appointments made by the government. (ORIGIN 1970s (originally U.S.): acronym from quasi (or quasi-autonomous) nongovernment(al) organization.)

There is an interesting set of slides that show 24 films that we financed (or partly financed) by the Film Council at:
UK Film Council axed – but how much did it fund films? 

Film-maker Ronan Bennett writes a great piece on the issues involved from his experience at:
Axing the Film Council: a move that impoverishes us all 

SmartJog Sends Deluxe DCPs to EU

SmartJog was already used by Deluxe for transfers and storage of materials between their 11 offices around the world; Rome, Barcelona, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and London are mentioned in the press release. SmartJog is also used by post-production facilities world-wide, many who would doubtless send product to Deluxe for final packaging and distribution.

Back in March, Sperling Reich at Celluloid Junkie asked, “Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that SmartJog has been on a roll lately when it comes to partnerships?” He pointed out then that SmartJog had recently nailed down deals with Fox, XDC and Ymagis.

Rack up another one for SmartJog and for Sperling. We’ll go on a limb here: Will Deluxe interest SmartJog in the MediaRecall technology that they bought this spring?

The press release is attached for readers who are logged in.

World Cup 3D ReScheduled to Semi-Finals? [reUpdated]

The announcement says that “Cinedigm … announced a… partnership with SENSIO® to bring the first ever globally broadcasted LIVE 3D sporting event to theatres outside the United States.” Since “globally” includes “theaters outside the US” we suspect some nuance not immediately obvious. Since Cinedigm isn’t known for having launched in other countries besides the US, it may mean something different than what it implies. [E-mails are out to the parties involved, so we will update this news item as details filter in.] Update: Aqiva, once expecting more, is now responsible for showing the 3D version in the UK only.

CineLive Technology is mentioned in the release. Cinedigm has used IDC equipment in some of their installations, and there is a d-cinema IDC product which has Sensio chips in it. The cut sheets for these items are lacking technical specs. 

There is mention of 100’s of theaters in the press release. This is a bit of a let down from the numbers that were originally expected. In the EU alone there are over 3,500 cinemas with 3D equipment…and the EU would be expected to be the largest market for an event like this. Edit: News is all over now that 3D broadcasts will be in many countries…for TV [see here for France, Swiss, Spain, Netherlands.]

There are a few cinema press releases;

in England: A site with links to various 3D site, including non-cinema

in South Korea…there will be 3 games that include S. Korea shown, plus any games leading to the finals that include the countries team. This article points out that Korean cinemas had a good experience with the Cup games in 2D two years ago: Watch World Cup in 3D theaters

in Italy…

The company said Wednesday it would screen about a dozen key matches starting in the final days of the second round, including all of the games from that point and onward featuring Italy, the defending champions. The first game to be aired will be the June 24 match between the Italian side and Slovakia.

Among the non-Italian games to be aired is the Brazil-Portugal match, as well as the final and semi-final games, even if they do not include the Italian squad.

There are no new press releases from Germany continuing the story from last week that the two largest German theater syndicates have refused to sign onto the 3D broadcast event because of quality issues. It will be a feat for Cinedigm to figure out the problems of different frame rates and broadcasting standards while working from the US. One hopes a good team has flown over.

in China…

s the first 3D World Cup, 25 of the tournament’s 64 matches will be broadcast live in 3D. However, cinemas in China have not shown much enthusiasm. Only 40 throughout the country applied for the right to broadcast live matches, just two of them in Shanghai.

To screen live football matches in 3D, a cinema has to install a direct broadcast satellite receiver system, which costs about 200,000 yuan (US$29,290). Then there is a 50,000 yuan broadcast fee.

As some of the matches will be on at 2am, there would be extra operational costs. As a result, a ticket for a 3D World Cup match could be as much as 200 yuan (US$29).

There’s also the problem that the peace and quiet of a cinema might not be viewed by enthusiastic fans as the best place to view a sport which inspires so much passion.

Presenting mid-quality 3D in a theater after the abusive reviews of Clash of the Titans (and to a large extent Alice in Wonderland) is not necessarily a bright idea at this stage of digital cinemas evolution. Only in the last few months, mostly in advance of Avatar, has there been a minor explosion in d-cinema installations. Although this has led to a doubling of digital screens, it is still less than 20% of theaters world-wide. With 3D TV getting a lot of press and marketing investment from the television manufacturers, the differentiation will be blurred in patron’s minds after seeing a 720p image in a theater compared to sitting a few meters away from a TV screen with a well-scaled HD image.

Twentieth Century Fox Selects Solar Power, Inc. for a 158 kW Solar System

Full article at:

Twentieth Century Fox Selects Solar Power, Inc. for a 158 kW Solar System

Monday, Apr 19, 2010—ROSEVILLE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)

“We are very pleased to have been selected by Twentieth Century Fox to design and build a solar system to help them provide meaningful environmental benefits and begin to mitigate rising electricity costs,” said Brad Ferrell, President of Business Development for Solar Power, Inc. “Our SkyMount® system is a perfect fit for their needs.”

 

“This project is an important addition to Fox’s ongoing sustainability initiative and we are very happy to be getting it started,” said Hal Haenal, Senior Vice President of Fox Studios Operations. “This marks our first venture into on-site renewable energy and Solar Power, Inc. has helped to make the decision a very easy one for us.” The solar project is scheduled to be completed this summer.

Kodak Re-Focus/Hardware Is Out: Celluloid Junkie

  • provide services and support for existing systems
    prepare and distribute preshow content and playslists
    continue Kodak’s network operations center services
    develop and license digital cinema technologies to be commercialized by others

There is an attempt to hone in on what that licensing concept means, plus some thoughts of what this event of another large player leaving the field, mentioning Technicolor and forgetting DTS – read the entire report at:
Kodak Digital Cinema Undergoes Major Strategy Shift,
J. Sperling Reich
at Celluloid Junkie

 

Cinedigm, Sageview, 75 million, 8%, 35% potential interest

At the time of Sageview’s Guitar Center purchases, they made thestatement: Sageview aims to differentiate itself from other investmentfirms, promising neither to be a passive investor like a mutual fundnor an “activist” investor that puts pressure on management of publiccompanies. Messrs. Gilhuly and Stuart seek to take stakes valued atabout $100m in strong companies with stock-market values from $500m to$5bn and hold those stakes for several years.

In further news, another investment specialist, Adam M Mizel, previously on the board, will be joining the working staff of Cinedigm as the unexcitingly titled CFO and the excitingly titledChief Strategy Officer. According to the reporting services, Adam owns 2 million plus shares of Cinedigm stock, though somehow indirectly. (March 19, 2009 Statement of (indirect) Ownership)

There are some who say that business people shouldn’t be involved in running government and finance people shouldn’t run companies – that the philosophies are diametrically opposed – today’s business people are first tasked at looking out for the shareholders bottom line while governments are tasked with looking after the bottom line and Commons of ‘We the People’. Similarly, they say that finance people should focus on meeting the conservative needs of getting funding to the operational units in an efficient manner, while Strategic management should be focused upon turning dreams into fruition, damn the torpedoes.

Cinedigm though, has done all the logical things, but been trapped by the politics of competing studio and exhibitor needs and wants, which in turn has made all their strategy turn into a mere survival game. These latest moves, plus moves earlier this year that pushed off more immediate dept repayments by refinancing their GE dept again, give them a bit of a cleaner field to operate, hoping that the industry will pick up enough to tilt the momentum (defined as size of installed base times products they can sell to the installed base at a better return than movies, allowing the VPF returns to pay off debt.) Perhaps it is appropriate to have a finance person involved in strategy when the strategy has changed from Create to Survive…which is really the theme for the entire industry.

This author will be writing for more concise information to the contact on the bottom of the press releases (1),and (2) Mr. Adam Mizel. Hopefully some more data will also come during webcast’d conference call. Expect edits… Info below:

CONFERENCE CALL NOTIFICATION

Cinedigm will host a conference call to discuss its financial results at9:00 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, August 12, 2009. The conference can beaccessed by dialing 719.325.4851 at least five minutes before the start ofthe call. No passcode is required. The conference call will also bewebcast simultaneously and will be accessible via the web on Cinedigm’s Website, www.cinedigmcorp.com. A replay of the call will be available after1:30 p.m. Eastern at 719.457.0820 or 888.203.1112, passcode 8479698. Thereplay will be accessible through Wednesday, August 19th.

Mobile 3-D, Part II: Music to One’s Eyes? – mobilizedtv

This is part 2 of a two-part series by Mark Schubin, a multiple Emmy Award-winning SMPTE Fellow who has worked professionally in TV since 1967. You can find it unexerpted at: [Mobile 3-D, Part II: Music to One’s Eyes?]

Read Part 1 here.

The Society of Motion-Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) devoted an entire webcast of its Professional Development Academy (PDA) in June of 2009 to the subject, “Producing Stereoscopic Content: What Makes Great 3-D Great and What Can Go Wrong.” How, for example, can distant scenes be made to look like they’re in 3-D (long distances dilute the effect) without …

As the existence of the SMPTE PDA webcast shows, effort is being devoted to production issues. And, as the appearance of a glasses-free 3-D mobile-phone display at the exhibit of Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) at …

The third category, however, is psychophysical issues–how viewers respond psychologically to the physical stimuli of 3-D imagery. …

The infinity-interpupillary problem is different. When looking at something infinitely distant, eyes point straight ahead, creating parallel views separated…

In 3-D, “infinity” can actually be pretty close. When looking at something at a distance of 120 feet, our eyes each “toe-in” from looking straight …

That’s not too much of an issue for 3-D in a movie theater. The left- and right-eye images of a distant object can be placed 2.5 inches apart. Unfortunately, if that’s done for a 30-foot-wide screen, …

On a 15-foot screen, everything would appear to be too close. On a home TV, the same object would seem really too close. That’s why 3-D TV might not be able to “repurpose” 3-D movies directly…

Perhaps that’s one reason why 3-D TV has yet to take off. The first 3-D TV broadcast was in 1928, and by 1953 Business Week ran the headline …

No one would argue that music adds to the reality of dramatic or comedic programming. We don’t go through life with a band of personal musicians providing a background to our emotional states….

What changed his mind was Bernard Hermann’s music score. It converted what might have been a mere TV episode into a movie classic, …

Could 3-D be similar to movie music? The stereoscopic scene shown on the mobile phone at the ETRI exhibit at NAB 2009 …

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 9:00AM and is filed under Guest Column, Home Feature.

See Part One: Muscles Matter

 

World’s first non-commercial national digital cinema roll-out

 

World’s first non-commercial national digital cinema roll-out – June 26, 2009

“This is a great undertaking for a small country”, said Jorgen Stensland, Director of Consultants at Film & Kino. “Under these agreements, Disney, Fox, Paramount, Universal, and Warner have committed to deliver wide releases to Norwegian digital cinemas. The deal also covers our own mobile cinema in rural areas. Film & Kino’s goal of delivering quality film all over this country is secured in the future by these agreements. We are happy that Norwegians will be able to experience the perfect quality of a DCI-compliant digital exhibition, which will also give our audiences the opportunity to see the new generation of 3D films that are underway. We look forward to working together with the studios to make this happen.”

The agreements will help facilitate the financing of the conversion to digital cinema. The costs will be shared between distributors, cinemas and Film & Kino.

“A success like this is the result of a great team effort. We want to thank our team members for their unflagging commercial, technical and legal support during these negotiations”, said Roar Svartberg, Acting Director of Film & Kino.

Roger Pollock, Paramount Pictures’ Executive Vice President, International Distribution & Operations, said “Digital distribution and the growth of 3-D cinema is the future of our industry, enabling films to be seen in the highest quality and most dynamic ways possible. Film & Kino is aggressively stepping forward to place Norway at the forefront of this technology, providing their audiences with the very best movie-viewing experience available. This is an important step in Europe’s roll out to digital conversion and will hopefully serve as an influential example across the region.”

Julian Levin, Executive Vice President, Digital Exhibition, Twentieth Century Fox commented “We are delighted to have closed a deployment agreement with Film & Kino. This important deal is the first of its kind covering the conversion from 35mm film to DCI compliant digital projection for the entire country. The transition to a digital projection platform will additionally provide the foundation for 3D exhibition capability, exhibition of alternative content and improved flexibility in distribution and exhibition operations. The ultimate beneficiary of the transition will be the movie going audience. We look forward to working with our colleagues at Film & Kino during the transition and providing Fox’s movies, in 2D and 3D, to Film & Kino digital projection system deployments.”

Duncan Clark, Executive VP, International Distribution, Universal Pictures International, said: “We’re pleased to be working with Film & Kino to help the Norwegian cinema industry transition to digital cinema via our UIP territorial office in Norway. Clearly the growth of 3-D cinema and digital distribution is the future of our business and this complete rollout of digital to Norway’s cinemas, which has the backing of the Norwegian government, is an important step. Norway is the latest country to become part of the extensive conversion to digital that is being rolled out to cinemas in Europe. By supplying our movies digitally, we hope audiences in Norway as early as later this year, will soon be able to experience the highest quality cinema experience via the best digital technology available.”

Commenting on the announcement, Jason Brenek, senior vice president, Worldwide Digital Cinema and Cinema Programming, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, said, “Digital cinema is taking a giant leap forward in Norway thanks to the tremendous efforts of Film & Kino. This is a bold and exciting move to transform all of Norway’s theaters to state-of-the-art DCI-compliant equipment and give moviegoers the best possible theatrical experience. Disney remains committed to digital cinema and digital 3D, and will continue to work with Film & Kino to bring the future of exhibition to moviegoers in a timely and cost effective manner. Our lineup of upcoming films includes a wide variety of titles that showcase this latest digital technology, including many films presented in Disney Digital 3D™.”

“Veronika Kwan-Rubinek, President, International Distribution, from Warner Brothers said, “Warner Bros. is excited about this unique partnership with Film & Kino, the first-ever deployment model that aims to digitize an entire country. This holistic transition to DCI compliant digital projection systems firmly establishes Norway as a leader in technological innovation and ensures the continued growth of this robust theatrical market.”

174 Digital Screens in Poland, by XDC

<p ><em> June 26, 2009<br>The Letter of Intent signed between Multikino and XDC includes the roll out of DCI-compliant projection systems co-financed by the Virtual Print Fee (VPF) model, represented by XDC. Multikino and XDC plan to sign final deployment agreement within 3 months. Rollout is scheduled to begin in Fall 2009, with an initial commitment of 100 screens throughout the year 2010. The whole installation process is to be completed by 2011.<p > Piotr Zygo, CEO of Multikino stated “Entering in VPF deal with XDC we improve our competitive advantage in term of quality of films and capability of screening 2D and 3D content, as well as we open space for alternative content and leverage our advertising tools. Those factors should generate new streams of Multikino’s revenue in the future.<p > Serge Plasch, XDC’s Chief Executive Officer said: “It’s a real pleasure to announce our fourth major VPF deal in Europe. Multikino is the leading exhibitor in Poland. We are convinced to build a fruitful cooperation with them on many aspects: exhibition services, distribution, alternative content and advertising. XDC is probably the only company in Europe able to provide smart solutions for each of these revenue segments.”<p > Under the terms of the agreement, which is to be finalized within the next three months, XDC will exclusively install DCI-compliant digital projection systems: 174 2K Cinema projectors and XDC’s CineStore® Solo G3 D-Cinema servers. XDC will also implement a fully integrated and networked solution in each of the 20 complexes, thanks to its advanced Theatre Management System and Central Library, the XDC’s CineStore® Plaza.<p > Digital Cinema Polska will carry out the installations and maintenance, as well as the frontline helpdesk.

 

NEC Unveils New Ultra Bright NC2500S-A Projector in Anticipation of Disney Pixar’s Nationwide 3D Release of UP

NEC Corporation of America, a premier provider of IT, network and identity management solutions, today unveiled the new NEC NC2500S-A digital cinema projector. As Hollywood studios begin requiring a higher level of brightness for 3D movie releases, NEC is the only provider to offer all pre-existing customers this new feature in their current models with a simple upgrade. The world-renowned Ziegfeld Theatre will be among the first of NEC’s customers to embrace these new projectors.

Read more…

Digital Hollywood: Credit Market Starting to Recover

Celluloid Junkie LogoA group of 3D industry leaders shared varying opinions on the future of 3D—as well as their latest impressions of the credit market–during a panel yesterday at the Digital Hollywood confab in Los Angeles. “The market has recovered a little since December,” said James Dix, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. “The credit market is clearly loosening […]

 

Read more at CelluloidJunkie.com

State-Of-The-Art Christie Network Operations Center Facility Now Open

Christie announced the completion and official opening of the new Christie Managed Services state-of-the-art Network Operations Center (NOC) facility in Cypress, California.  Addressing the growth of digital cinema and on-screen advertising, the NOC features have expanded and upgraded capacity to monitor, maintain and service tens of thousands of digital projectors and related devices across the U.S. and Canada on a 24/7, year-round basis.  It also offers greater capability to handle devices from post-production to large group training centers and control rooms.

Read more…