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To: waitwatchwander who wrote (33224)	3/7/2003 7:27:29 AM
From: waitwatchwander	Respond to of 197341

Digital cinema backers vow rollout approaching [ more colourful view of industry coming out of Show West ] story.news.yahoo.com By Bob Tourtellotte Wed Mar 5, 2:33 PM ET LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Like actors on a set, the backers of new digital cinema systems are finally hearing the director's call of "Action!" to get their show rolling. For years, digital cinema technology has promised a performance revolution: sharper pictures for moviegoers, new sources of revenue for theater owners and sharply reduced distribution costs for studios. But the launch of the digital systems has been hampered by the lack of technical standards and questions about who will pay for installing the needed equipment. These issues could be largely settled by year's end, John Fithian, president of the North American Theater Owners, told the ShoWest convention for movie theater owners Tuesday. "With that," Fithian told reporters here, "the digital roll-out could begin by 2004." Fithian's comments came as Texas Instruments Inc, privately held Dolby Laboratories and other technology vendors announced that they had created a new trade group, the Digital Cinema Providers Group, to promote that commercial effort. Peter Nicholas, sales director for equipment maker Digital Projection, said he sees substantive contracts for digital cinema being announced in 2004 "at the latest." The country's biggest theater chain, Regal Entertainment Group has already begun installing a lower-end digital system that is seen as an important test of new types of pre-movie advertising and alternative uses of digitally equipped theaters. For example, the installation of digital video servers in theaters opens the way for advertisers to court regional markets with trailers. It also opens the market to local sponsors shut out of the market because of the high cost of developing a filmed advertisement, analysts have said. If the nation's roughly 6,000 U.S. theaters are plugged in to a digital delivery network, it also opens up the prospect of using some of them for events other than movies. On Tuesday night, Regal's CineMedia unit beamed a live concert by rock band Third Day via satellite into theaters in nine U.S. cities. A CineMedia spokeswoman said the Third Day show boosted theater occupancy by nine times over normal Tuesday movies. "I hope, and think, that these two parallel paths we're on -- us and the studios -- meet in the near future," said Kurt Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Regal CineMedia. All that comes as welcome news for the likes of Boeing Co , Texas Instruments and more recently Eastman Kodak which for the past several years have tried to convince theater owners to install the digital projectors and companion computer networks in their theaters. The companies' efforts were stymied, however, by factors that include the lack of technological standards for equipment and the question of who would pay the $100,000 to $150,000 per screen to install the systems. On the technology front, theater owners, Hollywood studios and equipment manufacturers are all working to devise a set of standards for making systems acceptable to all parties, so the industry does not end up having to install different digital systems for all its theaters, like it does with digital audio. Another issue may have been settled with the introduction of a new "2K" microchip by Texas Instruments that seems to have answered questions on whether the on-screen picture from digital projection is far better than 35-millimeter film. Late Tuesday, Walt Disney Co. and Pixar Animation Studios Inc. unveiled their upcoming animated movie "Finding Nemo" on a projection system using the 2K chip. Finally, on the subject of cost, executives at ShoWest said several companies are now offering workable plans to split the cost of rolling out digital systems among the theater owners and studios. The latter stand to reap the biggest short-term benefit in reduced costs as the cost of printing films for distribution falls, analysts have said. Reuters/Variety