Kodak sees digital as key to a new cinema
By Ben Rand
Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle
Eastman Kodak, its partners and competitors are actively pushing the idea of turning the local multiplex into a bustling entertainment center showing more than just movies. The key: new digital technology that offers high-quality, big-screen projection — primarily for movies but also for concerts, sporting events, Broadway musicals, even corporate meetings.
Imagine taking your family to see a live performance of the stage version of Disney's "The Lion King," with images displayed on a 50-foot screen with Dolby surround sound. How much would you pay?
To woo the hip crowd, theaters could premiere the latest Alien Ant Farm or Linkin Park music videos. To lure investors, they could show a company's faraway annual meeting. Industry leaders say such possibilities just scratch the surface.
Alternative uses of theaters will become important as Kodak and others prepare to roll out projection systems that will read and transfer digital content from satellites, fiber-optics, DVD or other computer media to participating big screens.
The systems will give consumers another prospect for their entertainment dollars, help movie chains fill more seats more often, and dramatically reduce the costs of taking a film from sound stage to big screen.
Kodak intends to offer theaters a "system" next year that begins with the film in the cinematographer's camera, extends into the post-production lab for inserting digital special effects and ends with scheduling software and a digital projector at the theater.
Digital quality improving
Showing alternative programming is just the "icing on the cake," said Bob Mayson, general manager of digital systems in Kodak's century-old entertainment imaging unit. The new systems are intended primarily to upgrade the moviegoing experience by replacing film in the projection booth.
The main advantage to such a switch: more consistency. Digital movies, like George Lucas' "Star Wars," don't wear out late in a run like film, which becomes susceptible to scratches and other defects that can mar its visual quality, experts say.
Over the long term, Mayson said, digitally projected movies will surpass the image quality of motion picture film, which was pioneered more than a century ago by George Eastman.
Digital projection also provides a host of behind-the-scenes advantages for the movie industry. For example, studios and theater owners spend an estimated $2 billion a year to make and deliver prints from the lab to the big screen. Digital distribution costs about 75 percent less.
Digital projection also allows unprecedented flexibility in theater management. Chains can change movies, trailers, pre-show entertainment, advertisements and more from a central computer.
It's happening now
Consumers are most likely to notice the arrival of digital cinema once multiplexes regularly start promoting alternative programming. In some locations, that's already happening.
Wrestling fans across Canada, for example, have been able to watch live World Wrestling Entertainment events for two years on movie screens operated by Famous Players Inc. of Toronto.
The 800-screen movie theater chain started showing WWE once a month as a pilot program to see if alternative programming would fly, spokesman Joanne Fraser said. Famous Players also opens its doors to schools, corporations and other groups during the day.
The encouraging sign: The WWE events are sold out. Fans are more than willing to pay $18.93 a seat for an event they could get for free at home, Fraser said. "It's turned into a very popular program."
In the United States, some companies are starting businesses based exclusively on showing alternative content. Broadway Television Network Inc. wants to put cameras in Broadway theaters and broadcast shows live to movie theaters as well as over the Internet or on television through pay-per-view and video-on-demand.
