Big D-Cinema Win for Sony Electronics and 4K

AMC has signed a $315 million deal with Sony to deploy 4K digital cinema projectors in the U.S.

"Digital cinema gives us a huge opportunity to do 3-D, live broadcasts and playback of live events," AMC exec Frank Rash tells the New York Times.

Variety notes that AMC already has 150 of the Sony SXRD digital projectors in its theatres, 29 of which also are outfitted with the RealD system for playing 3-D content.

AMC's initial deal with Sony for 4K projectors happened back in 2007. Installation of this new batch will start soon, and continue through 2012.

One question I have: wasn't Digital Cinema Implementation Partners formed specifically to handle these kinds of deals for AMC, Regal, and Cinemark? Where were they?

Credit Crunch Will Slow D Cinema Roll-Out

You had to know this was coming:

...Regal Entertainment Group CEO Mike Campbell said Thursday a $1 billion industry digital upgrade [to digital cinema] could be delayed.

"We believe, and JP Morgan believes, that it will get financed once the market returns to something that is reasonably normal," Campbell said. "We're going to continue to put together the pieces behind the scenes to be in a position to react."

Regal, of course, is the country's biggest theater chain, and part of the Digital Cinema Implementation Partners joint initiative with several other big chains.

Wednesday News: D Cinema Deal ... RealNetworks Lawsuit ... New Video Annotation Site ... Netflix Adds Starz Movies

- More digital projection systems will show up in multi-plexes, now that several major studios have signed up to help finance them, according to Variety. (Good thing that Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, the group representing the three biggest theater chains, lined up $1 billion in financing for the gear earlier this year, before the credit markets locked up.) The deal will convert about 15,000 screens over the next three to four years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

- You shouldn't be able to buy a $30 software program from RealNetworks to help you rip DVDs, because that's bad. If you want a movie in digital form, you should instead wait until the studio decides to sell that movie in digital form. That's the upshot of a lawsuit filed yesterday against RealNetworks.

- ved.io is a cool new site with a terrible name that allows you to annotate your videos with text, links, and photos. Check out some of the annotations they've done of the first Presidential debate -- really neat stuff.

- Netflix will soon add about 2500 movies from Starz Entertainment to its Internet streaming service, reports the Journal. This is a big deal, giving Netflix lots of recent titles. Nick Wingfield writes:

Under the deal, which is expected to be announced Wednesday, Starz will grant Netflix rights to show movies on its Internet service from the Hollywood studios owned by two big entertainment companies, Disney and Sony Corp. That includes everything from "Ratatouille" to "Superbad" to "No Country for Old Men." The first 1,000 of those videos are already available on the Netflix Web site with more titles appearing in the coming weeks.

Starz holds online viewing rights to movies from those studios that are shown as part of a subscription service, in which a consumer pays a monthly fee to watch as many videos as they wish. The movies will be available online free to people who are members of one of Netflix's unlimited subscription plans, which start at $8.99 a month.

Technicolor Article in Business Week

I wrote about Technicolor's digital cinema strategy in the current issue of Business Week.

From the piece:

The shift from film to digital will be a crucial test for Technicolor, a storied Hollywood name that invented the cameras, lenses, and film-processing techniques that made possible classics like The Wizard of Oz. In time, all theaters will likely get their movies in electronic bits, beamed via satellite, stored in a theater's computer servers, and shown with high-resolution digital projectors. That will cut out the current process of making 60 pounds of film and shipping it to multiplexes in battered metal cans. Technicolor is the world's biggest supplier and distributor of those film prints, with a revenue stream estimated to be worth about $900 million by Screen Digest, a London research firm. That business is expected to vanish slowly over the next decade, which is why the company is so focused on making the transition to digital.

But Technicolor, which was bought in 2000 by Thomson (TMS ) of France for $2.1 billion, is up against an aggressive new entrant, Access Integrated Technologies (AccessIT), as well as Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (DCIP), a joint venture of the three biggest theater chains, Regal Entertainment (RGC ), AMC Theatres, and Cinemark (CNK ). This summer could be the tipping point in the digital transition, as the number of U.S. theaters capable of showing movies in digital form finally exceeds 10% of the 35,000 U.S. screens.

This was originally a longer piece that got a bit more into the nuances of digital cinema financing, and I plan to post that version here in a week or so, once the Business Week story has had its run.

But here are some of the interesting issues that I touch on (and a few I don't) in this shorter piece:

- AccessIT has been the most aggressive player, in terms of outfitting screens for digital cinema
- But Digital Cinema Implementation Partners will decide what equipment gets installed in 14,300 screens owned by Regal Entertainment, AMC Theatres, and Cinemark; that company could choose to work with Technicolor, AccessIT, or do its own thing
- So far, many digital releases have been delivered via hard drive to theaters. But AccessIT CEO Bud Mayo says his company is already delivering about 60 percent of its content via satellite, and plans to be at 100 percent before 2007 is out.
- Most theater chains pay a portion of the cost of the digital cinema equipment that gets installed, but some are still taking a hard line about not paying anything. National Amusements president Shari Redstone told me that since the studios are the ones who save money, by not having to produce and ship thousands of film prints for each release, she isn’t paying anything for the 120 systems Technicolor is installing at her multiplexes during the current one-year test. “We’re not charging more for tickets, and we’re not getting any additional benefits,” Redstone says.

Clearly, it'll be a challenge to turn a profit building and operating a digital cinema network...

Monday News: Slow Going for Biggest Digital Cinema Group ... United Artists Reborn ... YouTube's Second Silent Era ... More

- The organization responsible for deploying digital cinema equipment to the biggest group of US theaters -- those owned by Regal Entertainment, AMC, and Cinemark -- has adopted a new name and announced a timeframe for conversion. The new name is Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, according to Variety, and thep plan is to start converting theaters in 2008. Ben Fritz writes, "That will put it two years behind competitors Christie/AIX and Technicolor, which already have started deploying d-cinema systems, primarily in smaller and independent exhib chains."

DCIP is now independent from National CineMedia, the public company that it was once part of. It's jointly owned by Regal, AMC, and Cinemark. Seems like a big focus for DCIP will be finding a way to allow studios to deliver movies to a theater via a number of different channels: hard drive, satellite, secure land-line, etc.

The AP also has coverage.

- MGM clearly has a PR person working overtime. The LA Times has a profile of CEO Harry Sloan, and the NY Times had a story yesterday about Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise's efforts to revive United Artists, part of MGM.

- The Wall Street Journal has a piece about silent movies getting new life on YouTube. Camille Rickets writes:

On YouTube, one user has rescored the 1902 French film "Le Voyage Dans la Lune" by Georges Méliès -- considered by many to be the first science-fiction film -- with an electronica soundtrack. A synthesized, thumping beat and keyboards accompany the story of a fantastical trip to the moon. The contemporary techno music -- which seems particularly well suited for a century-old film that imagines the future -- gives the work the feel of an abstract art piece or music video.

"Nosferatu," the 1922 Muranu vampire classic, is one of the most frequently re-scored by professionals and amateurs alike. The most interesting amateur "Nosferatu" rescoring on YouTube is a series that adds sound effects -- footfalls, a creaking coffin lid -- and a modern-classical score that includes synthesizers and the occasional electric-guitar chord. The result prompts viewers to watch the clips as they would a modern horror movie.

Here's a rescored 'A Trip to the Moon' and 'Nosferatu'.

- The LA Times calls iFilm an edited YouTube, and offers a look at how the Viacom-owned site operates.