Films go digital

The cost of printing on film and distributing the reels are large, the film projector mechanisms are costly to maintain and require experts to maintain. This all adds up to higher costs for cinema goers and less profits for the film makers. Some cinemas such as the one in Leicester square have been digital for some time now but the films are still "printed" onto a hard disk rather than a film and distributed physically. Approximately 7% of the cinemas in the US have digital projection.

Given the improvements in networking recently this old style process could be a thing of the past. In a collaboration between several distributors and cinemas the idea of sending films over the wire. The Digital Cinema Implementation Partners believe that they will be able in increase the flexibility of cinemas and provide greater supply for hit films and for niche films to have short runs at no additional cost.

In the home video market there are plans too with the DVD Forum in Tokyo approving the CSS Managed Recording Specification. This technolgy would initially allow kiosks and shops to download and burn DVDs on demand for playback at home. It is believed that the new format would work with the majority of home players.

This all looks very promising but Peter Broderick a consultant from Paradigm thinks that the cinemas need to Rethink Film Distribution completely.