No one is better positioned to lead the charge in the D-cinema revolution now underway in the U.S. than Christie Digital Systems.

The Kitchener, ON-based techco has already inked deals to provide its digital projection systems to the likes of Carmike – which operates more than 2,000 theaters in the southern U.S. – and regional American indie chains UltraStar and Emagine, as well as 67 of Galaxy Cinemas’ screens in California, Washington, Texas and Nevada.

‘This is a big story for us – and I think the country – because we’re talking about building a few hundred million dollars worth of projectors here in Kitchener,’ says Gerry Remers, president of Christie.

In order to facilitate the D-cinema deployment, Christie aligned itself with New Jersey’s Access IT (AIX), leaders in the file-delivery business, to form Christie/AIX. The joint venture recently secured a commitment from GE Commercial Finance’s Global Media & Communications for a US$217-million senior credit facility to help with their proposed 4,000-screen rollout. The move creates a third-party facilitator between distributors and exhibitors that will bear the capital costs of going digital.

The Christie model, rubberstamped by the major studios, has the manufacturer financing and installing the necessary digital equipment. The movie studios will then pay Christie/AIX a virtual print fee of approximately US$1,000 – likely half of what they’d pay for a release print – for every screen a particular movie title plays on, via cyberspace delivery and a Christie projector.

Over the last year, D-cinema has accelerated due to a convergence of Hollywood’s major studios – Disney, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. – into an entity called Digital Cinema Initiatives. The collective had enough clout and cost-saving incentive to jointly issue a white paper on industry standards last July. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers is now voting on the final standards, which are based on the 2K-resolution specification delivered by DCI.

Several of this summer’s biggest titles include a digital release component, such as Disney’s The Wild, Fox’s The Sentinel, Paramount’s Mission: Impossible III and Warner’s Poseidon. And D-cinema is spreading around the world: Fox recently beamed Ice Age: The Meltdown to a Denmark theater in the JPEG2000 format, marking the studio’s first international virtual release.

Locally, Cineplex Entertainment, which controls 64% of the Canadian theatrical market, was unavailable for comment on its D-cinema plans, but it already owns six digitally equipped theaters. It’s unknown whether they are DCI-compliant.

‘DCI reaching consensus, completing the key testing, and publishing the specification is a significant breakthrough – it shows that the studios themselves agree [on digital cinema],’ says Charles Swartz, co-organizer with SMPTE of the NAB Digital Cinema Summit, and executive director of the Entertainment Technology Center at USC, which is helping to test the new technologies through a digital cinema laboratory partially sponsored by the major studios.

Tony Rhead, Carmike’s senior VP, entertainment and digital, agrees, adding that his company has its reasons for opting for Christie over competitors such as Barco and NEC.

‘They were ready to go, while some of the others wanted to do some tests,’ he says. ‘There’s going to be a limit to the amount of projectors that are available over the next two to five years. They can’t mass-produce [them], because the grinding of the lens takes so long. I think that maybe we’ll be lucky to see 10,000 [digital] screens in the next four years,’ he says.

Christie is in the pole position because, unlike many of its competitors, it offers a complete D-cinema package, including projector, delivery mechanism, and on-site servicing. Technicolor does not manufacture projectors but is a major player with its content delivery package, and Sony, with its highly touted SXRD 4K projector, is a dark horse. However, acceptance of the SXRD would require amending the DCI specs to include the higher 4K resolution.

Christie has already installed D-cinema systems in 39 states, and has completed the rollout for nearly 180 screens. It has also benefited from international acceptance of the DCI specs, and has delivered 63 digital systems to Germany in partnership with XDC and Film Ton Technik, which leaves Christie’s Remers looking to increase his production capacity.

‘We’re looking at a European rollout as well as an Asian one,’ he explains. ‘The next major landmark on the sales side would be developing some sort of relationship with National CineMedia in the States and in Canada with Cineplex, because these two entities haven’t identified a partner. So we’re going to be negotiating with them.’

Meanwhile, Rhead is bullish about Carmike being the world’s first major circuit to start replacing its 35mm projectors.

‘I talked to all of the studio heads before we made this decision,’ he says. ‘The contract that they have with Christie is that they’ll do 75% of their wide releases this year [in digital] and then go to 85% next year.’

As for Carmike’s plans specifically, Rhead says the exhibitor will go completely digital in half of its theaters within two years. He predicts it will be about 10 years before 35mm projection completely disappears.

www.christiedigital.com

www.carmike.com