Standardization Kick Starts Digital Cinema.

DIGITAL cinematography; DIGITAL video; MOTION picture industry; STANDARDS

This article reports on the issues related to the use of Digital Cinema and the standards proposed by the Digital Cinema Initiatives LLC (DCI) as of October 2005. Techno-geeks and futurists say that digital video-based Digital Cinema is superior to today's standard film-based cinema. If the distribution of feature movies to cinemas could transition to digital video file transfers, the cost savings for Hollywood and the rest of the world's motion picture industry would be enormous--estimates vary from $900 million to $2.28 billion annually. However, in 2004 there were only 328 Digital Cinema screens worldwide. Many people attribute this lackluster performance to lack of standardization. To head off an industry-wide standards battle, many Hollywood studios banded together in March 2002 to create the DCI.