My Essay on Digital Cinema

1. Digital Cinema
Digital cinema or D cinema is defined as the use of digital technology to distribute and
project films onto cinema screens as opposed to the more traditional method manual set up
of the standardised 35mm film reels. Digital cinema has opened up a whole new world of
distribution opportunities and methods that are in most cases more cost effective than the
physical transportation of the aforementioned 35mm film reels.
These methods are things such as sending them to cinemas via the internet or specifically
designed satellite links. Furthermore, the existence of physical transportation has not come
to an end as many establishments also transport the films directly to the cinemas on storage
units such as external hard drives or optical disks like a Blu-ray disk.
Projection methods have also been digitised due to the advantages such an upgrade offers.
Digital projectors became advanced enough to overtake traditional filmbased projectors
around 2010, from which point most projectors across the world are now digital and
projecting at a standard resolution of either 2k or 4k. (a measurement of the quantity of
horizontal pixels) Such advances allows cinema screens to show movies on their screens and
largely automate themselves once started as opposed to requiring whole teams to monitor
and adjust the equipment throughout the process.
Digital cinema is not without its drawbacks however. On average a digital projector is
around ten times more expensive than a film equivalent, furthermore due to the rapid
advancement in digital filmtechnology the rate at which tech is replaced and becomes
obsolete is exponentially higher than any other instance in the history of the film industry.
This means that the equipment costs that companies have to deal with are far larger and
the tech has to be replaced often in order to keep up with their competition on a business
level. Another con of digital cinema is the fact that quick repairs in the case of a malfunction
are no longer possible due to the complexity of the tech, as evidenced by the disaster at the
New York Film Festival a few years ago wherein the scheduled screening of Brian DePalma’s
film Passion had to be cancelled due to a lockup as result of an error in the coding system;
something which drew the public ire of noted film critic Roger Egbert.
Despite these glaring issues with the technology one cannot deny its quality, especially with
the advent of 4k projection. The technologies rapid advancement is remedying more and
more of these ailments with each new leap forward in the field. Furthermore despite the
aforementioned expense of the projectors themselves their use is saving over 1 billion
dollars in distribution costs due to the fact that the distribution of a movie on film sits at
around 5 – 8 million dollars; that’s per film. Digital productions however can be stored on
off the shelf hard drive that cost around $50 or £40 each. This hard drive is often returned
to the production companies as well to be reused a number of times, further cutting costs
and resulting in the total expenditure for digital distribution being a fraction of what it is on
film. It also gives smaller filmmakers a chance to gain some degree of publicity.

2. One rising aspect of digital cinema is streaming. This is essentially the process of beginning
to view a media product before it has been fully downloaded. Two popular examples of this
are Youtube and Netflix, both of which utilise streaming via the internet in order to allow for
the viewing of their content; videos and films respectively. This method of digital
distribution is increasing in popularity rapidly as its cheap or even free to utilise and allows
an even larger opportunity for fresh talent to be noticed as they can publish their work
easily without worrying over extortionate prices.
Digital cinema had its first mass rollout in China in the June of 2005 with the ‘dms’ system
resulting in 15,000 digital screens being available across China’s 30 provinces. Later that
year the UK Film Council Digital Screen Network was established by the Arts Alliance Media
and resulted in the construction of 250 2k digital cinema screenings across the country. This
was the first mass rollout of digital screening technology to happen in Europe and it was
completed in 2006. As of a decade later in May 2016 98.2% of cinema screens worldwide
have been converted to digital technology.
In terms of manufacturers of digital projectors there are only four worldwide. They are
Sony, Barco, Christie and NEC; all of whom bar Sony, who have their own projection
technology (SXRD), use Digital Light Processing (DLP) technology for their projectors. Until
Texas Instruments 4k chip was put on the market the SXRD tech was the only DCI compliant
(anti-piracy tech and high enough technological standards to meet DCI hardware’s specs) 4k
projector technology on the market
NEc is relatively new to the market however, Christie has majority control and is the major
power in the United States whilst Barco is the predominant supplier to Asia and Europe.
The pros of digital cinema technology are numerous; third world countries have flourished
on the media stage due to no longer having the expense of celluloid filmkeeping them
down, entire sets can be digitally produced and saved for later use in either that particular
movie or even sequels, special effects are nigh limitless, distribution costs are a fraction of
what they were and filmreels do not degrade over time meaning that the premiere is of the
exact same quality as a showing several weeks later.
The negatives are less numerous but do still exist; on the spot repairs are nigh impossible,
projector costs are higher, various noted directors such as Cristopher Nolan or Quentin
Tarantino hold disdain for the technology and their image quality is only now beginning to
surpass celluloid filmquality.