The Trojan Horse

As we go to press, Christie and HP announced a major digital cinema sale of more than 4,000 projection systems and players to Regal Entertainment Group, the largest theater chain in the country.

It's not exactly what you might think. Christie did not sell 4000-plus DLP projectors, and HP has not leapfrogged the high-end wavelet and MPEG digital cinema servers with some mystery technology. The studio heads did not lose their minds (or their egos) and simply surrender to digital cinema, and the theater owners did not print money and/or emerge from bankruptcy with Trump-like huevos.

But what did happen is pretty interesting. After years of urging theater owners to think about digital cinema as more than a spectacularly expensive way to show feature films, Christie finally found a way in that doesn't depend on Hollywood films, but on the other aspects of the cinema experience. Until now, the “alternative content” aspect of digital cinema has not proven that persuasive. The idea that theater owners could make enough incremental revenue from using their digital cinema systems for non-cinema activities and content just didn't add up when the price of entry was in the six-figures.

The most obvious question went begging: what if digital projection systems weren't so expensive? What if an LCD picture were bright enough, modest bit rate MPEG files were pretty enough, and theaters could have a digital projection system for something like 10% of the cost, with satellite delivery and security and scheduling software?

No one is saying that Gangs of New York should be shown on an LCD projector. But what Christie, Regal, and HP have considered is that the pre-show material is perfect for digital projection and, in fact, could be hugely improved by it. Whether or not you think theater patrons should be advertised to or not, they already are, and in the most antiquated, technically challenged way imaginable: dreary, repetitive slideshows.

So on the one hand, Regal has opened up the possibility that the pre-show could become a new, demographically targeted medium for advertising, as well as a venue for short subjects. In addition, Regal is already enjoying some success with simulcast events during non-cinema hours; digital projection will help grow that effort. These new media should gradually become more creative now that the production and display costs have become more manageable.

The other important element of this sale is that it provides a less intimidating way for theater owners to get experience with the digital cinema infrastructure model that will eventually extend to feature films. (Already it seems possible that digital trailers delivered over satellite could happen in the nearish future.) This is a sensible way to move forward in what has always seemed an intractable situation. Studios, filmmakers, and manufacturers can continue to chip away at the myriad issues surrounding digital cinema, but theater owners can go ahead and lose the slideshows. That way, we lose at least one depressing spectacle.