Here come the pixels! (Slowly...)

You may be wondering why, when you can purchase a perfectly adequate digital projector for viewing DVDs at home today, your local movie theater is still running 35mm film through a big loud projector that may have been built in the early part of the 20th century. Certainly, it would cost a lot less for the film studio to send pixels down a pipe than it does for them to ship a six reel film to a depot for the theater owner to pick up. Why aren't all the movie theaters running digital projectors?

The main reason digital cinema has not been implemented widely yet is that film studios, exhibitors, and equipment manufacturers remember what it cost to get caught out using betamax video players when the vhs format became the de facto standard. So in order to arrive at a universally accepted digital cinema format, the consortium Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) was formed in 2002.

As part owner of two art cinemas here in Corvallis, the Avalon Cinema and the Darkside Cinema, I've been looking forward to the announcement that came yesterday. With the newly published specification (176 page pdf), the first concrete step has been taken in the upcoming transition from film to digital.

Several issues remain unresolved, however. Foremost, the studios don't want to pay the estimated $3 billion for theater conversion, and certainly the exhibitors are in no position to pay the cost, given the continuing slump in attendance and the big bite the studios take from each ticket sale. Additionally, security schemes (such as watermarking films to prevent piracy) could impair image quality. And network reliabilty will be an issue: if a theater is transmitting an unlock code to a film company and can't get through, what happens to that night's show?

So while the equipment manufacturers and film studios gear up, industry participants will continue working to solve these issues. But don't let that keep you at home. Traditional film, running at 24 frames per second, is still one of the most immersive, enriching experiences we can have for the comparatively low cost of a movie ticket. See a film tonight! And save some popcorn for me.

Wired News covers this story here.

The DCI press release is here.

Note: the September 2004 issue of Video Technology Magazine included a table compiled by John L. Sokol that lists all the various digital formats, including cinema, computer, TV, cell phone, and mini-LCD. (Let me know if you find one that's more current.)