Dolby Announces More Than 500 Successful Digital Cinema Screenings

Seven Major Motion Pictures Mastered In DCI-Specified MXF File Format

17-Dec-04

Dolby announced today that it has made significant accomplishments this year in digital cinema, having successfully completed more than 500 DolbyÆ Digital Cinema presentations at multiple commercial theaters in the Bay Area. Dolby Digital Cinema is the companyís implementation of the Digital Cinema Initiativesí (DCI) specification. The company also announced that it has now mastered seven feature films in the DCI-specified MXF file format. During the last quarter of 2004, Dolby conducted demonstrations of its Dolby Digital Cinema system to major studios and exhibitors. At the same time, multiple beta sites were installed close to Dolby headquarters in San Francisco. Dolbyís system was used to screen the DCI Standard Evaluation Material (StEM) at CineAsia this week.Dolby continues to lead initiatives within the motion picture industry designed to facilitate the implementation of digital cinema in theaters across the globe, as well as to ensure that vendors abide by DCI specifications for interoperability. To that end, Dolby has been actively involved in the MPEG interoperability initiative, which has the goal of ensuring that all vendors are MXF capable by the first quarter of 2005. The MXF file format was established as an industry standard, set forth by DCI for mastering digital films. Dolby is the first vendor to date that can play movies in this format. Also part of digital cinema is the image compression component of digitally mastering films. Recently, Dolby compressed seven major feature films for digital cinema presentation, including The Incredibles, The Polar Express, Alexander, Shark Tale, Oceanís 12, THX 1138, and the upcoming The Phantom of the Opera.ìWeíre extremely pleased with the advancements Dolby has made this year for digital cinema,î said Tim Partridge, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Professional Division, Dolby Laboratories. ìAs a leading proponent of the DCI recommendations, weíre confident that studios, exhibitors, and audiences alike will benefit from our system, which is of extremely high quality and easy to use.