Digital Harmony Announces Special Technology Program Enabling Creativity In Future Digital Cinema Experience

Digital Harmony Technologies Inc, the leader in tested IEEE-1394 interconnectivity and interoperability in home theater consumer electronics, announced a new program to bring interconnectivity to professional digital cinema at ShoWest 2000. The program, to be called Digital Harmony Cinema, and will promote Digital Harmony's IEEE-1394 protocol suite and DHIVAô board solutions in addition to other technologies to ensure interoperability among digital cinema products. Digital Cinema, sometimes also known as D-cinema or E-cinema, represents the biggest shakeup of the cinema exhibition sector since the arrival of sound. D-Cinema enables new revenue models for replacing existing projectors and methods of content distribution in this rapidly emerging area that will affect the entire audio-visual sector. Digital Cinema is also the path for differentiating cinema from any experience that could be had in the home. From movie productions that might have different scenes with different endings all shot from different angles to movies with special effects such as those now seen only in theme parks - D-Cinema promises to be an entirely new medium. Analysts at Screen Digest (www.screendigest.com) recently predicted that world cinema box office takings will hit $20 billion by 2003. Overall, the global market prediction is for a 4.5 percent growth a year until 2003, when the market will top $20 billion for the first time in history. ""Our forecasts show that the market will indeed grow over the next five years, at a rate only marginally down from the previous five years,"" said Ben Keen, Research Director at Screen Digest, ""assuming a continuous supply of good product."" The enabling technology for handling all this new rich audio-visual content, or as Screen Digest puts it, ""good product,"" is just what the Digital Harmony Cinema Program is addressing. Possible candidates for Digital Harmony's new technology solution include digital image technologies such as DLP/DMD, GLV, and HDLV, as well as innovative laser projector technologies, telecine operations, theatre technology and end-to-end digital film projection system solutions. Michael Karagosian, a well-known industry consultant and former President of Cinema Group, Ltd., will be heading the new program. Karagosian has been working closely with the SMPTE DC28 Technology Committee for Digital Cinema to define standards for D-cinema. According to Karagosian, ""there is a tremendous need to provide interconnectivity and a common platform in the digital cinema market. By providing an OEM hardware-firmware solution to equipment makers, we hope to bring order to a situation that could otherwise adversely affect the roll-out of digital cinema."" Digital Harmony President and CEO Greg Bartlett is quick to add, ""Providing interconnectivity for digital cinema is another piece of the Digital Harmony plan for making digital technology work for everyone, especially when it can enrich the entertainment experience and enhance self expression in the studio. We are a standards-based company, and we hope to be the voice of reason enabling interoperability in an extremely proprietary world.""About Digital Harmony Technologies Digital Harmony powered the world's first multi-vendor IEEE-1394 home entertainment system in early 1999. Based in Seattle, Washington, Digital Harmony Technologies Inc. (www.digitalharmony.com) sells standard hardware/firmware modules for adding high-speed 1394 interfaces to audio/video devices (e.g., DVD players, A/V receivers, televisions, etc.) Digital Harmony is offering their interoperability technology and expertise to new applications, including production studios (Digital Harmony Studio) and cinema (Digital Harmony Cinema)