Digital Cinema Age Awaits Studio, Theatre Debate On Cost

Crisp, clean digital projection is ready and waiting to replace the pops, crackles and scratches of film technology that has been used for a century at movie houses. The question is who will pay potentially billions of dollars to make the switch, Hollywood studios or theatre owners. Texas Instruments, which has emerged as the leader in the new projection method, demonstrated its digital light processing system Thursday to cinema operators at their ShoWest trade convention, showing digital clips of such movies as ""American Beauty,"" ""Sleepy Hollow"" and ""The Insider."" At $100,000 or more for a digital projector, the cost would approach $4 billion in the United States alone to install digital systems for the nation's 37,000 cinema screens. Traditional film projectors typically cost $25,000 to $30,000. Studios stand to save small fortunes on digital releases. They now spend millions to make 2,000 to 3,000 film prints of major movies and send them to theatres. ""Right now, you've got these massive wheels of film being spun off, put on trucks and shipped around the world,"" said Michael Mooney, Director of Digital Cinema for Christie Inc., a projector manufacturer that demonstrated its digital systems using Texas Instruments technology at ShoWest. ""It's not cheap."" With digital projection, the movies can be shown off digital tape or video discs or even beamed by satellite right to the cinema. The image is projected on screen by light reflected off nearly 4 million microscopic mirrors. The digital images compared well in a side-by-side comparison with film, producing sharp pictures and vibrant colors, though some darker scenes were noticeably more obscure on the digital side than film. Certain colors, such as red and green, were clearly richer on the digital side for clips from ""Toy Story 2"" and ""Snow Falling on Cedars."" Texas Instruments Engineer Frank Paradish said the company eventually expects to produce digital images far superior to film quality. The digital images now are generally as good as film, with the added benefit that digital projection will not show the wear and tear of film prints, he said. ""You get scratches and flickers on film, especially when it's been playing a few weeks,"" he said. ""Digital is just rock stable and clean from the first time you show it to the last."" Movie houses balk at the expense of refitting their theatres with new projectors, especially since the studios would stand to benefit at the cinemas' expense. ""It would be tough for us to pay for because we're building right now,"" said Herman Stone, President of Consolidated Theatres, which operates about 120 cinema screens in the southeast US and plans to add 100 more. ""The economy of savings is with the distributors. If we can do it in a partnership with them, that's how it'll work out."" Theatre chains, burdened by heavy debt from a cinema construction boom in the 1990s, say studios will have to bear most if not all the cost of switching to digital. ""The bottom line is we cannot finance this transition right now,"" said John Fithian, President of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO). ""Our focus is on our new theatres."" Phil Barlow, Executive President of Disney's film group and a company leader on the digital changeover, said he expects Hollywood will develop some way to share in the costs. ""I can't believe the industry that calls itself the motion-picture industry wouldn't be interested in improving the quality of the motion picture,"" Barlow said. ""It's impossible to me to conceive that we won't find a way to embrace this and to pay for it."" George Lucas' ""Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace"" was the first feature film projected digitally at four theatres last year. Disney quickly followed with limited digital engagements of ""Tarzan,"" ""Toy Story 2"" and ""Bicentennial Man."" Prototype digital projectors are in place at 18 cinemas worldwide, awaiting more movies in the new format, such as Disney's ""Mission To Mars,"" whose opening this weekend will include digital versions at a dozen theatres. Theatre owners, studios and projection companies generally agree that digital projection will largely replace film, though the two systems are expected to co-exist for decades. Industry executives say it probably will be at least two or three years before a substantial number of digital projectors are in use. ""When it's been properly transferred from film, there's no doubt the image exceeds what Joe Consumer sees in their local theatre now,"" said Mike Levi, President of Digital Projection Inc., which demonstrated its projectors at ShoWest. ""Most people who see it walk out asking why it isn't already in theatres.""