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Hollywood Agrees On Digital Standard Los Angeles July 28, 2005
Hollywood's top film studios have agreed on a long-awaited and crucial technical standard that
clears the way for a new era of digital film distribution, officials have announced.
The accord, reached after three years of bitter wrangling within the film industry, marks a crucial
milestone in the evolution of cinema from celluloid reels to high-definition digital movies that can
be piped directly into theatres.
The agreement sets uniform specifications for projectors that film theatres would use to show
high-quality digital films in neighbourhood film theatres, allowing the new medium to flourish.
It was unveiled by Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), a joint venture set up in 2002 by the Disney,
Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Brothers studios to establish vol-
untary specifications for a digital cinema standard.
"We now have a unified specification that will allow manufacturers to create products that will be
employable at movie theatres throughout the country and, it is hoped, throughout the world,"
said DCI technology officer Walt Ordway.
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"In fact, the specification is being translated for international markets," he said of the accord that
studios, theatre operators and other sectors of the industry battled for years to refine.
"Hallelujah - It's about time!" commented famed Hollywood director Robert Zemeckis whose 2004
movie was filmed in digital format.
A remaining stumbling block to digital projectors reaching local cinemas is the debate over wheth-
er film studios or theatre owners will foot the bill for the extremely costly digital projection gear.
"These specifications should provide a common ground to spur innovation and encourage many
more players who were previously resistant to invest capital in technology that may or may not
have been viable," said Mr Ordway.
As the market gets more competitive, the price of the equipment and its installation should drop
to the point "where that stumbling block should no longer be of consequence," he said.
The major film studios represented by DCI, notably Warner Brother, hailed the new standard and
announced plans to begin releasing feature films in the designated digital format.
A global digital film standard was "essential" for the film industry to thrive, said Fox executives
Paul Hanneman and Bruce Snyder in a statement.
Experts said the standardised format would help Hollywood, which is battling flagging audience
numbers and ticket sales, compete with other media, including DVDs and the internet by boosting
the visual quality of films.
"The film-going experience is a special one, but in order to continue drawing large audiences,
theatres must outpace competing media," said Charles Swartz of the University of Southern Cali-
fornia's Entertainment Technology Centre.
John Fithian, president of the National Organisation of Theatre Owners (NATO), described the
digital standard as "an important step toward making digital cinema a reality."
The new standard was also hailed by film-making titans George Lucas and Rick McCallum, who
pioneered digital theatrical projection with the release of
in 2002.
It marks "a giant leap forward for those of us who create movies and, perhaps more importantly,
for everyone who sees them," the pair said in a statement.
The "Star Wars" producers said they had been advocating a digital film standard for a decade,
and "this is a day we have long hoped would come."
Standardised digital theatre equipment is as important to the film industry as digital video discs
were for the home video industry, said director John Lasseter of Pixar Animation Stu-
dios.
Digital screening of films avoids the wear commonplace with traditional film and results in the
final screening of a movie being "as pristine as the first," Lasseter said.
"Digital cinema will revolutionise the cinematic experience for moviegoers around the world," well-
known directors Jim Cameron, of fame, and Jon Landau said.

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