International Edition No. 14 - year 2 - 4 January 2007

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From 28 March to 1st April 2007 MEDIA Salles will be organising the fourth edition of “DigiTraining Plus: New Technologies for European Cinemas”, the course on digital projection for European exhibitors.

This is the first and only training initiative in the EU’s MEDIA Programme to deal with the topic of the new technologies from the theatres’ point of view. For 2007 the collaboration between MEDIA Salles and Barco, the leading European producer of digital projectors, is once again confirmed.
The course will be held in Belgium at the Barco headquarters situated in Kuurne, an industrial suburb of Courtrai, not far from cinema complexes that were amongst the first to try out digital screening, like the Kinepolis cinemas in Courtrai and in Lille (France), as well as Cityscoop in Roeselare, pioneers in the offer of digital screens for business-to-business events.
Visits to cinemas equipped with digital projectors are one of the components of the course, which is based on alternating theoretical lessons and group work, as well as more practical sessions devoted to hands-on experience with projectors and servers. As regards content, alongside an overview of digital exhibition in Europe and worldwide, comes a closer look at 3-D cinema and its potential, as well as the more recent experiences of European exhibitors faced with technological and commercial issues deriving from the adoption of digital technology, and an exchange of opinions with experts from the world of finance on ways to intervene in favour of the digital transition.

To download the course application form, click here

 

WOMEN IN DIGITAL
Alléne Hébert
Digital Cinema Consulting & Projects
Barcelona, Spain

Digital cinema is an emerging field often compared to a steamroller: slow to start but impossible to avoid! Following somewhat the legacy of television, the silver screen will one day make the transition from analogue to digital. Replacing film – a robust, standardized, century-old technology – is a complex process. With this transition, cinema professionals, distributors, exhibitors and audiences expect a quality level and efficiency that is equal to or surpasses what currently exists.

click here to see the whole article

MEDIA Salles,
the initiative on behalf of European cinemas, with the support of the MEDIA Programme and the Italian Government, is promoting the fourth edition of the exhibitor training course:

“DigiTraining Plus: New Technologies
for European Cinemas”

Kuurne, Belgium
28 March – 1st April 2007

in collaboration with

to be held at Barco headquarters

Main topics
The present state of the European and international market for digital screening
Overview of technologies
Exhibition and Distribution
Digital Cinema economics
Market potential
E-cinema – D-cinema – 3-D Cinema

The course will also offer
Visit to a cinema equipped with digital projector
European case studies

Lessons will be held in English.

Deadline for enrolments: 23 February 2007

Course participation fee
(covering tuition, teaching material, accommodation and meals):
500 euro
, for enrolments made by 23 February 2007.
600 euro, for enrolments after the deadline (according to availability of places).

For participants from areas near Kortrijk/Courtrai who do not need hotel accommodation a limited number of places is foreseen at a cost of 150 euro (covering tuition, teaching material and meals only)
 
A restricted number of scholarships are available.

The training initiatives promoted by MEDIA Salles are open to professionals from countries belonging to the MEDIA Programme.

For further information, please contact the MEDIA Salles’ offices (Tel.: +39.02.66984405, e-mail: infocinema@mediasalles.it) or visit the website www.mediasalles.it

 
In the first six months of 2006 the number of digital screens has more than doubled
by Elisabetta Brunella, Secretary General of MEDIA Salles

This is what emerges from the large section devoted to the new technologies in the MEDIA Salles’ “European Cinema Yearbook”, presented in Rome during Eurovisioni, at an event that also celebrated the Association’s fifteenth anniversary.
By June 2006 the number of screens offering their spectators a digital experience had grown to 1,354: an increase touching on 130% compared to December 2005, when 591 screens had adopted DLP CinemaTM.
The last six months have seen North America – and in particular the United States – make a leap forward, coming to represent over 56% of the world’s digital cinemas, with 763 units. That this is no longer an experimental phase is demonstrated by the fact that several chains, both large-sized and “up-market”, have chosen the 100% digital option. By offering its audiences a “pure digital experience” in as many as 94 theatres, UltraStar, a circuit with 102 screens in California, intends to consolidate its image as an avant-garde “boutique”. A giant, like Carmike – the third largest US circuit with 2,469 screens – has ordered 2,300 digital projectors and already boasts complexes that are 100% digital. “Watching a film with DLP CinemaTM technology is the nearest thing to watching real life”, claims Dale Hurst, Marketing Manager of Carmike. And many of his colleagues worldwide must be thinking the same thing: though at a far slower rate than the United States, Oceania, Europe and Asia have also seen an increase of 30% – 50%, according to the country, in installations of digital equipment in the first half of 2006.

Digital screens in Austria as at 30/06/2006:
17 projectors DLP CinemaTM

click here to see the table

 
Cinemeccanica extends its decades of experience at the service of cinema exhibitors to the field of digital projection

Vittore Nicelli,
Managing Director of Cinemeccanica, Milan

Cinemeccanica, a world leader in the production of analogical projectors, began to supply digital projectors with DLP CinemaTM technology in 2005.
This new phase in the history of a company that has been operating in Milan, Italy, since 1920 began right there in the capital of Lombardy where, on 15 January 2005, the first CMC-D2 digital projector was installed in the Cinema Manzoni, followed shortly afterwards by the one destined for the Apollo, fresh from a radical transformation which had made it into an avant-garde urban miniplex. From this moment onwards, Cinemeccanica received a series of orders from various European countries.
Among these countries is France, where the first clients include both a chain, like Gaumont (the Marignan, in Paris, has a CMC3-D2 projector and a CMC-D2), and an independent theatre like the Cinéma Le Paris of Forbach. In the second semester of 2006 a digital projector was delivered to a venue as famous as the Rex in Paris.
Italy and France have been joined by other large markets such as Spain, starting with UIP in Madrid, and the United Kingdom (there are two Cinemeccanica digital projectors in the prestigious Odeon Leicester) and by a tiny but dynamic market such as that in Iceland, where 3 projectors have been installed in Reykjavik by the Samfilm Group. Outside Europe the first installation was in Colombia.

Appreciation for the Cinemeccanica digital projectors seems to be confirmed by the fact that, after an initial order, “early adopters” such as the Furlan and Giometti Groups, in Italy, have purchased a considerable series of digital projectors: respectively a total of 8 installed in the cinemas of North-Eastern Italy and 10 in the theatres of the Central Adriatic area.
“Our strength lies in a knowledge of the exhibitors’ demands and in the trust we have built up over 86 years operating all over the world. Companies that shift to the new experience of digital projection want to be able to count on a partner they trust”: this is how Vittore Nicelli, Managing Director of Cinemeccanica, commented on the positive start of the digital adventure from Venice, where Cinemeccanica provided two digital projectors in the Sala Grande and the Sala Perla theatres for the 63rd International Film Festival, confirming their partnership with leading world cinema events from ShoWest to the Locarno Festival.

To read the full article and the technical specifications of the Cinemeccanica digital projectors, click here.