A visit to the  “Purely digital cinema”
In its 2008 edition, DigiTraining Plus concentrates on the practical experiences of exhibitors who have adopted digital technology.

In connection with this, MEDIA Salles is particularly happy to announce a visit to the Kino Digital in Hawkhurst, Kent, UK a cinema with no 35mm projectors at all.
 
“Purely digital cinema”, is how the exhibitor, Paul Corcoran defines it and it is he who will guide participants in discovering this innovative concept. Here, he gives us some advance details of how the adventure began.

“The first Kino Digital, a single screen installation (91 seats) into a village hall in Hawkhurst, Kent, opened in mid February, 2006, almost exactly 2 years ago.

The cinema was built as a very high quality prototype, specifically to test the concept of a totally digital cinema. It has never had an analogue projector.

The architect was Stefanie Fischer of Burrell, Foley, Fischer, who has designed a number of small cinemas in the UK, and the builder and acoustic engineer was Andy Munro, one of the leading builders of sound studios and re-recording suites in England and Germany.
He has recently built the dubbing suites at both Pinewood and Shepparton Studios, and the World Service Studio for the BBC. Munro Acoustics designed and built the sound system based on Dyne Audio electronics.
The cinema has studio quality sound.

The second site, Sevenoaks, is a twin with about 110 seats in each screen. The cinemas are in a larger building which also includes two theatre spaces for live performance.
The whole building had closed before we took it over and on doing so installed one digital projector, leaving the second screen closed, in November 2006 and then installed a second digital projector in the second screen in July, 2007. Once again, there are no analogue projectors in this site.

Our company, Kino Holdings Ltd, is a commercial company set up specifically to explore the financial benefits of exhibiting films totally digitally.
This company has a number of shareholders and has financed operations and capital expenditure through a combination of debt and equity.
The projector and server at Hawkhurst, installed in February 2006, was financed by the UK Film Council Digital Screen Network.
The second and third projectors and servers, installed in Sevenoaks, were financed completely by Kino.
We are in absolutely no doubt that the increased revenue and the savings achieved by digital exhibition make such a purchase financially viable.

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