I Can See Clearly Now...

If you've been among those lucky enough to witness the emergence of quality digital projection and HD filming, it should be clear that the future is digital. The benefits in production and editing alone (especially when the increased ease of CGI is factored in) convey a strong argument for the studios.

Of course, much like all interesting things digital like VOD, VOIP and Gibson's vision of cyberspace, imminent has become five years has become ten years. However, once the varied parties find an intersection of costs and benefits, taking into account the installation costs, cheaper distribution costs and increased annual maintenance costs, we should see a faster deployment of the technology than the stalled process of today.

My guess is that the studios are gonna have to kick in. The only technology widely embraced by the theaters has been the digital projection systems used for pre-show advertising (an increasing source of revenue for theaters).

The cost of the systems must be coming down these days as CNET moves to revisit the situation in a fairly complete account of present day circumstances (see article).