Seeing green without the scratches

With a big "This is how we do it!" aimed at the one place setting digital standards for none existent equipped theaters, the Irish Film Board announced that all cinemas (British English) in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will be converted over to digital projectors that meet the standards set by Hollywood studios through their Digital Cinema Initiative (see BBC News). Converting over 515 screens is anticipated to cost approximately $100,000 per screen.

But how could they afford this? What's the business model? Why Ireland?

All very good questions that the studios are likely salivating over. As to the first, a conglomerate of venture capitalists formed Digital Cinema Limited Ireland to foot the $53.3 million price tag to install Avica Technology's digital storage servers, players and management software and projectors from NEC Electronics Corp. of Japan (see Business Week).

The business model is not entirely clear from the articles covering the news, but it does appear that studios will be providing at least one of the revenue streams in the form of "digital print fees" to be shared by Avica and the investors. This fee is in lieu of the cost of printing and transporting traditional film prints.

As to why Ireland...

"Ireland was picked as the first region to get the full digital cinema treatment because it is a manageable size and it has the second-highest level of cinema attendance in Europe, with 80 percent of its films coming from Hollywood, [Kevin] Cummins [spokesman for Avica Europe] says." (see PC World)

It is unlikely that a similar solution would be found for the 36,000 screens in the US, but, as with most new technology that is more easily deployed in foreign markets, it should provide lessons and strategies for converting US theaters.