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| Digital dividend? Don’t make me laugh! | | ||||||||||
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| Along with most independent exhibitors, I am on the receiving end of growing pressure to embrace digital cinema technology, the latest turning of the digi-screw being the end tagging of trailers with the wording “In 3D at selected cinemas”. As a member of the Cinema Exhibitors Association (CEA), I continue to support the association’s position — to welcome digital projection and to find an equitable way of financing its introduction. We recognise that most of the financial benefit will accrue to distributors, who should therefore find most of the capital costs. The CEA also believes that the transition should be undertaken on a commercial basis, without undue recourse to the public purse. I am not a technical person, however here are the facts as I see them. An ordinary digital (non-cinema) projector will cost from £2,000-3,000 at the bottom of the range, to about £15-20,000 at the high end — this higher priced kit being the kind of projector you will see at the best conference venues. The difference in image quality between these readily available conference projectors and the official cinema machines can hardly be measured. So the question is, why do cinema projectors cost three times as much? The digital machines which are currently available are based on a chip developed by Texas Instruments, a company which has licensed a tiny number of manufacturers to produce and market them. To my mind these projectors are clearly overpriced and it will not be possible to get a deal with film distributors until an affordable machine is available — and that can only be achieved when there is a truly competitive market to supply. The introduction of public or Lottery funding at this stage will be counter productive, it would create an impression that the industry believes that the equipment prices are fair, that the maintenance and service contracts are reasonable, and that the depreciation period of ten years is affordable, none of which is true. In the Lincolnshire town of Cleethorpes my company operates a nine-screen multiplex cinema, in which we have as part of the UK Film Council Digital Screen Network, one digital projector. This machine delivers a brilliant, sharp, rock-steady picture, which is absolutely unequalled by anything except, of course, the other nine 35mm film projectors. Setting aside the implication that I am to write-off the value of the 35mm machines or the counter argument about the added value of alternative content for digital projection, the fact remains that our core business is the screening of new motion pictures to the cinemagoing public and the digi-mafia has yet to make a commercial offer which I can’t refuse. Gerald Parkes is managing director of Parkway Entertainment Company Limited. | | ||||||||||
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