Pictured, Left to Right: Neil Feldman, Frank Striling

Gwendal Auffret with SMPTE President Ed Hobson (seated)

Day One of the DCS: Gwendal Auffret on the European Rollout
World Enteractive web article, April 2005
Photos and article By Joseph L. Kleiman

LAS VEGAS -- Today, SMPTE, along with the Entertainment Technology Center at USC and the National Association of Broadcasters, presented day one of the fourth annual Digital Cinema Summit. Held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the event was the largest yet, with 500 primarily engineers and technicians in the broadcast and cinema industries in attendance. Geared towards these attendees, today’s event started with an outline of the specs developed by the Digital Cinema Initiative, the entity created by the seven major studios to establish a standard for digital cinema product and distribution. Throughout the day members of SMPTE’s DC28 Committee on Digital Cinema presented their reports on various aspects of SMPTE’s standards for digital cinema.

As a reflection of large format cinema’s growing releationship with digital production, post-production, and exhibition, a number of current and former board members of the Large Format Cinema Association were in attendance, including Chris Reyna, Co-founder of the LFCA and its first President; Robert Dennis, another former President of the LFCA, and current Executive Director, Sales for Technicolor/CFI; Eastman Kodak’s Bev Pasterczyk, the LFCA’s current treasurer; and current LFCA board member David Keighly, Senior Vice President of Imax Corporation, and President of IMAX subsidiary DKP/70mm along with his wife Patricia. A large number of current and upcoming digital cinema pioneers were also present as well. We met briefly with In-Three Vice President Neil Feldman, along with Frank Striling, the former Executive Director of Boeing Digital Cinema, who has big plans for his new venture, Breakpoint Digital. (Both gentlemen and their companies will be profiled by us in the near future.)

This afternoon, Gwendal Auffret looked at the European market and its reaction to digital cinema rollout and standards. He mentioned that e-cinema is used for digital films in some rural markets, but is primarily used in Europe for advertising. The advent of d-cinema is here, and he believes that the number of screens to be converted in Italy will amount to 250, not the currently published count of 50. Auffret pointed out that there are a number attributes uniquely defining the European market:

· powerful, vertically integrated media groups

· 400 distributors

· state regulation and subsidies

· d-cinema being considered both a challenge and a threat to local culture.

Auffret argued that the key to the European issue is for four main groups to understand the importance of digital cinema standards. The first group, comprised of exhibitors holds issues which include:

· Who and what is SMPTE?

· Why do we even need a standard?

· Do we really need that (US) standard?

· The Security standards give American studios more control.

· Who is validating that I meet the standards?

The issue of the second group, distributors, is inherent in the fact that Europe is a fragmented market, comprised of distribution by the major Hollywood studios, distribution of mainstream national films, and distribution of art-house national films.

The questions faced by the third group, post production houses and labs, are augmented by the fact that many companies invested in the wrong digital technologies and, therefore, became defunct. As a result, the questions they must face include:

· Is digital cinema finally here?

· Is this the final standard?

· Are we going to make a living doing this?

· If not, are we going to be replaced by the technology manufacturers?

Public institutions, the final group Auffret defines, has issues based on national considerations. They need to balance their need to help digital cinema, and this needs to uphold their country’s political practices. This need to consider the national opinion of a business decision results from a common misunderstanding in Europe on digital cinema: the mistaken belief that the Hollywood studios have a “hidden agenda” to gain more control of cinema programming. Public institutions feel that Europe should have its own standard, independent of Hollywood’s current high digital standard. Since they consider the DCI/SMPTE standards too costly to implement, they believe they can ignore digital cinema standardization.

After delineating the difficulty convincing Europe on digital cinema, Auffret explored the issues in more detail. Using France as an example, Affraut showed where a percentage of ticket sales are reinvested by the government to help exhibitors purchase new equipment. This plan, however, is poorly implemented. Affraut believes for digital conditions to improve there needs to be a single standard for all types of movies. He points to the new norm led by CST at AFNOR as a valid practice. If a theater applies the DCI/SMPTE specs, it is French norm compliant and, therefore can apply for state subsidation.

So what’s needed to implement digital cinema successfully in Europe? Auffret indicates there needs to be communication among the four groups as regarding the goals of SMPTE standards. Included in these goals are an industry standard, the quality of the cinema experience, open architecture, worldwide circulation, and no impact on current business relations. Additionally, work-flow tests are needed to turn theory into reality, especially with the transoceanic transmission of digital programming. Finally, a certification entity in Europe – for the whole continent, not nation by nation – needs to be created. Once these issues are resolved, Europe should be able to easily transition into a digital cinema powerhouse.