Digital Cinema not only promises to revolutionize movie-viewing but also lining in moolah for the film industry including exhibitors.
What do Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Enterprises, UTV, and VSNL have in common, apart from being leading business houses in the country? All of them are bullish on Digital cinema-a technological breakthrough which promises to revolutionize the way people watch movies in cinema halls and also offers billion dollar business opportunity. Initial response in India has been quite encouraging with a host of who's who in India Inc. looking for a pie. Already, 245 cinema halls in the country have become fully digitized, with more theater-owners now willing to be a part of the revolution; 800 screens are set to be powered by this technology by the end of 2006. What is driving this revolution?
In
India, to reach maximum number of people, a new film should
be released with at least around 12,000 prints, one for each
theater. But, with each print costing about Rs. 60,000 to
Rs. 70,000, many producers in the past had to contend with
just about 200 odd prints which are released only in A-class
cinema theaters in major cities. Since the B and C markets
are small and fragmented and the prints are expensive, it
has generally been felt that these kinds of markets will not
help producers meet the production cost. As a result, these
cities have to wait for 5-8 weeks to receive worn out, sometimes
even damaged, prints which come after doing the rounds of
metros and big cities. This poses quite a number of problems:
One, for audience, movie experience is spoiled because of
the substandard presentation quality of the film; two, the
theater owner is worried about the decline in the audience
demand, which is generally high in the first few weeks of
the movie's release; three, the producer has a huge problem
on hand as the video pirates mint money by cashing in on the
time lag encountered in the release of the films in these
markets. However, all this is going to change soon with the
entry of the Digital cinema. "The Digital technology
will help in reaching those cities at the earliest possible
time and will give benefit to the exhibitors, distributors
and producers to recover money as fast as possible, and will
also help in curbing the piracy" concurs Sushil Kumar
Agarwal, Managing Director, Ultra Distributors Pvt. Ltd. Electronic
movie distribution would address these issues by ensuring
that a film reaches every digital theatre, including those
in the `B' and `C' class cities, across the country on the
very first day of its release.
Over
and above everything, it is the cost economics that holds
the key for this drastic change in movie-viewing. The cost
of producing a digital film is substantially cheaper than
producing it on a celluloid film. A digital print costs just
about Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 3,000, apart from transportation charges,
vis-à-vis Rs. 60,000 to Rs. 70,000 on a 35 mm celluloid
film print. Further, a digital film can be copied on to a
diskette, transmitted through satellite or broadband, directly
to the cinema halls. The film is transmitted as encrypted
data, and a decoder installed in a server at the theater will
decode the film and screen the same for its viewers. This
means, the technology does away with physical handling of
the film or print. The Golden Jubilee show, for instance,
will be just the same as the premier show, unlike the traditional
celluloid film, where quality deteriorates every time the
movie is played. This is making producers and exhibitors look
at it as a viable way to penetrate into newer markets, especially
in the B and C class cities. |
