In a move that may revolutionise the way movies, trailers and commercial advertisements are distributed, delivered and projected in theatres, the Chennai-based Real Image Media Technologies Pvt Ltd has come out with a digital cinema solution.
Called Qube Cinema, the HD digital cinema player promises the Indian film industry a very cost-effective and high technology solution to minimise the costs of film prints.
The company says that digital rights management and other security features make Qube a secure platform for movie screening.
The system allows only authorised players to decode content and the start date and time, the end date and time, and number of plays allowed can be set and monitored thus resulting in accurate reporting.
The system will also watermark content to indicate the player's serial number and play dates and times.
"The Indian film industry has been plagued with prohibitively high costs of film prints, which restricts simultaneous release across a number of centres. However, the costs of digital prints will account for only 10 per cent of the expense that is incurred towards conventional film prints, A major advantage is the ability for a digital film to be released in a much larger number of theatres simultaneously," said Jayendra, the director (marketing) of Real Image.
"Producers and distributors can benefit from lower print costs. Another advantage is the ability to scale up rapidly should it be a hit film. Curbing piracy and prevention of unauthorised shows will directly result in increased profits," he added.
From the cost point of view, the exhibitors will have to invest around Rs 400,000 towards installation of Qube and another Rs 12.5 lakh (Rs 1.25 million) towards a suitable high quality 3-chip DLP projector.
Features films will have to delivered to these theatres in the form of DVD-ROM discs or hard disc drives. The existing film projector can be retained to play movies in the conventional film format as well.
Real Image, which claims to be the market leader in media technology in the country with over 800 DTS (digital surround sound for cinema) installations, expects that all major producers and distributors of feature films to provide movies in digital cinema format in the near future in view of the advantages.
"Wide adoption of the Qube will change the Indian movie industry totally just like the arrival of digital sound did in 1995. We are leading the move to digital editing of feature films," Jayendra said.
