Bob Mayson, General Manager of Kodak Digital Cinema, and Les Moore, Development Manager for Digital Cinema, were interviewed by business editor Ben Rand.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

It's interesting to see the emphasis on "alternative content" with respect to digital cinema, but the details always seem to be a bit fuzzy (no pun intended) whenever this concept is discussed by its proponents.

What companies produce this so-called "alternative content"? How do they make money? Is it provided to theatres in the same way as movies (i.e. the distributor gets a per centage of the boxoffice gross versus a minimum guarantee) or does it work differently (e.g. does the producer simply four-wall the theatre and collect the boxoffice gross? is it a flat-rate rental? something else?)?

When would this ordinarily be shown? My understanding is that, in the case of most first-run engagements, the distributor of the film can forbid the use of the auditorium for any other film programming (i.e. the theatre can't even run a midnight show of a different film in the same house), at least for the first few weeks of an engagement. How would this affect the showing of "alternative content"? Would it be shown in the daytime or on "slow" nights? And how would the film distributors react to this? Or would it be booked just like film programming, with a specific auditorium and/or number of weeks committed to that particular program?

It is interesting to note that one of the issues mentioned was that "advertisers are salavating to better get their messages across to movie-goers." I'll bet! I guess once you are basically projecting video on a big screen, seems like the "alternative programming" will include lots and lots of commercials. Think of it, being able to watch the WWW Smackdown repleat with an endless stream of digital commercials. How lucky for the movie-going public!

I take it the statement that digital projection will surpass film quality is referencing 35mm film quality. If you want a technology that surpasses 35mm film quality, try the 40 year old 70mm projection system.

I am not quite sure how alternative programming can significantly change the theatre usage pattern. Yes, theatres are dark roughly 60% of the time -- most of that is when people are sleeping. The other percentage is off peak hours. It isn't clear how offering a video version of The Lion King for $25 on Monday at 10am is going to fill up the theatre. But off-peak is off-peak no matter what you put on the screen. Personally I don't see how offering a video of The Lion King stage production will interest anyone at all, but that's my own anti-schmaltz bias, although I admit, I did take my nephews to see it (but was careful to take my Dramamine pills first).

Then again, I am not quite sure what makes program software suppliers think that they will be able to get people to come into movie theatres to see a video of the state production of The Lion King instead of just showing it on pay-per-view or DVD rental or sales?

I think it will be very hard to change that hard wiring that our brains have: we expect to see movies in a movie theatre, video on our TVs in our home theatre. People already balk at movie ticket prices; I have no doubt they will be even more reluctant to pay even higher prices for what they will perceive should be free on their local PBS TV station.

We were once approached by a company that wanted to offer us alternative programming via video feed. They were using a moster Barco projector. We looked at their alternative programming -- it was decent stuff -- the Bolshoi Ballet, some symphony orchestras and some sports. It was basically stuff you could see every day on PBS. What was the point? Alternative programming is great and might work well in ceertain nitche demographics, but as salve for what is ailing the exhibition industry, I think it will fall quite a bit short of what the proponents envision.

I could see alternative programming maybe having some appeal in smaller communities, off the beaten track. A live (or life-like) presentation of The Lion King or Bolshoi Ballet (to use your examples) is something few people actually get to experience in their lives. If an exhibitor brings that presentation to a "movie theater", with state-of-the-art digital projection and sound, will people be interested, and how much will they pay to see it? How much does the exhibitor need to do to differentiate the experience from movies? Will advertising and marketing expenses for such specialty shows drive up the cost of tickets too much? What if the presentation is a rock concert, Super Bowl or WWF Smackdown? Would bringing in that type of more rowdy crowd run the risk of the the theater being trashed? Many things to consider.

Anyway, John, thanks for sharing that article.

There certainly is a market for large-screen, closed-circuit, pay-per-view events, such as the Tyson/Lewis boxing match on June 8.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Use rear screen projection! Just be sure none of those losers fall INTO the screen.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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The projector was designed so that it could be serviced in-field so every component was modularized and, as he put it, short of a bomb going off under the thing, it could be repaired without need of hauling it to a repair shop. Would be nice if DLP projectors were designed that way.

I bought one of the first VideoBeams off the assembly line and to this day it presents a spectacular picture as far as video images go, and still out-shines any of the current consumer projection tvs on the market, more than 30 years later. Talk about ingenius design engineering!