Deluxe "eCinema" delivery service is coming in December

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Apparently, the folks at Deluxe have it all working now....

[Jon Dent]

Anybody get Morbius delivered via download?

[Mike Blakesley]

We're currently playing our first E-delivered title, "The Lost City." It's kind of surreal to think that its the first time in 92 years that a movie is playing at this theater that some person didn't carry it in through the front door.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Talking to a local manager, he mentioned the only hard drives they still get are for indie/Bollywood pictures or IMAX, everything else now comes via satellite.

IMAX still sends hard drives for everything.

IMAX hides special DMR bits in between the bits stored on the harddrive, that would never fly via an on-line distribution system, those precious hidden bits would get lost...

[Jon Dent]

We're getting Morbius on hard drive. Not sure if I need to be making another phone call...

[William Kucharski]

Talking to a local manager, he mentioned the only hard drives they still get are for indie/Bollywood pictures or IMAX, everything else now comes via satellite.

IMAX still sends hard drives for everything.

[Carsten Kurz]

We had been receiving a few EclairExpress transfers in recent months. Since recently, the email notifications now originate from 'by.deluxe', though they still carry the Eclair Theatrical Service CI/branding.
I guess they will soon drop the Eclair brand. I also read that they will unify the transfer network to a single service.

[Jesse Crooks]

This may be old news to everyone else since it happened in November, but we just learned that Deluxe acquired Éclair. A couple weeks ago Deluxe pitched the idea of possibly using our existing Éclair servers for the distribution of Deluxe content. My wife deals with our distributor logistics and has said it seems like their support has also recently merged. Makes me wonder whether they're going to keep EclairPlay as a separate service for for arthouse content or if they plan to eliminate it.

[Carsten Kurz]

A satellite system can only accommodate a certain volume of new titles over a certain time span, it is impossible for them to send individual bookings to cinemas that way. For an IP based transfer system, it doesn't matter wether it's a new release or repertoire.
It is also a lot cheaper to keep a single DCP stored on a huge cloud based storage towards possible individual E-Deliveries than to keep repertoire HDDs or copy them as the booking comes.

I remember trying to book 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' for a summer open air booking a few years ago, and Fox told us 'Sorry, our 5 Rocky Horror HDDs are currently out to other open air locations, we have no left'.

- Carsten

[Jon Dent]

From what Deluxe said, they'll upload only titles that you've actually booked, so I would imagine that would also include older content, so long as the studio allows it.

[Mike Blakesley]

Ours showed up this evening. I had a feeling it was 'happening' because the network light on the QNAP machine was a-blinkin' when I got here tonight....normally it's steady-on.

Some use E-Delivery only during the first weeks, and turn to HDD on the break or for repertoire later.

That sounds like the DCDC service. They only house content for the first few weeks after release. I've heard that it's two or three weeks but don't know if that's still the norm.

[James Gardiner]

I think studios (at least over here) are not interested in endorsing a single service company - it means less competition, higher prices, and being dependent on a single supplier/technology. So, I guess some are trying to keep competition or alternative methods alive.

Yes traditionally the studios have always tried to play two companies of against each other.. That's Deluxe and Technicolour. Well it was.. Some of that is falling away now.. Its now only Deluxe, and Deluxe are also taking over much of the world eDelivery market too. These large companies implement a Control a Box on site.

This was inevitable. Was always going to happen. So yes, to ensure competition and price controls.. Cinemas are going to have to get use to non-lockin type content delivery tools. Like installing a tool on your PC that downloads a DCP. I know a lot of cinemas are happy to just let them do everything so its easier for them.. But I can tell you. They are setting it up this way as they expect to make $$ from it at some stage. Cinemas should be open to adopting other tools that may not be as 'easy' to ensure there is competition. Plus it will also make it much harder to local and art-house content. An area I feel we especially have to look out for as its a major part of Cinema-Culture. Its not all studios tent-pols.

[Carsten Kurz]

Any idea as to why they do not simply go all eDelivery?

I think studios (at least over here) are not interested in endorsing a single service company - it means less competition, higher prices, and being dependent on a single supplier/technology. So, I guess some are trying to keep competition or alternative methods alive.

The Netherlands are a smaller market, but there, Gofilex was able to get all studios for E-Delivery, and they are now the only operating company there.
However, they were already doing 35mm and HDD shipments for many many years before. Probably also more or less being the only company in NL back then already.

[Jon Dent]

Studios are all about keeping as much control as they can over content and how it's distributed. Even though the DCPs are useless to someone without KDMs, just the fact that they're being transmitted hundreds of times over the internet probably makes them nervous.

[James Gardiner]

We have been using E-Delivery since 2015, and still today some distributors prefer so send HDDs to us. It is their decision which service to use. Some use E-Delivery only during the first weeks, and turn to HDD on the break or for repertoire later. Universal still has most titles send to us as HDDs. Most other studios/distributors in Germany have chosen one of the two major E-Delivery services here by now. Sony was pretty late to choose E-Delivery.

Any idea as to why they do not simply go all eDelivery? There must be a reason. Is it pre-existing contracts or commitments utilising older, already accepted methods? Something like that? So until its dead, they use the older assets..
I personally find this strange. With dedicated delivery boxes, if there is a network issue of an eBox fail, they have to fall back to physical delivery so need to keep a large amount of costly infrastructure in place they rarely use.

If a non-dedicated-eDelivery box solution was used, a cinema owner could go home or to any well internet connected location and download the "encrypted" DCP onto a USB drive as a backup path..
Like any company with a PC for office work, with critical software like an Email account. If it breaks what do they do? (i.e. go home and log into the email account)

I see this like.. Changing Xenon Lamps. Imagine if you you were only offered the lamps if you also took on the process of changing the lamps could ONLY be done by a specific person. Who has to drive 1h each way and spend 30-60min changing the lamp. That has a HUGE cost to it compared to a cinema owner simply sending 30 min to change it himself.

So why is the industry happy to go with the far more expensive path? At the end of the day all profits are derived from ticket sales to make this happen, so your paying for it indirectly. Nothing is free.