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Don't be so critical of the equipment manufacturers. There are only about 110,000 theatre screens in the world. Since film projection equipment is so durable, I would be surprised if the worldwide market for new projection equipment exceeded 15,000 units per year, divided among competing manufacturers. So the economies of scale just aren't there to bring prices down with mass production methods. If GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, or Toyota sold only a few thousand cars per year, the prices would be much higher too.

Just think: I can go to an electronics store right now, today, and buy an HDTV set with a resolution of 1920x1080. Technicolor (so far the only company that has unveiled a serious plan for large-scale digital cinema installation) is talking about putting 1280x1024 in theaters. You do the math.

Right now there are two factors that prevent competition from HDTV from being too big of a problem:

• HDTV is too expensive for the average home viewer
  
• There is a limited availability of full-resolution HDTV source material (just a few broadcast and cable channels)
  

Both of those a very much temporary. In a few years, an HDTV home video format (one in which pre-recorded feature films are available) will probably be available, and then it will really take off. Economy of scale will bring the prices down, so it will become affordable to more and more people. What are theaters going to do then?

The companies that are pushing for digital -- particularly Technicolor -- seem to be rushing blindly into it because they see a way to save a few bucks. However, those savings will only come if they can keep all other factors, especially ticket sales, the same. Once people get the ability to have better quality at home than in theaters, they will simply stay home, and not come back! Bye-bye, savings!

I realize that's been said before, but it bears repeating. Just think about how many home theater freaks there are who already (incorrecly) believe their setups are superior to any theater. Their ranks will swell tremendously once HDTV gets going full swing. And for once, they'll actually be right -- they really will be getting better quality at home!

If companies like Technicolor had any long-term vision at all, they would probably wake up and realize doing things like giving away 1000 very expensive projectors which are pretty much already obsolete is not a smart investment. Of course, this is corporate America we're talking about, so it's pretty much a given that they will be short-sighted and not figure that out.

If it's the first senario, let's everyone order the projectors, run them for one day and then make Technicolor pull them out!

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I don't think new projectors are too expensive to buy. It's the parts to keep them going that are too much.

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About digital TVs costing a lot and there not being enough programming:

I'll bet that many people purchasing digital TVs right now are ones that want to watch DVDs in progressive scan 480p on a 1.78:1 screen, rather than to watch actual HDTV material. If I bought one right now, better DVD viewing quality would be the reason, and not HDTV.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

If you can't have a free lunch, what makes you think a free Digital Projector is any more likely?

It's my belief that in 5 years from now, most of the local tv stations will not have converted to digital as the FCC has mandated. Instead, they will be off the air, dark, gone, no more.

Why? Do the math. Every year, the broadcast networks lose more viewers to the hundreds of competing satellite channels. I saw an article in Time magazine a while back which suggested they were down nearly to only 25% of the market THEN. So if you have 4 local stations in a market with CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX, that 25% is divvied up between the 4 of them. One of these days the local merchant advertisers are going to wake up, and say: HEY!! WE'RE PAYING ALL THIS MONEY AND NOBODY'S WATCHING OUR COMMERCIALS! When this hits it is going to snowball very fast and local tv darkness will follow.

Eventually the 4 networks will become just another 4 pay channels, if, that is, all 4 survive somehow. I've heard the disney interests are losing a lot of money in abc and aren't happy. Within next 5 years switches may be pulled somewhere.

I think the "local flavor" of broadcast TV stations will diminish more as time goes on. The way things are now, even the national cable network stations have local commercials. They usually stick out like a sore thumb because of the audio and video quality.

Broadcast TV is being hurt by people that don't want to use antennas. I lived in the country for 15 years and we had to use an antenna with a rotator and amplifier to get anything, and what we got was often snowy. We could get approximately 30 different stations, but only a couple had good picture quality. Many people in the country got satellite dishes for the cable networks and they end up not watching the broadcast channels because they can't get a good picture with an antenna and the local stations are not available on the dishes. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see broadcast TV go completely away and be replaced totally by cable and dish systems. Antennas are just too problematic. Even if you live in the city where the TV station is, it doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to get a good picture free of ghosts and interference.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

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