LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Movie history will be made on Tuesday when 20th Century Fox premieres the first movie to be beamed over the Internet from a Hollywood studio to a theater across the country without ever touching film, Fox officials said on Monday.
The animated sci-fi epic ``Titan A.E.'' will be digitally projected to an audience at the
Supercomm trade show in Atlanta after it has been sent from Burbank, California, over a secure Internet-based network developed by Cisco Systems Inc., the world's biggest maker of Internet equipment. The event will showcase a technology that could one day replace a movie distribution system that dates to the birth of the modern motion picture industry, about 80 years ago.
But with issues of cost and copyright protection yet to be addressed, Internet transmission of movies from studios to exhibitors is years away from becoming commonplace, officials at Fox and Cisco acknowledged on Monday. ``It's a small step toward looking at the future,'' said Tom Sherak, chairman of the Fox domestic film group. ``To me, it's like being at the World's Fair in 1964.''
Not cheap
The digital projector alone costs about $100,000, not to mention the added price of a
special screen, sound system and computer equipment needed to download and show ``Titan A.E.'' in digital format. Technically, speaking, however, ``What we're showcasing tomorrow is available now,'' Cisco spokeswoman Erica Schroeder said. ``It's all the business issues now that have to be resolved.''
A number of films, notably ``Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace'' and Disney's ``Dinosaur,'' have been digitally projected by a handful of theaters since last
year. But the Atlanta screening of ``Titan A.E'' marks the first time a studio has distributed its movie to a theater audience via the Internet.
Official premiere in normal theater
``Titan A.E.,'' which mixes traditional cell animation with computer-generated imagery, gets its official premiere on Saturday in Los Angeles and opens June 16. The movie, set a thousand years in the future, features the voices of Matt Demon and Drew Barrymore as a pair of teenagers on a quest to save mankind after Earth has been destroyed by alien attack. For the Atlanta screening, the 90-minute movie will be projected after it has been downloaded from Burbank rather than shown simultaneously with its transmission over the Internet. ''Real-time'' projection is effectively prevented by the sheer size of the computer file containing the movie -- 50 gigabytes, which is roughly 20,000 times larger than a typical MP3 music file, Schroeder said. Even though it will be transmitted at speeds 800 times faster than a standard analog modem connection, it will take about four hours for the movie to be downloaded in Atlanta, she said.
Data over communication lines (even over non-internet lines) are broken up and sent in smaller chunks (called "blocks" or "frames.") The next chunk is not sent until the previous one is received OK. If there's a problem, it sort of automatically hits it's own "refresh" button, and only resends the bad chunk, rather than the whole thing. Actually, if you don't mind waiting, the internet is very reliable. It even continued worked quite well for Iraq while we were bombing the daylights out of them.
Even though it takes 4 hours to send, they will probably start sending the film a day or so ahead just in case. If there's problems, they can fallback to the "Fedex overnight" data transmission method....!
I agree, let technicolor handle the "delivery" of DLP product and it will NEVER get off the shelf. I mean that too.
Dave
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"If it's not worth doing, I have allready been there and done it"
As I calculate this out, they are transmitting this at about 27 megabits/sec., which would easily fit into a standard T3 line, which is capable of 44 megabits/sec. It should be no trouble to transmit this over the conventional internet, let alone the mammoth Qwest backbone.
There are some new technologies out there that Qwest is testing with Nortel optical switches that claim 40 GIGAbits/sec. This would transfer a 40 Gigabyte file in about 8 seconds. The release implies that they can use a multiplexer to put 4X the data on one line, coming out to 160 gigabits/sec or 20 gigabytes per second. This technology will be ready to go in early 2001.
(http://www.qwest.com/about/media/story.asp?id=288)
So, it looks like the technology to deliver films to theatres via internet is closer than we thought.
Mark Lensenmayer
(Networking Teacher Guy)
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Better Projection Pays!
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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Lower priced T-1 service (approximately $1,900 per month?) would obviously be too slow, taking about 29 times longer to transmit the data (over 100 hours per movie?).
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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
I *pray* that hackers get ahold of that 'secure' line...
Vive Le Film!
Aaron
Oh and another point I wanted to make about Titan AE... DON BLUTH, two words you DO NOT want to hear involved with any project. They used his trademark patented 2 frame per second traditional animation in conjunction with 24 frame per second computer animation. It looks disjointed and sick.
OK I am exaggerating just a bit on the 2 frame per second deal, but it isnt anywhere near 24 frames, I believe he uses a 16 frame set up If I remember correctly.
And mixing conventional animation with computer anime can be done, It was called "the iron giant". It looked grrrrrreat!
Dave
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"If it's not worth doing, I have allready been there and done it"
Don't forget that Don Bluth's drawings look like crap! They are too soft and too flat. No definition. Those Japanese guys sure know how to draw. Their animation rate is also slow, but the drawings kick ass and they're not afraid of violence like we seem to be with our cartoons.
T1 is only 1.5 megaBITS per second? That sucks! What is the maximum capability of DSL? Isn't it at least that?
Announce to the world (cyber freaks in bedrooms) that something is "secure" and watch the latest game played by millions around the world - decode and download the movie!
If the Whitehouse, NASA, and FBI can have hackers in their systems, how long do you think it will be before movie downloads are going everywhere except where they were intended?
Lets take the handy-cam in theatre piracy out of the equation for a moment (it does and will continue to occur),probably a few hundred people in the world have the ability to copy a 35mm print to tape/disc. A few hundred MILLION have internet access and disc drives - enough to leave film-makers with a bad feeling in their stomach!
Oh, and if you think pirated movies on disc are easily available now, just wait until there are 10,000 theatres worldwide that have these discs - how do you secure them?
David Kilderry
John Ehler of Cisco Systems says "If I have to dig out a neighborhood to put in a cable infrastructure, that's a lot of capital expense before the customer gets his first Internet message out."
Lindsay Moir of Rights Market discusses security: "Every DRM (Digital Rights Management) scheme -- every one -- has been busted within a week of going public. The content will always escape."
Many issues need to be resolved before Digital Cinema becomes a cost-effective, commercial reality. The SMPTE Digital Cinema DC28 committees are in the process of defining these issues:
http://www.smpte.org/engr/engrcomm.html
The next meeting of the SMPTE Digital Cinema Technology DC28 committee will be held on Friday, June 16 at INFOCOMM in Anaheim CA. The following week, the various DC28 study groups will be meeting in the Los Angeles area.
The International Theatre Equipment Association (ITEA) will co-sponsor a seminar series "Understanding Digital Cinema" at INFOCOMM June 15, 16 and 17. For more information, contact Terri Westhafer of ITEA at 720-344-2909 or terribronc@aol.com
INFOCOMM has a web site at: http://www.infocomm.org
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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
quote:
I agree, let technicolor handle the "delivery" of DLP product and it will NEVER get off the shelf. I mean that too.
Poof, you get your wish. From Reuters:
===============
Thursday June 15 5:47 PM ET
Qualcomm, Technicolor to Distribute Digital Cinema
By Timna Tanners
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Wireless communications technology company Qualcomm Inc. (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news) said on Thursday it had teamed up with Technicolor Digital Cinema Inc. to distribute movies digitally to cinemas.
The companies said they will form a joint venture to provide digital distribution of films along with support services and aim to begin trials of the delivery system in early 2001.
``This new entity will combine the two companies' complementary strengths to create an open, standards-based end-to-end distribution solution for digital cinema,'' said Lanny Raimondo, Technicolor's chief executive officer.
The move combines Qualcomm's experience in digital voice communications and encryption and compression technology and Technicolor's distribution in the entertainment industry, the companies said in a statement.
The team would compete against a similar venture combining computer networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:CSCO - news) and Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE:Q - news), which showcased their digital movie distribution technology earlier this month when they beamed sci-fi animated epic ``Titan A.E.'' over an Internet-based network.
Film studios are backing digital cinema, which results in higher quality movies and lower distribution costs. But so far, wrangling over who would pay the high costs of installing projection systems in theaters -- studios or theater owners -- has delayed deployment.
``It's still in the very early stages. I think we are going to see lot of companies who have encryption and compression technology,'' said Jimmy Sunshine of the publication, Film Journal International.
The companies said Camarillo, Calif.-based Technicolor would take a majority ownership in the entity, called Technicolor Digital Cinema LLC. It would initially target the U.S. market, and is seeking partners to expand into global distribution, they said.
Technicolor is a subsidiary of British media group Carlton Communications Plc (NasdaqNM:CCTVY - news).
Carlton shares gained 1-31/64 to close at 63-47/64 on Nasdaq. Qualcomm shares lost 9-1/16 to close at 61-7/16, amid growing concerns over its near-term profit outlook.
Which says in part:
"In concert with TI, which is providing the projection hardware,
Technicolor is taking a leadership role in the evolution of digital
cinema and the DLP Cinema™ demonstration program from
the digital delivery and installation sides. Along with creating the
digital distribution medium - in the form of DVD-ROM -
Technicolor is providing the expertise to deliver, install, upload
and then test each digital cinema installation. Additionally, the
company is providing significant funding to help offset the costs
of the demonstration systems, installation and service".
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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com