E-screen – now showing at cinemas across Europe
Digital cinema has gone on show at the 60th Venice International Film Festival. Europe’s oldest cinematographic event has provided the showcase for technology that promises to redefine the medium.
During the demonstration guests from the companies that developed the e-screen technology participated in a talk show. They included representatives from ESA and industrial partners including Cinecitta Digital, Elsacom, Marinastudios and UNITEC.
The event, introduced by ESA’s Director of Satellite Application Claudio Mastracci, was filmed in high-definition TV from ESA’s ESRIN establishment in Frascati near Rome. From there, the show was uplinked to a Eutelsat satellite and broadcast to Venice to a meeting of European Union Ministers of Culture and the general public.
Transmission of the talk show was accompanied with examples of the alternative live content that digital cinema aims to bring. Those demonstrated included concerts and sporting events although there is also potential for real time news casting and advertising tailored to local audiences.
Conventional methods of analogue film distribution involve the delivery of bulky 35mm film reels to the cinema. With e-screen celluloid is dispensed with altogether. Instead compressed digital audiovisual content is delivered to the theatre.
The sheer size of cinema screens compared to televisions has meant that relatively large amounts of data are required. As much as 60 Gbytes - equivalent to around 100 CDs – has to be relayed for a single feature-length movie. This factor has been the major obstacle to the rollout of digital cinema before now. However having all information stored digitally, audiences can watch a perfect image every time, no longer subject to flaws or degradation.
So far seven cinemas in five European countries have been involved in trial digital film distribution via a satellite link.