Digital Cinema Guarding the Jewels

摘要

The time - only a few months ago. The new market crashed. Time to lean back? No - the train is leaving. But in which direction? At the end of the year 2002 only 120 cinemas worldwide, instead of the 1000 that had been expected, had fully installed the new digital technology. Why a special issue of Cinema Technology on this issue? Because digital cinema will happen eventually? Digital? Even Wired magazine, usually well informed on technical matters, printed the howler that digital projection is "far better" than film. Everyone seems to be waiting for Digital or Electronic Cinema. But far from the boardroom of Texas Instruments, which has nearly unlimited financial resources, there are other digital and electronic alternatives, even film-based projection technologies like IMAX(~R), 70 mm, Douglas Trumbull's Showscan, MaxiVision or other hidden resources of light-through-celluloid. Please read carefully. The future of traditional cinema is at stake.