Techno-geeks and futurists like George Lucas say that digital video-based "Digital Cinema" is superior to today's standard film-based cinema. Many beg to differ, especially when it comes to image quality. Regardless of videophiles' varying opinions on the appearance of Digital Cinema, the bottom line is the bottom line. If the distribution of feature movies to the world's cin-emaplexes (now done by shipping individual film prints to each theater) could transition to digital video file transfers, the cost savings for Hollywood and the rest of the world's motion picture industry would be enormous—estimates vary from $900 million to $2.28 billion annually. However, contrary to predictions, Digital Cinema has not taken off like a rocket. In 2004 there were only 328 Digital Cinema "screens" worldwide, compared to the 36,000 theatrical film projection screens in the U.S. alone. Many people attribute this lackluster performance to lack of standardization—the use of different projectors, image formats, resolutions, compression, etc. Anybody remember life before the standardization of the various DVD formats? Probably not, because DVD wouldn't have had much of one without standardization.
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