Technicolor Opens Digital Cinema Test Lab To Squash Bugs

Thomson's Technicolor Digital Cinema division has opened a digital cinema research and equipment test lab, supporting the entertainment industry's move to shed celluloid for bits and bytes.

Originally built for Disney Animation, the Technicolor Digital Cinema building now houses two projection rooms and digital cinema technology center with networked projectors and servers.

Upstairs in the control room, projectors from Sony Electronics, Christi Digital Systems, Barco Digital Cinema and NEC undergo a series of 144 compatibility and performance tests. About 34 have been performed.

A handful of servers shelved on racks from Dolby, Doreme Cinema, Kodak Digital Cinema, QuVIS and NEC that can store a combined 15-terabytes are being closely analyzed, too. Approximately 60 projector and server configurations are being tested.

For seven years Technicolor Digital Cinema has tried to make the digital cinema model work, spending the last year developing the business and finance plans. Joe Berchtold, Technicolor Electronic Distribution Services president, dispenses a pearl of wisdom. "This is about an industry in transition," he said. "It's fundamentally changing how business is done."

Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. executives said their respective companies would release nearly all movies this year in digital format, making them available for distribution either by broadband, hard drive or <a = "http: www.techweb.com encyclopedia defineterm.jhtml?term="communicationssatellite"">satellite

to theaters.