Five entertainment and technology pioneers from Japan and America will collaborate on a major new joint field trial to test the world's first digital cinema system for digital distribution and exhibition of feature-length motion pictures. These pioneers are the Warner Bros. Entertainment Incorporated, Warner Entertainment Japan, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation , Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation, and Toho Company Limited. The trial will use the newly published Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) Digital Cinema System Specifications at the highest quality standard of 4K, comparable to a professional 35mm film "answer print" and superior in many ways to traditional film "release prints" typically shown in local cinema theatres.
Chris Cookson, President, Technical Operations & Chief Technology Officer, Warner Bros. Entertainment; William Ireton, President, Warner Entertainment Japan; Norio Wada, President and CEO of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation; Shunzo Morishita, President and CEO of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation; and Hideyuki Takai, President and CEO of Toho, explained their plans for a one year joint field trial to introduce Japanese movie-goers to what they have termed "4K Pure Cinema."
The five companies participating in these field trials share a common conviction that the introduction of digital cinema has the potential for providing real benefits to theatre audiences, theatre owners, filmmakers and distributors. They have agreed to work together on this field trial because they also recognize that the potential benefits of digital cinema cannot be fully realized without industry-wide standards supporting interoperability and compatibility around the world, as detailed in the Digital Cinema Initiatives Specification that establishes and documents voluntary specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control.
The purpose of the year-long joint field trial is to implement and test the DCI Digital Cinema System Specification. To make this possible, a fiber-optic testbed will be configured to send DCI-compliant digital cinema packages (DCP) containing feature-length motion pictures from Warner Bros. in Burbank, California to distribution servers at NTT's Yokosuka R&D Center and at NTT West's Dojima Data Center Japan. The DCP received from Warner Bros. will be then distributed via NTT's domestic fiber optic networks to Virgin TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills, Cinema Mediage, and TOHO Cinemas Takatsuki where secure digital cinema playback systems provided by NTT will be used to screen feature movies on a regular schedule for paying customers.
This field trial is designed to allow the participants to evaluate digital distribution and digital exhibition from various perspectives including image quality, viewer response, operational efficiency, security and reporting, network performance and reliability, and the costs related to both network distribution and theater management. The field trial will implement the DCI specifications for both the 4K format of 4,096 by 2,160 pixels (total resolution of eight million pixels) and the 2K format at 2,048 by 1,080 pixels (total resolution of two million pixels.)
The participants are each bringing to this joint field trial unique strengths that have made them leaders in their respective fields.
- Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI and WBJ) which played a major role in establishing DCI system specifications, will configure a D-cinema distribution-origination service center, provide operational management and supply D-Cinema content in accordance with DCI specifications.
- NTT together with its subsidiary company NTT West, will provide broadband fiber-optic links between the USA and Japan, between distribution centers in Japan, and from distribution centers to theaters. They will also establish two D-cinema distribution centers in Japan and a D-Cinema secure distribution system based on DCI specifications.
- Toho will provide movie theaters, manage theatrical entertainment content and operate the D-Cinema screening system used in this year-long field trial starting in October 2005.
The first public showing as part of this international field trial will start Saturday, October 22, 2005, when "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" opens commercially in Japan, with a digital release at "4K Pure Cinema" quality in multiple Toho cinemas in the Osaka and Tokyo regions. However, in a sneak preview for press and invited guests at the Virgin TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills theatre immediately following the announcement on 11th October, 2005, Rob Hummel, Senior Vice President, Production Technology, Warner Bros. Entertainment, introduced the world's first "4K Pure Cinema" screening of several scenes from "Batman Begins," a movie by Christopher Nolan, as well as a complete screening of "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.
Subsequent digital cinema releases are scheduled as part of the field trials through the summer of 2006
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