Useful links for the course

- UK Film Council: www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk
- Arts Alliance Media: www.artsalliancemedia.com
- XDC: www.xdcinema.com
- Kino Digital Cinema: www.kinocinemas.co.uk/home.htm
- Odeon UK: www.odeon.co.uk
- Curzon Soho: www.curzoncinemas.com
- EDCF: www.edcf.net
- More2Screen: www.more2screen.com
- RealD: www.reald.com
- Hotel Ibis London Euston St Pancras:   www.ibishotel.com/ibis/fichehotel/gb/ibi/0921/fiche_hotel.shtml

FABRICE TESTA, XDC
VP Sales & Business Development

His presentations at the DigiTraining Plus 2008 Course will concern:

• XDC Business Model: benefits of Digital Cinema, the VPF Business Model, supply of DC Equipment, support services, exhibitor’s responsibilities;

• Alternative Content and the DDCinema offer: pre-recorded content, live content, commercial proposal

Fabrice Testa joined XDC in January 2005 just after the creation of the company. As Marketing Manager, he succeeded in positioning XDC brand as one of the key players in the digital cinema industry in Europe. Largely involved in the XDC’s commercial activities, Fabrice has recently been named VP Sales & Business Development. Prior to XDC, Fabrice gained a comprehensive experience in management, sales & marketing, business development with various companies in the field of multimedia, interactive games and video projection systems as well as web-based applications and international high tech projects. Fabrice has an MSc in Engineering and an MBA from Brussels Solvay Business School.

 

The Curzon Soho cinema was voted London’s Number One by the readers of Time Out, considered the Bible of leisure activities in England and throughout the world.

Situated in the cosmopolitan Soho district, at the heart of London, the complex has 3 screens showing a broad range of art-house movies. It also hosts art exhibitions and has a bar and a shop with a wide selection of art-house and world cinema DVDs.

In this cinema two digital projectors have been installed, in the framework of the DSN initiative promoted by the UK Film Council aiming at broadening the cinema offer through digital technologies.

During the visit included in the DigiTraining Plus 2008 course, Mick Stephen, the Technical Manager at Curzon Cinemas will be answering participants’ technical questions.

On 9 February 2007, Odeon, the largest cinema chain in the United Kingdom, launched two all digital, fully networked and DCI compliant multiplexes, bearing the OdeonDigital brand name. They are located in the outskirts of London, at Hatfield and Surrey Quays. The visit to the Odeon Surrey Quays will represent one of the highlights of the DigiTraining Plus 2008 course.

All 9 screens at Surrey Quays are equipped with digital projection systems which are also used to experiment with new forms of entertainment, such as the screening of 3D films, concerts and sports events.
This week’s programme includes digital screenings of six different titles, including the Oscar winner “No country for old men”.

The Kino Digital cinema at Hawkhurst in Kent is the first “purely digital cinema”, which means no 35mm projectors, to be set up in the United Kingdom.
DigiTraining Plus 2008 will be visiting it thanks to the co-operation of Paul Corcoran, Managing Director of Kino Digital, who will explain to participants the technology available in his cinema and, more importantly, a completely new concept of programming and offer of services for audiences.
This cinema, that opened in 2006, is part of the DSN initiative promoted by the UK Film Council.
Later the same company launched another “purely digital cinema”, with 2 screens, at Sevenoaks. Digital equipment purchase was in this case financed by Kino.
Paul Corcoran says in fact: “We are in absolutely no doubt that the increased revenue and the savings achieved by digital exhibition make such a purchase financially viable”.

(Per leggere il testo in italiano cliccare qui)
 

MEDIA Salles reports 829 digital screens in Europe. 5,000 in the rest of the world.
By Elisabetta Brunella, Secretary General of MEDIA Salles

The European Cinema Yearbook – 2007 final edition, presented in Berlin on 15 February, provides a snapshot of the situation of digital screens worldwide at December 2007. For the first time, as well as projectors using DLP Cinema technology^TM, MEDIA Salles also reports 4K projectors, thus producing a result of 5,829.
Of these installations, 829 are situated in Europe, in 536 cinemas. Twelve months previously, the figures were respectively 531 and 359. The number of screens has thus risen by 56%, and that of cinemas by 49%. This means that the average number of digital projectors per cinema is increasing and today comes to just over 1.5. This trend confirms that we are shifting from an experimental phase, in which a single projector may be sufficient to test the digital projection system, to a phase that might be termed “commercial”, in which digital projection must serve the entire life cycle of a film distributed by means of the new technology. In order to do this, it is essential for digital projectors to be available in several theatres with different seating capacities, within the same complex.
This is why the decision has been taken by several companies to equip a high number of screens in the same multiplex, if not all of them, with digital projectors.
Odeon UK is an example, with their decision at the beginning of 2007 to install 18 digital projectors in the 18 screens at their sites in Hatfield and Surrey Quays.
The latter complex, also equipped for 3D projection, is one that has been included in the programme of visits planned during the course DigiTraining Plus 2008 organized by MEDIA Salles for the coming April.

Europe’s 829 digital projectors are distributed throughout 24 countries, from Portugal to Russia, Iceland to Greece. Their territorial distribution is shown in the following table, which also shows the number of cinemas with at least one digital projector installed and the average number of digital projectors per cinema.
The country by country situation, which sees the United Kingdom in the lead with 272 units, or 32.8% of all Europe’s digital screens, followed by Germany (152) and France (69), shows that the spread of digital screens is not directly proportional to the overall number of screens in each country.
In the table the last two columns show two classifications, reporting the position of each country in terms of digital screens as well as screens in general.
It can immediately be seen that smaller countries, such as Belgium (which boasts 51 digital projectors), Austria (33) or Norway (29) seem to have started out on the path towards digital screening more quickly than larger markets, such as Italy (37) or Spain (31).

(Per leggere il testo in italiano cliccare qui)

From the MEDIA Salles' "European Cinema Yearbook - 2007 final edition"
Presented in Berlin on 15 February 2008

To see the full section entitled "Digital Cinema Worldwide in 2007", published in the MEDIA Salles "European Cinema Yearbook - 2007 final edition", please click here