Brazil’s all-digital cinemas
Hollywood has made halting forays into digital cinema – George Lucas says that he’ll show the next Star Wars installment, due out next year, only in theaters with digital capability – but the cost of converting theaters to digital and concerns over piracy has the US movie industry moving in slow motion.
That is not, however, the situation in Brazi where necessity has become the mother of invention.
The hinterlands are virtually inaccessible by roads, and copying and transporting hundreds of reels of film is expensive, writes Andrew Downie in a Christian Science Monitor story here.
Now São Paulo’s Rain Networks has developed a low-cost distribution system, with built-in antipiracy measures, and Brazil is poised to take the boldest steps yet into all-digital cinema, with 100 theaters – the largest digital network in the world – scheduled to be projecting pixels by May, says Downie.
"That such technological advances should come to Brazil, a country better known for the more frivolous pastimes of sunbathing, dancing, and soccer, may be surprising only to those unaware of Brazilians’ love of technology," he continues. "Although it is considered a developing nation, Brazil’s long-standing tradition of openness, coupled with its sheer size, means that there are tens of millions of well-educated techies eager for cutting-edge gadgets and devices.
"Brazil has one of the highest rates of Internet use in the developing world, with 95 percent of taxpayers using the web to make their annual income-tax declaration" and "Even Brazil’s computer hackers are so skilled that a leading expert recently warned, ‘Brazil is both a laboratory for cybercrime and also its largest exporter worldwide’."
But, the report goes on, using Windows Media 9 software, Rain engineers came up with MPEG-4, video compression software that’s, "cheaper and faster than the current system. The MPEG-4 software can squeeze a feature film onto a file of just five gigabytes, 15 times smaller than the MPEG-2 technology presently used."
Movies are then beamed by satellite from Rain’s central computer in São Paulo to cinemas across the country and depending on bandwidth, it can take as little as 20 minutes to send a 90-minute film to a theater.
"By eliminating celluloid and transport costs, distributors can quickly and cheaply beam blockbusters to distant towns the same day as they première in London, Los Angeles, or São Paulo. They can offer a wider range of films and even live broadcasts."
And just as important, Downie says, if films bomb, distributors can withdraw them immediately without having to rue the $750,000 it costs to make 500 copies of a big film such as the Matrix or The Lord of the Rings.
Valmir Fernandes, director and president of Cinemark Brasil, a US chain with 272 screens hin Brazil, called the MPEG-4 system "the new technological reality" and says no matter what happens, it’s here to stay.
Hollywood may resist because of fears over piracy and losing control, but cinema cannot halt progress, he says. Through deals with US and British partners, Rain hopes to take its system global.
