ELSACOM for Digital Cinema: Services and Experiences

Digital Cinema (or D-Cinema) is the result of the unique marriage between leading edge audiovisual and telecommunications technologies, being a process which involves all the phases of the flow that leads from content acquisition to the final display.

Therefore, not simply digital capture or post-production, digital delivery or digital projection, but the combination of all these phases into a system, which will open new, major perspectives for the Cinema and Cultural Audiovisual industries.

Elsacom is active in Digital Cinema since the year 2000, having led some renowned international projects, being proud of the trust and support received by major Entities like the European Commission (Media and Media Plus Programs) and the European Space Agency (Artes 3 Program). In those projects, Elsacom has been working with important players from the Exhibition (such as United Cinemas International ) and Distribution industries, and consolidated the relationship with Cinecittà Holding, initiated after the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding back in 2001.

Thanks to these projects, Elsacom developed a unique expertise in the integration of the technologies related to the various phases of the Digital Cinema chain. As a result of that, Elsacom is ready to act as an Integrator for Digital Cinema , offering content management services (storage, encoding, anti-piracy encryption) and content delivery services (in both store&forward and live modes). Elsacom also provides technological consultancy for installation, monitoring and management of the various technology elements of the D-Cinema service chain.

Since the beginning of its efforts, Elsacom has led important initiatives which put the Company on the forefront of the Digital Cinema landscape.

In particular, Elsacom established, in 2002, the first “multilanguage” D-Cinema network in Europe , installing 7 digital screens across 5 European countries in cooperation with United Cinemas International.

On March 12th, 2004 Elsacom, in cooperation with Cattleya and Warner Village , supported the first live event for the Italian Cinemas , with a real-time transmission of a concert of the Italian rock group “Le Vibrazioni” which was offered to the public on two Warner Village screens in Rome and Milan .

To further promote its presence in the D-Cinema field, Elsacom chose to participate, acting as sponsor and coordinator of the digital activities, to the implementation of “La Casa del Cinema” , a project supported by the Municipality of Rome . At “La casa del Cinema”, Elsacom installed a digital projector with 2K resolution and performed several events, among which we can mention, on November 9th, 2004, the digital premiere of “Shrek 2” by Dreamworks.

In December 2004 Elsacom singed an agreement with Cinecittà Cinema, to collaborate in the set-up and provisioning of two digital screens at the cinemas “Manzoni” of Milan and “Embassy” of Rome . (read more) The “2K DLP Cinema” projection technology by Texas Instruments was utilized for both screens.

On behalf of Hollywood Classics Ltd ., Elsacom performed the encoding, encryption, subtitling and transmission of four movies (“Robin Hood”, “Blow Up”, “Singin' in the Rain” and “Casablanca ”), which were then projected on 9 screens of United Cinemas International across 6 European countries (United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain).

The first movie, “Robin Hood”, was delivered via satellite on March 25th, 2005. For the first time, a satellite “multilanguage” delivery of a movie has reached the European Cinema screens, a proof of concept of the robust integration between communication technologies and Digital Cinema (read more).

Moreover, Elsacom performed, on behalf of the Italian Distributor Lucky Red , the digital delivery of the movie “ Deep Blue ” to 7 Italian screens equipped with DLP Cinema projectors.

“Deep Blue” is the first digital release of an Italian independent distributor, which makes Elsacom particularly proud of having been selected for technically supporting it. (read more)