BARCO Sells state-of-the-art D-Cine Premiere® Projectors to China Film Group for its Digital Cinema pilot-project
Beijing – May 31, 2002
Short on the heels of the THX announcement of its certification of the Barco D-Cine Premiere® digital projector, and the supply and successful installation of the majority of the twenty three Boeing Digital Cinema installations in North America and the UK, Barco Digital Cinema confirms having sold several D-Cine Premiere® projectors fully equipped with its ACSAR, alternative content switcher and router, to the China Film Group.
Together with the China Film Bureau, China Film Group is evaluating the possibilities of digital cinema in China through a large-scale pilot-project. During the first phase, alternative content will be screened in some of the largest theatres in several major cities in China using a Barco DLP-Cinema projector. A second phase will include movies for which necessarily digital cinema-servers will be needed..
“BARCO’s systems will be in some of the best theatres available in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Ghuangzhou and Shenzen, making it a true network all over the country”, says Phil Chen, Barco Digital Cinema China, “what we are waiting for today is more digital movie-content to really make this network a unique example of what digital cinema can offer. Already much anticipated , the true benefits of digital cinema are now very apparent; It’s only a matter of time until this technology will forever change the cinema landscape as we have come to know it.”
“This set-up may be somewhat smaller in scale than what we are experiencing with Boeing Digital Cinema or Technicolor Digital Cinema”, says Wim De Vos, Barco Digital Cinema China, “but this initiative goes a whole lot further in terms of the movie-going experience in the future. These Chinese theatres will hold on to their function of ‘traditional’ movie-house, but will now be able to deliver the best possible quality in image and sound available on the market today. Besides that you will find alternative content of different kinds to be screened, making it a real center of entertainment in the city. The cinema of the future is coming to China very soon, and it’s a digital one.”
“New technologies can definitely help in improving our Chinese film industry”, says Mr. Bao Linyue Vice director of China Film Bureau, and mainly responsible for technical matters “but careful evaluation of first experiences is a key-success factor. This is exactly why I talked to most technology providers at ShoWest this year and why we are limiting this test-bed of cinemas in this first phase.”
About Barco Digital Cinema
Barco Digital Cinema, a part of BarcoProjection, is one of only two active licensees of Texas Instruments DLP Cinema™ technology. TI developed DLP Cinema™ technology working in close co-operation with BARCO and others in the movie industry, to develop Cinema Projector and support systems based on DMD™ technology, to meet the requirement of the world’s leading studios, film distributors and exhibitors alike.
BARCO Background
BARCO, with headquarters in Kortrijk, Belgium, has three key activities which are all active in Image Processing. BarcoProjection is in various markets of large screen visualization. BarcoView develops and manufactures display systems for life critical applications, while BarcoVision is in systems for visual inspection and quality control. In 2001, the entire BARCO group delivered revenue of Euro 792 million. BARCO has a network of subsidiaries, distributors and agents in 97 countries throughout the world. BARCO has been quoted on the Brussels Bourse since 1986, and is now quoted on Brussels/Euronext. BARCO is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company and is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes.
