8The Digital Future of Cinema – So Close, and Yet So Far Away

Patrick von Sychowski

As digital cinema reaches its fifth anniversary, the promise of a future with celluloid-free theatres appears as tantalizingly close as when Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace became the first ever film to be screened in digital to paying audiences in four US multiplexes in the summer of 1999. Yet, five years on just 250 screens world wide have been converted to cinema quality digital projection and celluloid continues to demonstrate the resilience that has seen 35mm be the most universal and longest surviving audiovisual format of all time.

Over 120 films have been screened to regular cinemagoers in higher-end digital cinema multiplexes around the world. ...

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