Digital Cinema Initiatives

Digital Cinema Initiatives

Contact: Rochelle Winters
Sylvia Desrochers
Bumble Ward & Associates
(323) 655-8585

ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY CENTER NAMED OFFICIAL TESTING SITE BY DIGITAL CINEMA INITIATIVES
Industry Groups Take New Steps to Realize Digital Cinema

LOS ANGELES, CA (December 1, 2002) - The Entertainment Technology Center at USC's Digital Cinema Laboratory was named by Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC (DCI) as the official site to test digital cinema technologies, it was announced today by Entertainment Technology Center executive director/CEO Charles S. Swartz.

A neutral research center funded by Hollywood studios and high tech companies and dedicated to evaluating new entertainment technologies, the Entertainment Technology Center will work with DCI, a joint venture of seven major studios, to establish uniform, open and voluntary standards for digital movie release that will be scalable into the future.

"To aid with the design and testing of digital cinema is among the highest purposes of the Digital Cinema Laboratory," said Swartz. "We are thrilled that DCI has shown its faith in our ability to help solve the central technical issues facing digital cinema today and to make digital cinema a reality for all."

"The Entertainment Technology Center has become the industry's de facto digital cinema test bed," according to DCI chief technology officer Walt Ordway. "There was no need for us to reinvent the wheel, because the Center provides a state-of-the-art facility, expertise and non-partisan stance we need to move our work forward."

Swartz and Digital Cinema Laboratory director Paul Miller will collaborate with Ordway, DCI chief executive officer Chuck Goldwater and DCI director of technology Howard Lukk to develop and implement procedures with which to evaluate digital cinema equipment and systems. They will focus on final mastering, distribution and exhibition to devise solutions that provide a perceivably higher quality image to audiences. Competing digital solutions will be compared to each other as well as to film solutions. The overall goal is to develop a global, interoperable digital cinema standard that will be the basis for suppliers to compete to provide equipment at a reasonable cost.

About Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC

Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), LLC is a limited liability company whose members include Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros. The venture was formed in March 2002 and has its principal place of business in Hollywood, CA. The primary purpose of DCI is to establish and document an open architecture for digital cinema components that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control.

About the Entertainment Technology Center and Its Digital Cinema Laboratory

Founded in 1993, the Entertainment Technology Center at University of Southern California is a stand alone, neutral research organization devoted to identifying pivotal, emerging entertainment technologies and creating programs to analyze and test them. One of the Entertainment Technology Center's projects is the Digital Cinema Laboratory, a state-of-the-art screening facility at the historic Pacific Hollywood Theatre that examines digital moving image acquisition, distribution and exhibition. The Entertainment Technology Center's sponsors include most major Hollywood Studios (Disney, LucasFilm, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Viacom/Paramount and Warner Bros.) and leading high tech companies and organizations (Laser Pacific Media Corporation, Panasonic, SBC/Pacific Bell and TRW).

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