Digital cinema encompasses every aspect of the movie making process, from production and post-production to distribution and projection.
While digital cameras are nothing new, and post-production houses have been using digital equipment to edit and master movies and animation for some time, the all-digital distribution and projection of movies has only recently arrived to complete the chain.
A digitally produced or digitally converted movie can be distributed to theaters via satellite, physical media, or fiber optic networks. The digitized movie is stored by a computer/server which "serves" it to a digital projector for each screening of the movie. Projectors based on DLP Cinema® technology are currently installed in nearly 5,000 theaters in 35 countries worldwide - and remain the first and only commercially available digital cinema projectors.
Is digital really better than film?
For millions of movie goers worldwide and leading directors including George Lucas and Steven Soderbergh, the answer is an unqualified "yes."
When you see a movie digitally, you see that movie the way its creators intended you to see it: with incredible clarity and detail. In a range of up to 35 trillion colors. And whether you're catching that movie on opening night or months after, it will always look its best, because digital movies are immune to the scratches, fading, pops and jitter that film is prone to with repeated screenings.
That's why directors love digital cinema: it ensures that their creation will be reproduced with total fidelity at every screening.
Since 1999, DLP Cinema ® has projected over 200,000 shows to more than 25 million people worldwide.