The massive role of filmed entertainment as a major U.S. export further explains why NIST has plunged into digital cinema, which is also being explored by trade and professional organizations. NIST's Digital Cinema symposium this month extended beyond technical debate. The NIST campus in Gaithersburg, where the two-day event was held, is about as far from Hollywood as you can get. But conversation quickly turned to fundamental business issues, which may serve as a guide to other government-industry collaborations for the digital era. The underlying technology ripples off into applications for telemedical, educational and other non-entertainment uses.
Movie theaters are the other likely venue.
Getting a digital presentation into them requires the collaboration of several industries, each with its own technical and financial objectives. For studios, one goal of the migration from film to Digital Cinema is cost reduction. At the NIST meeting, John Fithian of the National Association of Theatre Owners, pointed out the other side. On the surface, it sounds like yet another episode in the long feud between exhibitors and studios, who have never trusted each other on ticket counts or anything else. With digital cinema, real-time performances are possible through elaborate satellite and fiber optic networks.