-By Jim Reisteter, General Manager Digital Cinema Projectors NEC Display Solutions

The industry debate over the value of resolution in digital-cinema formats reached a turning point this past June, when Texas Instruments’ DLP Cinema division and its three projector manufacturing partners, Barco, Christie and NEC, announced that they were developing new 4K technologies. The news came within a few months of top theatre circuits Regal and AMC signing a deal to install thousands of Sony 4K systems, which offer a resolution of 4096 x 2160 pixels, compared to 2K’s resolution of 2048 x 1080 pixels. For our annual special section on digital cinema, Film Journal International went directly to the manufacturers to get their vantage points on 4K vs. 2K.

At NEC Display Solutions, we believe digital cinema has truly changed the game for exhibition. Digital cinema has created new revenue opportunities from 3D to alternative contact as well as providing audiences a more satisfying and consistent moviegoing experience with the higher picture quality available from digital-cinema projectors.

NEC Display Solutions’ product development culture is based on customer input and feedback. This customer-centric culture has helped us continue with developing leading-edge digital-cinema projectors. Recently, our NC2500S-A was developed when customers requested a brighter digital-cinema projector for 3D as well as not leaving the installed base stranded either.

Exhibition partners, such as Clearview’s Ziegfeld Theatre in Manhattan and Mann’s Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, use NEC, and many other exhibitors also rely on NEC as their digital projector technology supplier.

Now that Texas Instruments has announced an enhanced 4K technology solution as an extension of its next-generation electronics platform for DLP Cinema projectors, we’ll continue to collect and study customer input on their interests and potential applications for 4K.

While it’s early to decipher, we expect 4K will be well-suited for the larger screen, premium theatres, and those exhibitors will likely be the early adopters. There is interest from our exhibition customers; yet we haven’t seen a significant groundswell of demand for an immediate move up from 2K DLP. This is a testament to exhibitor satisfaction with current Texas Instruments 2K DLP technologies. However, appropriately designed, a DLP-enhanced 4K solution can be well-disposed to screen sizes of 75 feet to 100 feet. Overall, we think adoption will partly depend on the local market and competitive conditions. Regardless of the date or speed of enhanced 4K development, we are certain that 2K DLP technology will remain a viable solution for exhibitors for many years to come.

Clearly, one of the big immediate drivers in the digital transition is digital 3D. That is a demonstrated revenue opportunity for both exhibitors and the studios—just look at the recent movie releases Up, Ice Age and G-Force. NEC has provided financing to help fund the move to digital. These funding efforts have proven very popular. Additionally, the DCIP rollout, which may start late this year or in early 2010, would fuel even more interest from local, mid-sized and regional theatres. NEC is a great choice for helping both small theatres and big theatres go digital to capture this market.