During the National Associations of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas, Nevada,
April 5-10, an executive at Microspace Communications Corporation (Microspace),
the leading provider of point-to-multipoint satellite services, presented at the
Digital Cinema Summit. The speech entitled "Satellite File Delivery - The Digital
Cinema Imperative" addressed the question of how to move multimedia content to thousands
of locations simultaneously in a secure, reliable, and cost effective way.
The presentation, given by Sam Matheny, account manager for digital cinema at
Microspace, discussed all of the major concerns with digital cinema such as bandwidth,
equipment, encryption, addressability, forward error correction and remote site
acknowledgement. Matheny addressed critical areas such as the importance of open
architecture and standards based systems and explored satellite in contrast to other
content delivery mechanisms.
"The question of how to move content reliably and securely is one the digital
cinema world must address, and satellite delivery has a strong case for being the
answer," says Matheny. "The next step is to develop standards for digital cinema,
and I expect satellite to play a large role in that process."
The Digital Cinema Summit at NAB is produced by Society of Motion Picture and
Television Engineers (SMPTE) and Digital Cinema Magazine. According to the NAB Web
site, the Summit covers the technical, business, regulatory, and political issues
surrounding the current state of Digital Cinema. Speakers included scientists, artists,
engineers, business managers, and regulators involved in the work that is bringing
Digital Cinema to the worldwide marketplace.
With a focus on data and digital broadcasting, Matheny is responsible for the
coordination and management of all digital cinema efforts with Microspace and its
parent company Capitol Broadcasting Company. He has more than 10 years experience
in the hi-tech industry and serves as Microspace's representative with SMPTE where
he is a member of the DC28 committee, a forum to address technologies and develop
and recommend standards for digital cinema.