Los Angeles, CA—Oct 23, 2013
Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition Launches North American Satellite and Digital Delivery Platform to 17,000 Screens
Service to Deliver 31 Films This Year by Satellite to 1,200 Venues
The Digital
Cinema Distribution Coalition (DCDC) has “gone live” with the historic
launch of its cost-efficient North American satellite and terrestrial digital
distribution platform to 17,000 screens across 1,200 venues. The founding
partners that formed DCDC are leading exhibitors AMC Theatres, CinemarkTheatres and Regal Entertainment, and major studios Warner Bros. and
Universal Pictures. Subsequently, The Walt Disney Company, Sony
Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and
Lionsgate have signed on as content provider customers of DCDC, with
Southern Theatres and National Amusements recently joining as exhibitor customers
of DCDC.
DCDC also announced the appointment of
Randolph Blotky as its CEO. Mr. Blotky, a prominent former senior
entertainment industry executive, attorney, physicist and a leader in the
entertainment/ technology space, previously served as DCDC’s principal consultant.
“This is a truly historic moment,” Mr.
Blotky said. “DCDC represents the culmination of years of incredibly complex
work, as well as the extraordinary contributions of so many visionary
executives throughout the film and technology industries. They’ve succeeded in
creating a groundbreaking venture that, simply put, turns the digital content
distribution economic model on its head.”
Mr. Blotky has served for the past
decade as Chairman-CEO of Technology Convergence Partners LLC, a consultancy focused
on advising companies about the design and implementation of technology-enabled
new business models. Previously, he served in senior executive capacities in
the media and entertainment industry, most recently leading the expansion of
consumer products at Warner Bros.
With this experience, Mr. Blotky is
poised to lead the rollout far beyond the footprint of the initial customers,
using the latest in digital distribution technologies to provide both content
companies and exhibitors with highly reliable, fast, secure and cost-effective
theatrical digital delivery services capable of supporting feature,
promotional, pre-show and live content distribution.
By the end of the year, DCDC intends
to distribute a total of 31 films over its Network. It plans to substantially expand
the platform to more venues and screens in 2014, with great potential for
further growth in the years ahead.
DCDC is dedicated to providing a fair
and uniform pricing structure to all of its customers. Each content provider
and exhibitor using the service will see significantly reduced costs in
delivering content to theaters. The rate is likely to continue to fall from
where it is today as more and more content providers and exhibitors become
customers of the platform.
DCDC, which will cover costs of installation
and maintenance of the equipment located at individual theater sites, is a
“smart pipe” made up of sophisticated electronics, software and hardware,
including satellites, high-speed terrestrial links and hard drives as back up.
Each exhibitor customer location will ultimately be provided with a DCDC
owned-and-operated satellite dish, V-Sat backchannel equipment and a catch
server for receiving content. A Network Operations Center monitors all
deliveries of content to ensure on-time delivery.
Deluxe/EchoStar LLC acts as the
primary service provider for the DCDC platform, with installation and
maintenance services from Hughes, a provider of digital television
entertainment, and satellite and wireless systems and services. Technology
provider Kencast powers the platform, which includes enabling delivery by
satellite or fiber optics of very large movie files, and the streaming of live
events to allow effective delivery of content to multiple screens in a multiplex.
