Earlier this year the National Association of Theater Owners estimated that 20 percent of the cinemas in the United States, which account for up to 10,000 screens, would not be able to convert to digital, and would likely close.īut here's the good news: in Rochester, our local independent cinemas are ready for the challenge. And coming up with five figures for equipment that will only marginally impact the customer experience is hard to swallow. If they don't make the technological jump, there will be no new movies for them to show in the foreseeable future. But given that the formats require totally new machines, which can cost anywhere from $60,000 to $150,000 per screen, that leaves smaller independent cinemas with a real financial burden.

Most of the major theater chains have already embraced the switch to digital projectors. IHS Screen Digest Cinema Intelligence reports that all major studios are looking to stop using conventional 35mm prints in the United States by the end of 2013, and globally by the end of 2015. That's why studios like 20th Century Fox - which puts out the 'X-Men' and 'Star Wars' movies, and even the recent 'Lincoln' and 'Life of Pi' - announced to exhibitors that it would stop distributing 35mm film prints in the near future. A digital copy of a film costs approximately 10 percent what it costs to print and ship a physical film, and when you're talking about hundreds, even thousands of copies of a major Hollywood production, those percentages add up fast. But the major reason why movie theaters are switching - being forced, some say - to digital projection comes down to money. The picture is arguably cleaner and crisper the film can be shown hundreds of times and never look any different (whereas film can easily become scratched, dulled, or damaged over time). It has more in common with a song on your iPod than it does with the reels and canisters that captured the films of the 20th century. But if you see a new movie in a big-screen chain theater today, what you're seeing is likely being projected digitally, the information embedded in a hard drive and played on to the screen by a very expensive, very complicated piece of equipment. For more than 100 years film - actual, physical film, much of it produced by Rochester's own Kodak - has been synonymous with motion pictures. The way you watch movies has changed, and you probably haven't even noticed.

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