Digital Cinema Initiatives

Digital Cinema Initiatives or DCI is an umbrella organization of American film studios. The main task is standardization and enforcement of the same DCI standard for digital cinema. The proposal to establish the association, came in 1999 by Tom McGrath, the time COO of Paramount Pictures. After approval by the U.S. antitrust authorities and the Ministry of Justice, which the plans of the studios were presented, the following companies joined in March 2002 in the DCI together:

  • Buena Vista Group / Walt Disney
  • 20th Century Fox
  • Metro -Goldwyn -Mayer
  • Paramount Pictures
  • Sony Pictures Entertainment
  • Universal Studios
  • Warner Bros. Pictures

Worldwide, the DCI standard has become the market leader in digital cinema, and ends the earlier ruling proliferation of national standards in the EU and the USA. About 95 percent of all new installations in these regions of the specification to follow. 2006 and 2007 were converted in accordance with DCI in the U.S. over 4,000 cinemas. Provide for the four EU members of the financial means for the conversion of 7,000 cinemas from 2008.

Phase 2 of the DCI delivery

The members of the DCI funded in March 2008 a further 10,000 DCI installations in the United States. Delivery is scheduled within the next 36 months.

The DCI specification

The DCI defined technical, quality, logistical and legal aspects for digital cinema. From the quality of the projectors used on data rates and resolution, subtitles, copy protection method, sound formats, color spaces to delivery methods and formats.

On 20 June 2005, the DCI published version 1 of the standard. On 12 April 2007 was followed by the expanded version 1.1., And on March 7, 2008, version 1.2.

Technically, the DCI is mainly based on the SMPTE standards and the ISO, such as JPEG 2000, and broadcast wave PCM / WAV sound. The specification also regulates in detail the creation of the Digital Cinema Package (DCP) from the raw data, Digital Cinema Distribution Master ( DCDM ) called, including copy protection, full encryption and watermarking.

For the performance space and the projection of the standard defines, among other things, the strength of the ambient light, pixel count, aspect ratio and size, image brightness, white point, color space and color saturation, and the maximum allowable tolerances of these parameters.

Another relevant area in which the DCI acts, is the normalization of the 3D digital cinema.

Standardize

  • Video: 2048 × 1080 2K at 24 or 48 Hz and 4096 × 2160 4K at 24 Hz; 3 × 12 bit color depth in the XYZ color space.
  • ISO 15444 (Motion JPEG 2000) with 250 Mbit / s data rate
  • Up to 16 channels
  • 24 bit linear PCM, 48 or 96 kHz sampling rate, uncompressed

The total data rate ( image and sound) amounts to 113-129 GB / h ( 112.5 GB / h for image, from 0.52 to 16.59 GB / h for sound).

Dissemination

Main provider in the projector manufacture are Christie, NEC and Barco DLP projectors, Sony projectors based on LCoS technology. Christie holds according to its own statements about 80 percent market share for projectors with 2K resolution. About 98 percent of all installations are in 2K resolution. About 20 percent are 3D -capable.

Tom McGrath (Animator) Chief Operating Officer 4K (resolution)
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