Kodak Launches Digital Cinema Promotion Unit

Eastman Kodak Co., the largest photography company, has created a unit that will try to make its expensive digital film projectors more appealing to movie theaters by spreading some of the costs to movie studios.

With a target price of about $150,000 a screen, Kodak expects to begin installing digital-cinema systems in the first quarter of 2003, said Robert Mayson, general manager of Cinema Operations. The unit is based in Hollywood.

Theater owners have been slow to replace analog projectors because of the high cost of digital systems and say the technology benefits movie studios more because it reduces their distribution costs.

“We are not in a real rush to put this in our theaters,” said Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp. spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. “We are looking to the studios to take the lead in financing any roll-out of digital cinema.”

Kodak demonstrated a prototype of its digital system to motion-picture industry suppliers and distributors at a conference in Las Vegas on Monday. The technology offers a scratch-free, higher-resolution picture that doesn’t deteriorate with age as does traditional film. Texas Instruments Inc. and Barco also have developed digital projectors.