Digital projectors helping film makers countern priacy
Bollywood’s piracy woes might ease a bit with film makers and distributors increasingly opting for digital projectors for cinema transmission instead of conventional reels, which can be easily plagiarised.
The new technique followed by firms like Chennai-based Pyramid Saimira eliminates the use of conventional cinema reels, thus reducing the chances of piracy.
Pyramid Saimira Theatre has taken 136 screens in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka on lease and is installing digital projectors in these theatres to exhibit films in a digital mode.
“We intend to be in around 2,000 towns by December next year, using the technology. Presently, we have 60 digital screens in these states and add around 375 by end of the year,” Pyramid Saimira Managing Director P S Saminathan told PTI here.
Bollywood — the world’s biggest film industry — loses around 40 per cent of its revenues due to rampant piracy in parts of the country.
The piracy of films as well as intellectual property has been a global phenomenon, which has become a burgeoning problem with the increasing spread of information technology. Globally, film piracy costs around USD 2.5 billion a year to the film fraternity.
Digital cinema transmission helps the film producers as well as the theatre owners to store the data received from the satellite and then play the movie as per their contracting terms.
Thus, it eliminates chances of pirating the film as well as reduces the costs involved in distribution, following rejection of middle men from the chain.
Indian film industry has high distribution costs, which some times even equal a fourth of the total costs, against mere two per cent in the West’s Hollywood. The digital transmission technique saves around Rs 60,000-70,000 per movie a screen for the theatre owners.
“This model will bring down distribution cost at least by 20 per cent, which is vital cost cut for the industry,” P S Saminathan said.
Pyramid leases out theatres for long periods and its associates Real Images and UFO Valuable media set up the required technology as well as develop infrastructure.
The normal cost of a digital projector is around Rs 20-25 crore per screen, he added.
The company has invested around Rs 380 crore for its projects, which involve investment to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore.
Pyramid is also in talks with Punjab-based real estate developers Spirit Global constructions who are coming up with 60 malls and with another player in Tamil Nadu for 100 malls in next 36 months, said Saminathan. — PTI
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