How Digital Cinema Works

Back Office / Theatre Operations

Theatre operations in the film world are fairly straight-forward. A show is made up by joining policy trailers, ads, movie trailers, and the feature movie together on a single platter. This operation is called "make-up". The platter, in turn, feeds the 35mm projector with a contiguous show. Automation cues, such as those needed to control house lights, move curtains and/or screen masking, are physically tagged to the print and read by the automation system. Thus, once a show is "made-up", its platter can be physically moved to any projector in the house for presentation to an audience.

In the digital world, it is necessary to maintain the same level of functionality as provided by modern-day film systems. Other features are also possible, however, which should not be overlooked. These features can affect how the theatre of the future is operated, right down to the systems used for booking content.

Exhibitors have asked for basic features of their digital theatre operations systems:

• Show Scheduling
• Show "Make-Up"
• Asset (Content) Management
• Show Logs
• Equipment Monitoring

Show "Make-Up" is important where system-level interoperability is concerned. In digital cinema, this function is handled by the Show Playlist. The Show Playlist allows the operator to assemble all elements of a show, including logos, public sevice announcments, ads, trailers, and of course, the feature movie. Data-centric Show Schedules are also important, as these can be created centrally within a cinema circuit, allowing more efficient operation of theatres.

Show logs are important to theatre operators, as well as to content owners. Logging systems are available today for film-based systems, but will be much easier to implement with digital systems. Show logs allow the exhibitor to review actual operations, as well as observe the effects of maintainance issues. Security-related logs will also be available. Such logs can be digitally-signed by the equipment that creates them, allowing a user to verify the authenticity of the logs. From a security point-of-view, security logs allow one to observe how security keys are used.

The ability to monitor the health of equipment, particularly from remote locations, is an important tool for maintenance crews. While remote monitoring is not uncommon in the IT world, there is nothing like it today in the cinema. Like the IT world, SNMP will be the protocol of choice for use in system monitoring.

Not all of the components of our Back Office / Theatre Operations interface have been defined in standards committees as yet, but we know enough to detail that part of our System-Level Interoperability diagram, as shown below.

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