When digital movies are released to theatres, how are they delivered? Do they all come on hard drives, as a major download, on some sort of disc or by some other means? Thanks to anyone that replies.

They can be delivered on hard drives, as a download (broadband or satellite), or via live broadcast (for live events). At one point DVD-ROMs were used, although I think this has fallen out of use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinema
http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2007/03...elivery-system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropo...era_Live_in_HD
http://www.dcinematoday.com/

I think what Tsung was asking--and it's a good question--is how your average theater receives a movie that will shown digitally. Not how it can be delivered, but how it actually is delivered.

For instance, I saw KICK-ASS in DLP on Friday night at a Manhattan multiplex. I was sitting in the last row and looked through the projectionist's window at the digital projector as the end credits were rolling. What format did that projectionist use to show the movie? How did he physically receive it?

I'm a lazy old bastard and I'm not going to click on a bunch of links to find the answer. Surely there must be someone on this board who actually works in a theater and can answer the question from a practical rather than a theoretical basis and say..."this is how we showed [FILL IN TITLE] at our theater."

Thank you.

There's no standard. Some theaters get hard drives delivered, some get it via a download (some via satellite, some via broadband). It may also vary from movie to movie, depending on what delivery methods the studio has available for that film.

Thank you. Is one method more common than the others?

I've seen Hard Drives used. My amigos get hard drives. Wouldn't a literal digital transfer from satellite or broadband or whatever be too iffy at times? Personally if I were a theater I'd go with Hard Drives.

I'm not sure what you mean. If you're downloading a file and a packet is lost, the packet can be re-requested and re-delivered instantly. If you're receiving via harddrive and the package is lost/damaged, you wouldn't necessarily know instantly, and would then have to wait hours to days for a re-delivery.

Broadband and Satellite can be "iffy" in terms of a live broadcast, where the connection has to keep up with the transmission, but in terms of delivering non-live content, I think it could be more reliable overall than hard-drive distribution.

Articles on Satellite distribution.
http://www.dcinematoday.com/dc/PR.aspx?newsID=1859
http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story...ber=1343368204

The theater I go to uses hard drives. They seem more common then downloads.

The most common method is hard drives, because it's easier for a theater to install one or two digital projectors with their own servers, rather than have all of them hooked up to a central server. And even some of those with central servers will use hard drives to ingest the movie.

that's what I meant. Not in the live broadcast sense but more as a use overall. But yes, that's what I meant.

Thank you for all the well thought out replies. They were all very helpful and informative.

question: when a film is released in hard drive form I'd assume it's 2K (resolution) based, even though there's been an upswing in 4K content for 4K projectors. I'm sure we'll see true 4K releases when Texas Instrument's rollout of 4K DLP comes out this year.