![]() Ever heard those terms– so familiar to us in the digital signage world– used when talking about the movie business? You have now. And they’ll do that by narrowcasting content to select screens at select days and times, not by shotgun-scattering content out to sit for weeks in theaters across the country regardless of the local demand for that content. Movie houses will survive, but we will soon see a very different movie landscape as commercial movie theaters– the ones who wish to survive the digital transition– will soon diversify away from just showing feature films and toward more content sharing with other media. ![]() Now, it’s about movie theaters competing for consumers’ attention with powerful new media platforms including game consoles that double as movie servers, VOD (Video on Demand), all the way down to smartphones and tablets that play streamed movies. As the result of new developments in digital movie equipment financing schemes fast-tracked over the past 12 months, that transition is almost complete. The move to all-digital projection on the big screens is no longer the “long pole in the tent”. Increasingly, movie theaters will leverage both on-theater screen networks as well the inter-venue networks to provide and promote alternate content as well as Hollywood features.But this year the movie business is going through not an organized migration to digital but a sudden, major disruption unleashed by decades of built-up tension and antiquated business models. With support from Christie Managed Services, Rave provides a Lobby Entertainment Network (LEN) air show display over concession areas, more than 500 digital menu boards, LED way-finder signage, and extensive LED signage in its box offices. But the digital conversion does not stop there. Rave Motion Pictures, the fifth largest chain of movie theaters in the United States, with 61 locations in 21 states, was a pioneer in the adoption of digital projection for feature movies. The result: the digital conversion in the movie business has– until now– been neither a revolution nor much of an orderly evolution. Add to the mix Hollywood studio chiefs’ caution, as they observed the near-decimation of the recorded music business wrought by a swift transition to digital in that industry. " Major industry players are talking about narrowcasting content to the big screens in the movie theaters not just to the smaller screens."For years, theater owners were slow or reluctant to transition away from analog film projection to digital, because it was they who had to foot the cost of installing digital gear, while it was clearly the movie studios and distributors who would be the ones saving huge amounts of money on distribution costs– and WWII era laws prevented the two camps from cooperating to share costs and savings. ![]() After more than a decade of “hurry up and wait” in the cinema market, the analog-to-digital transition that most media started years ago is now achieving critical mass for movies. Why? Because in 2012, the kind of disruption to the advertising industry, and mobile phone industry, that has changed media platforms and business models forever (the kind of media disruption that in fact spawned the digital signage market) is now visiting the movie exhibition industry. How is Cinema related to digital signage? Inextricably– going forward. But even as digital signage has been a staple in the lobbies of movie theaters, when major industry players start talking about narrowcasting content to the big screen in the movie theater not just the smaller screens, something important is taking place.
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