Belgium, Angleur —Aug 1, 2006
XDC Official Technical Partner of Locarno International Film Festival has encoded 7 motion pictures and will manage over 12 digital cinema screenings
XDC is Official Technical Partner of Locarno International Film Festival and will support all the digital cinema activities from encoding the movies up to the screenings during the Festival. As Partner, XDC has installed the digital cinema systems in the renowned auditorium Fevi (one 2K Cinemeccanica CMC3 D2 projector controlled by one XDC server) and also in La Sala and Piazza Grande. XDC will provide the technical support for all digital projections in collaboration with its Swiss integrator Protronic AG Kinotechnik.
“We are particularly proud that the Festival has entrusted XDC with the responsibility for the whole workflow from the digital encoding to play out. It is the outstanding successful track-record over the last 5 years in digital cinema, both from the management and the technical staff, with the roll out of over 230 screens and the preparation of over 150 films in Europe, which allows XDC to meet this technological challenge” says Bernard Collard, XDC General Manager.
The projectors installed in all the theatres are compliant with the requirements of the DCI and are today all in 2K resolution. The XDC servers are perfectly well suited to the specifications presently used for digital film distribution.
“Over 7 films have been processed by XDC Lab”, says Regis Raway, XDC Services Sales Manager. “The producer and/or the distributor give us the image via the digital master. Sound and subtitles are also provided … along with in some cases, trailers. We then, digitally encode the motion picture with or without subtitles and dubbed audio versions. Stringent quality control is performed all along the digital copy production workflow process, with a series of validations of the final result being carried out by several engineers. The digital copy is stored on a transportable hard disk and encrypted for optimal copyright theft protection. XDC’s strength is to be able to provide this high quality work at very short notice. We are accustomed to producing digital copies in just a few days before the projection during the Festival.”
The full-length feature films being prepared and managed by XDC are: Street Thief by Malik Bader, Destricted by Marina Abramovic, Wild Tigers by Cam Archer, Gretchen by Steve Collins, Windows by Shoja Azari, The Bimo Records by Rui Yang and The Heart of the Earth by Antonio Cuadri.
“We are very excited about the partnership with the Locarno Festival. Indeed, this Festival is an outstanding opportunity on the Swiss market. With over 12 digital screenings, it enables XDC to show filmmakers, producer’s cinematographers, in fact all members of the production and delivery chain the comprehensive tools and services they can use to get their stories to screen the way they intended. The motion picture community can enjoy the benefits of XDC’s optimal screening conditions” concludes Patrik Engler, Protronic CEO.
