As the world of cinema powers forward in the digital age, Texas Instruments (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) DLP Cinema® technology continues as the renowned choice for exhibitors throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), illuminating nearly 30,000 screens in the region. DLP Cinema and its partner licensees, Barco, Christie and NEC, continue to work closely with exhibitors to provide premium big screen experiences with every showing.
This same collaborative focus resulted in DLP Cinema’s creation of the S2K chipset in 2012, which is engineered for small screens and meets DCI specifications for image quality, color, and security. The more compact and cost-effective models based on the S2K design have seen impressive adoption in the past six months, and have been a boon for EMEA-based exhibitors.
“The demand for DLP Cinema’s S2K chipset has been nothing short of amazing, making up nearly 40 percent of our sales so far in 2013,” said Dave Duncan, manager of DLP Cinema and Professional Display for Texas Instruments. “Our partners have in turn packed in the features with their S2K-powered models, which have received high praise and strong adoption in single screen art houses and historic theatres, as well as brand new, multi-screen entertainment centers.”
With S2K technology inside, Barco’s DP2K-10S has been able to “make the transition easier for smaller theatres, and help them grasp new business opportunities, such as increased flexibility of programming,” said Tim Sinnaeve, Market Director, Digital Cinema at Barco. One such theatre is Belgium’s Cinema De Keizer, which was first established in 1924 and can now continue carrying the honor of being the nation’s oldest theatre thanks to its switch to digital cinema.
The Christie Solaria One and One+ models are illuminating screens from South Africa to Russia, and many countries in between. Alexandr Ryabkin, manager of the KinoFox cinema in Russia, recently upgraded from film projection to a number of S2K-equipped Solaria Ones, and applauds the reliability, quality and all-around versatility that the compact digital cinema units are able to provide. NEC’s DLP Cinema S2K offering, the NC900, is bringing the power of digital cinema to life in theatres in Spain, Turkey and France and is helping to deliver lower operating costs and savings from decreased energy usage to exhibitors.
With the EMEA region hosting nearly a third of the world’s digital screens, Mark Kendall, Business Development Manager for NEC’s Digital Cinema group, expects even greater interest and adoption in the months ahead, with the NC900 catching the attention of a broader range of customers, such as ANCI in France. Looking at the EMEA region as a whole, from June 2, 2012 to June 3 of this year, the total number of digital cinema screens featuring award-winning DLP Cinema technology increased 27% to 27,334, thus surpassing North America.
Of those screens, 14,574 are 3D-enabled, representing growth of 20% since June 2012 (12,156). Of the 590 IMAX® digital screens powered by DLP Cinema worldwide as of June 3 of this year, 273 reside outside of North America, for a nearly 30% bump over June 2012. DLP Cinema is honored to be enabling exhibitors to remain at the forefront of cinema innovation, from 4K, High Frame Rate, and a robust variety of targeted solutions like the S2K chipset, to future opportunities like laser illumination, interactivity, high dynamic range, and much more.
