Munich, Film Week 2008—Jan 14, 2008
XDC and FTT Announce Partnership Agreement
Having successfully contributed to the creation of the largest digital cinema network in continental Europe, XDC and FTT will consolidate their leading position by reinforcing their partnership.
Since 2005 in Germany alone, XDC and FTT have deployed over 100 2K DCI compliant screens, making a total of about 170 screens in total with Austria, The Netherlands and Poland. This represents nearly half of the 350 screens that XDC is presently able to service (XDC is also active in Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain and Switzerland). Serge Plasch, XDC’s new CEO, said: “The partnership agreement we have signed with FTT allows XDC and FTT to move into the next phase of expansion, with pan-European large-scale digital cinema rollouts.
Taking the individual local and/or regional market characteristics into account, XDC is able to embrace co-financing initiatives from the cinema industry or from any private or state sponsored entity. XDC is currently finalising the first agreements with Major US Studios in order to act as a Deploying Entity in the framework of the Virtual Print Fee (VPF) business model.”
Thomas Rüttgers, CEO of FTT, pointed out: “FTT is committed to fully support XDC in its negotiations with the exhibitors. Once a contract is signed, FTT will carry out a site inspection and survey, installation (including any related necessary infrastructure work and stereoscopic (3D) systems), on-site training, on-site annual maintenance visit and of course, if necessary, call-outs. The frontline/hotline and helpdesk for Germany and Austria is also completely serviced by FTT. For stereoscopic (3D), besides the supply and installation of the hardware, FTT provides the logistical services related to the provision of both passive and active spectacles.”
Willing to provide a complete solution to their exhibition customers, and based on three year’s solid commercial digital cinema experience and partnerships with exhibitors XDC and FTT are now able to offer a fully integrated networked solution within the cinema. This solution includes one local Screen Management System per screen; one Theatre Management System in the cinema complex for the control of the different servers with a central library able to store up to 14 Terabytes of digital content; and a Central Advertising Management System. For the digital projection of advertisements, XDC and FTT are currently working with Rowo in Germany in order to use one single server in order to play out both advertisement and feature films using a single 2K D-Cinema projector.
Finally, XDC, with the help of FTT, will continue to offer filmmakers, producers and distributors bespoke end-to-end services to get content faithfully and securely to screen in conforming to the highest available interoperable DCI Specifications.
