San Diego, CA **Unofficial news: 6 Digital Screens/Sn Diego for EP2!!**

Forget AMC. This is the unofficial news. Ultrastar Cinemas in San Diego are installing/upgrading 6 screens for digital presentation. With the first movie being Attack Of The Clones. 6 Screens, the most in all of the US. Official news from the co. not posted yet. Here are the theatres:
UltraStar Cinemas:
Chula Vista - 2 screens
Poway - 2 screens
Del Mar Highlands8 - 1 screen
La Costa - 1 screen.

Spread the word!!! any inquiries E-MAIL me at
ILIKEDVD@aol.com

 

What kinda projector are they using? Certainly not DLP because the official DLP site only shows the AMC Mission Valley 20 as having a digital projector.

 

The projectors are from the company Barco, which is through the Boeing Company. and it IS a DLP projector.

 

Hmmm...well, that's interesting news. The Poway theaters are pretty close to me. Closer than the AMC20 for sure. I'll have to think about this.

 

Sweet, Del Mar highlands is 5 minutes from my house.

 

/\
Producers quote.

Nice.

 

John,

Do you know when they will "officially" be releasing this information? Are they installing the new projectors this month or next? How many seats do each of the theatres you mentioned have in the auditoriums where the DLP projectors will be installed? Also, do you know which of those has the biggest screen?

Even though the movie is in digital and would look really "clean" shown in digital, I don't think I can beat the experience of seeing Episode II at the Chinese in Hollywood with 1,500 screaming fans on one of the biggest screens in Southern Cali. *sigh* Decisions... decisions...

 

I hope this is official, AMC20 is a bit of a drive from me. Anything in North County or near it would be really awesome.

 

La Costa would be bad ass, that's only 10 minutes from me. I really didn't want to drive down to MV to see Ep2 digitally.

 

I drove to Burbank and Orange County to see Episode I projected digitally, so it's no big deal for me to drive down to Mission Valley.

 

Well, here's some more info that is "official" but doesn't specifically say what theaters. Regardless, it backs up what CaptPanakaBacca is saying.

From Wired:
Getting Starry-Eyed Over Digital
By Michael Stroud

2:00 a.m. April 13, 2002 PDT
LAS VEGAS -- Star Wars: Attack of the Clones might just as easily be named "Star Wars: Attack of the Digital Cinema Projector Manufacturers."

Barco NV and Christie Digital Systems -- the two companies that dominate the nascent market for filmless projectors displaying movies in digital clarity -- are scrambling before the movie launches May 16 to at least double the number of the $130,000-plus machines they have deployed around the world.

Their goal: to jump-start a market for digital projectors that Star Wars creator George Lucas has said he hopes to see soon in thousands of theaters.

Industry sources expect about 50 new theaters will install digital projectors over the next five weeks, bringing the total number to about 100. "There are more demands for projectors than we can logistically support," said Michael Mooney, Christie's director of digital cinema.

And Harry Mathias, Barco's director of digital cinema for the United States, says he is "booked solid" with projector orders between now and when Star Wars rolls out.

If Star Wars were to ignite demand, he's ready to ship thousands more. "The amount of money we're talking about is the amount of money dot-coms use up in second-round financing," Mathias said.

Both companies, which declined to reveal numbers of orders or customers, have been touting their products at the National Association of Broadcasters meeting underway in Las Vegas.

For the market to explode, consumers need to flock to digitally equipped theaters, and exhibition companies need to be convinced that the extra money spent on such theaters justifies a mass rollout.

The first part may be easy. Julian Bond, executive vice president for digital exhibition and special projects at Star Wars distributor 20th Century Fox, says digital versions of the studio's current animated release, Ice Age, have been a big hit in theaters.

"In cases where screens (for Ice Age) were playing side by side, in just about every case, the digital (version) outperformed the other," he said.

That performance was boosted by newspaper ads touting the digital versions.

Consumers, Bond noted, have been primed for digital cinema by their experience with DVDs and CDs. "They associate digital with quality," he said.

Now the question is how many theaters will step up to the plate.

So far, only a minuscule number of theaters have done so. The 100 theaters with digital projectors expected to be in place by Star Wars' release compares with 30,000 in the United States alone equipped with conventional projectors.

What's needed is a big theater chain to invest in digital cinema.

Enthusiasts for the technology think they have the right person in billionaire Phillip Anschutz, who couldn't be reached for comment. He controls 5,800 screens at United Artists Theatres, Regal Cinemas and Edwards Theatres, making him the most powerful exhibitor in the country. He also happens to be the largest shareholder in Qwest Communications, whose fiber optic network spans more than 104,000 miles globally.

For the past year, speculation has been rife among digital cinema buffs that Anschutz wants to install digital projectors at some of his theaters and use Qwest's fiber to download digital product directly from studios to theaters.

Such a plan, one industry executive contends, would be "the perfect use for all that excess broadband capacity he has right now."

 

Thanks for finding that for us Brian.

 

More info as it comes in. I'm also working on having my friend to set up a report for the local news station here.

 

i knew that. i think i said before somewhere here that the only thearter in san diego that haas thx and possibly the digital projector are the ultrastars in chula vista.....you will definitely find me there. as said before. amc sound sux big poodo...im going today to ask for tickets..

 

Nice homeless_Jedi. Actually Ultrastar theatres have the best sound, all have THX certified rooms unlike AMC, AMC sux and their sound is way low. Ultrastar has the umph in the deep bass and nice highs in their sounds.
As for the digital in Chula Vista, its not there yet. I visited the booth the other day. They are installing a digital projector in theatre room #9 which is the biggest one, and in theatre room #3 which is a small sized one, small because they have other summer movies coming out and they need some of the bigger rooms free for those. Personally the smaller the room the better the digital picture, i think. More info later.