Theaters adding digital projectors

SANDPOINT — Digital films may have opened up new possibilities in the movies, but as always, new technology comes at a price.

That price is particularly steep for small, non-franchised theaters in rural regions like the Panida Theater and Bonner Mall Cinemas, which now face the enormous costs of replacing their film projectors with digital models.

“The cost is enormous,” Bonner Mall Cinemas owner Dale Reese said. “This is essentially throwing everything away and starting from scratch.”

It’s the sign of the times in an shifting industry: movie distributors are quickly taking the film out of filmmaking. After all, 35 millimeter film, for ages the standard in movie distribution, is expensive to produce, print and ship. By contrast, with digital technology, distributors can simply copy the film information and send it on a hard drive to theaters.

Furthermore, the method helps cut down on unauthorized viewing. When the projectionist plugs the hard drive into the equipment, it connects to the Internet to download keys for however many viewings the theater has purchased. That cuts down on piracy and lost profits for film distributors.

While that might be good news for distribution companies, it puts small theaters in an awkward situation. Either theater owners upgrade their equipment to new projector packages costing between $65,000 and $85,000, or they risk finding themselves with no more new movies to screen. Previously, industry leaders anticipated converting entirely to digital distribution sometime between 2014 and 2018. Now, given the speed of technological advancement, theaters need to make the switch by the end of the summer.

Both Bonner Mall Cinemas owner Dale Reese and the Panida Theater board members have a plan in place to meet the modern age of film distribution, although given their differences as a for-profit business and a nonprofit, they’re going about it very differently.

The Panida is fundraising to collect the full amount required for a new digital projector. There’s been plenty of good news on that front. According to Maureen Tillberg, Panida Theater business and development manager, the costs of digital projection have actually come down since they first started pursuing the matter. Their original projections estimated a cost of $75,000, but now it’s looking like $65,000 is closer to the marker. Even better, they already have $44,000 of that figure raised. However, the remaining money needs to come sooner rather than later if the theater expects to continue offering a full selection of screenings.

“We’re really excited to get that equipment installed,” Tillberg said. “It will give us an expanded and diverse menu of opportunities for performances than we have before.”

Similarly, Reese has been hard at work finalizing capital deals to re-equip Bonner Mall Cinemas’ six screens with digital projectors. A deal is in the works to add not only digital technology into the mix but also a host of other attractions. For instance, two of the theaters will be able to display movies in 3D. The theater’s sound systems will also be revamped to provide a superior experience.

In addition, the new digital projectors bring a range of benefits in and of themselves. They display movies at 4K resolution, which is four times the resolution displayed by 1080p-capable televisions.

“We have been working very hard to make this a reality for the past year, and now we’re almost there,” Reese said. “We’re committed to the Sandpoint area, and we’re here to stay.”