Cineola era on way

V L Srinivasan
Manama (Bahrain), April 2:

Chennai-based Cineola Digital Cinemas, which forayed into India’s digital cinema distribution last week, is planning to revolutionise the Middle East film industry by introducing the same here.
Not only would viewers be exposed to good movie watching — clarity of sound and visuals — but they would also enjoy discounts as theatre-owners promise to cut costs by at least 20 per cent.
Based on the company's proprietary technology, the new system promises to give producers a secure hold on their content with the AES 256-byte encryption. This is expected to help in curbing piracy, which has been a major threat to the industry.
The brain behind the project, which was launched in Chennai by renowned film actor Kamal Haasan last week, is Bahrain-based Indian expat and Cineola Digital Cinemas Director John Antony.
“I worked with my father, who is managing director of a construction firm, for nearly two years but film technology was always my passion. I decided to do something in the field of my interest and took up the project,” Mr Antony, a chemical engineer from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai IT, told DT.
Though not an avid watcher of the customary commercial films, Mr Antony is fascinated by art films and some of his favourite directors include Adoor Gopalakrishnan and John Abraham.
Giving details of the project, Mr Antony said his company was planning to digitise films as they are still being shown in the theatres through 35mm tapes. A new technology will help in preventing piracy because of a separate encrypted key that would be given to theatre managers.
“When the movie is exhibited on the first day, the clarity is more. But it gets poorer in the following days as the film roll is used repeatedly. With this technology, we can ensure a better picture,” Mr Antony said.
According to him, the present pixels of the movies shown are 1080 and they want to take it to next level of 1152 and 2048 pixels.
The company has already developed 2K and 4K servers to enable theatres to digitally project films.
“Our ingenious technology will cater to the music and film industry by delivering world class digital image products,” he said adding that his company would tie up with both film production houses and theatres, as part of their project.
Films will be encoded by the company and later distributed to theatres that are equipped for projection of digital films. “Encryption keys, developed by our key management software, will be used to secure access to film, thereby tackling piracy,” he said.
“For theatre owners, we have developed Theatre Management Applications, including a customised online film ticketing website, to aid them in digital cinema exhibition,” he added.