What work remains in digital cinema?
At its core, digital cinema relies upon state-of-the-art information technology. It is complex, and a lot of work remains, particularly in the supply chain, before digital cinema will be ready for tens of thousands of screens. Top items on the list: • KDM Delivery KDMs today are delivered by email or USB stick. Some studios require KDMs to be delivered by modem. This will not scale when having to deliver several movies a week for 39,000 screens in the US. The problems multiply when delivering KDMs around the world. The lowest cost to the supply chain is for KDMs to be delivered by an automated process. A better method is needed for KDM delivery than what we have today. • File Management Content distributors needs to track and confirm delivery of files, and exhibitors need to log and manage files once they are delivered. The lowest cost to the supply chain is for these processes to be handled automatically. The industry does not have a single method that allows multiple content distribu
Digital cinema relies upon state-of-the-art information technology. It is complex, and work remains unfinished, particularly for the supply chain. Top items on the list: • FIPS and Obsolescene NIST, the US body that governs the FIPS security standards that are core to the DCI Specification, frequently updates their specs. This is OK for US government entities, for whom US tax dollars are spent upgrading their equipment. But it’s not OK for the worldwide cinema industry, which gets no financial support for performing these upgrades. NIST changed the FIPS 140-2 security specification in January of 2010 with a few algorithm updates and a new security key requirement that obsoletes the manner in which the KDM is used in digital cinema. Further changes will come in late 2011 as NIST obsoletes FIPS 140-2 in favor of FIPS 140-3. DCI has to decide if it wishes to let digital cinema equipment become obsolete as NIST goes along its business, and if so, who pays. The alternative is to establish a
Digital cinema relies upon state-of-the-art information technology. It is complex, and work remains unfinished, particularly for the supply chain. Top items on the list: • FIPS and Obsolescene NIST, the US body that governs the FIPS security standards that are core to the DCI Specification, frequently updates their specs. This is OK for US government entities, for whom US tax dollars are spent upgrading their equipment. But it’s not OK for the worldwide cinema industry, which gets no financial support for performing these upgrades. NIST changed the FIPS 140-2 security specification in January of 2010 with a few algorithm updates and a new security key requirement that obsoletes the manner in which the KDM is used in digital cinema. Further changes will come in late 2011 as NIST obsoletes FIPS 140-2 in favor of FIPS 140-3. DCI has to decide if it wishes to let digital cinema equipment become obsolete as NIST goes along its business, and if so, who pays. The alternative is to establish a
