[mythtv-users] FCC admits CableCARD a failure, vows to try something else

[Bill Bogstad]

On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Simon Hobson <linux at thehobsons.co.uk> wrote:
> Francesco Peeters wrote:
>
>>  > The movie industry has more at stake, though, in a way.  It's not just
>>>
>>>  piracy they're trying to avoid -- it's cross-border sales, the same
>>>  thing DVD region encoding was trying to prevent.  Movies routinely go
>>>  on sale in the U.S. while they're still in theaters in Europe, and
>>>  vice versa.  They're afraid of cannibalizing their own sales if people
>>
>>  > can freely play back stuff sold in other countries.
>
>
>> Well, they *could* try releasing the movie at the same time in the
>> European theaters as well...  ;-)
>
>
> And that brings us back to money again - why do you think there is so much
> pressure for cinemas to go digital ? Cinemas get the costs (a digital
> projector for that size of screen doesn't come cheap), and the film
> distributors get the savings - if cinemas go digital, then the distributors
> can print less copies and also save on the physical shipping costs.
>
> The main reason they stagger cinema releases is that it allows them
> significant savings on film costs. Every cinema that shows a film in
> traditional "big roll of pictures on a strip" form has to have a print of
> the film - and it can't be shared with any other cinema wanting to show the
> film at the same time. By releasing in the US, and then in Europe a few
> months later, it allows them to ship the prints around the US, and then ship
> the same prints over to Europe - instead of printing twice as many copies.

I admit that I've never watched a movie in a theater anywhere other
then the US, but I would have thought that
they would at least add subtitles if not dubbing the movie before
releasing it in most European countries.  Do they really
show English only films in most of Europe?

Bill Bogstad