Kto steruje cyfrowym pociągiem? Cyfryzacja kin jako przedsięwzięcie dystrybucyjne
Who Controls the Digital Train? Digitization of Movie Theaters as a Distribution Project

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to show the process of digitalisation of distribution as a kind of game between the interests of powerful actors of the film market – producers, distributors, service providers and cinema owners – as a result of which the current distribution model as well as technical parameters and procedures defining it have been developed. This expensive and complicated process required coordinated action by many stakeholders, able to operate on a global scale and interested in conversion for business reasons. Its first stages took place in the first years of the 21st century and include among others the establishment of the Digital Cinema Initiative by the most important Hollywood studios and the acceptance of the DCP format. They show that this process has been almost entirely agreed and imposed on the rest of the world by members of Hollywood’s “Big Six”, which are the largest film studios, as often competing as cooperating with each other. The way in which they have carried out the global conversion of cinema from analogue to digital medium can be a test of power relations in the American (and global) film industry, for which – contrary to intuition – distribution remains the most important and influential link.

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