Digital cinema in Brazil

Brazil could soon have the largest network of digital cinemas in the world, thanks to new technology that does away with high printing and distribution costs.
The main attraction
"It often comes as a surprise to learn that Brazil has some of the world's most advanced computer infrastructure. Its election system - the country is the fourth biggest democracy - is 100% electronic. Its banking system uses uniquely sophisticated software. And now it stands to have the largest network of digital cinemas in the world.

"When you are so far behind the rest of the world, you are forced to take a greater leap forward out of necessity. You have to develop quickly to solve problems," says Fábio Lima, the founder of Rain Networks, a São Paulo-based digital start-up.

Brazilian cinema finds itself in an impoverished situation. The country has one of the lowest number of screens per capita - there are more than 100,000 people per screen; Mexico, a comparable country, has a screen for every 35,000. The figure in the UK is about 20,000. "

"KinoCast is positioning itself as a rival to the Casablanca Digital System (CDS), which is the global standard for digital projection and a format accepted by the major film studios. But CDS, which is based on MPeg2, is expensive and clunky. KinoCast, which uses MPeg4 with Windows Media 9, costs about a third of the price and is much more flexible.

The battle in Brazil between MPeg2 and MPeg4 technology is one between two visions of the future of digital cinema and one that could have ramifications all over the world. Using MPeg4, a 90-minute film in high-definition can be compressed into about seven gigabytes. The quality is not as good as MPeg2, but to the untrained eye is as good as 35mm.

The majors are resistant to MPeg4 because since it is cheaper, uses smaller files and is easier to manipulate, the risk of piracy is seen as greater. For the time being, KinoCast machines will only be able to project independent and Brazilian movies, where there is less fear of piracy.

Rain Networks is planning to install up to 100 art-house and independent cinemas with the KinoCast system (at $50,000 a time), which will make it the largest digital cin ema network in the world. It hopes to benefit from the current boom in Brazilian cinema - which is enjoying a record year for home-made films after last year's hit, City of God. "

"Patrick Siaretta, chief executive of TeleImage, which has five MPeg2 machines in Brazil, says that the real reason the majors are unlikely to accept MPeg4 is because of its dependence on Windows. "They'll never put all this in the hands of Microsoft," he says. However, MPeg4 is offering the chance of cinema release for low-budget films unable to print celluloid copies. At the Rio film festival in October, 18 documentaries were projected using KinoCast. One was by Brazilian director Victor Lopes. "Rain Networks format is a new language not just for independent cinema, but for world cinema," he says."