Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 11, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The Tübingen specialists are not only equipping all 28 Berlinale auditoriums with digital cinema servers; this week they also commissioned three complete mastering stations in Berlin, where more than 400 feature films and documentaries will be converted into Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs) over the coming weeks. In future, all films available digitally at the Berlinale will be played from cinema servers in the digital cinema format; video formats have had their day. This makes it the world’s first A-list festival to commit fully to server-based projection technology.
BEWEGTE BILDER is meeting the logistical challenge with a specially developed workflow and the fastest computer systems currently available, together with a network connection delivering 10 gigabits—many times the previously customary data throughput. The mastered films are stored on around 45 terabytes of storage and transferred to the servers on hard drives via fast SATA connections. All films are encrypted in accordance with DCI/SMPTE specifications and are therefore protected against unauthorized access.
Carsten Schuffert, a member of the Executive Board of BEWEGTE BILDER Medien AG, was pleased “that such an important festival as the Berlinale has chosen us as its partner. This underlines our extensive expertise in digital cinema. Mastering 400 films in such a short time is a major challenge.”
The Berlin International Film Festival begins on February 2, 2009.