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Randolph Blotky has been named CEO of the Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition, which announced Wednesday that it is now live, having launched its North American satellite and terrestrial digital distribution platform that will bring movies digitally to serve 17,000 screens across 1,200 venues.
DCDC was formed by AMC Theatres, Regal Entertainment Group, Cinemark Theatres, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. in 2012; the remaining studios, the Walt Disney Co., Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Lionsgate, came on board as content providers this year, and Southern Theatres and National Amusements recently joined as exhibitor customers.
DCDC will distribute 31 films over its network by the end of this year and plans to expand the platform to more venues and screens in 2014.
Blotky, who had been serving as DCDC’s principal consultant, has spent the past decade as chairman-CEO of Technology Convergence Partners, a consultancy focused on advising companies about the design and implementation of technology-enabled new business models. Prior to that, he served in senior executive posts in the entertainment industry, most recently leading the expansion of consumer products at Warner Bros.
“This is a truly historic moment,” Blotky said. “DCDC represents the culmination of years of incredibly complex work, as well as the extraordinary contributions of so many visionary executives throughout the film and technology industries. They’ve succeeded in creating a groundbreaking venture that, simply put, turns the digital content distribution economic model on its head.”
DCDC, which will cover costs of installation and maintenance of the equipment located at individual theater sites, is a “smart pipe” made up of electronics, software and hardware, including satellites, high-speed terrestrial links and hard drives as backup. Each exhibitor’s locations will ultimately be provided with a DCDC owned-and-operated satellite dish, V-Sat backchannel equipment and a catch server for receiving content. A network operations center monitors all deliveries of content to ensure on-time delivery.
Deluxe/EchoStar acts as the primary service provider for the DCDC platform, with installation and maintenance services from Hughes, a provider of digital television entertainment, and satellite and wireless systems and services. Technology provider Kencast powers the platform, which includes enabling delivery by satellite or fiber optics of very large movie files, and the streaming of live events to allow effective delivery of content to multiple screens in a multiplex.
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