Time Antaeus Media Group a Chinese digital cinema industry leader has selected Christie as its partner for its digital cinema deployment in China. This marks the country’s most extensive commercial effort and calls for the installation of 800 Christie CP2000 DLP Cinema projectors for select cinemas by the end of 2010. These projectors will be installed together with 800 Time Antaeus’ Montage CDCS2000 digital cinema servers. The collaboration between Christie and Time Antaeus began at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games’ ceremonies with the purchase of 120 Christie CP2000-ZX models. The CP2000-ZX digital cinema projectors delivered spectacular visuals throughout the event demonstrating their full flexibility in a non-cinema environment. After the ceremonies these projectors and Time Antaeus’ Montage CDCS2000 digital cinema servers were installed by CFG-Antaeus Digital Cinema Investment a joint venture of China Film Group and Antaeus Group in theatres across China. This marked part of the company’s digital cinema pilot. In August 2008 Christie and Time Antaeus were selected by CFG-Antaeus to provide another additional 400 units of digital cinema projectors and servers. “We selected Christie because they offer a range of proven entertainment solutions with remarkable image quality reliability and stability ” says Zhang Baoquan chairman of the board for Time Antaeus Media Group. “Most importantly we foresee their excellent service and undisputed success in the series of massive deployments around the world. This will certainly help us contribute to the growth of the digital cinema market in China. As a leading player in the local cinema industry we have contributed to the digital cinema infrastructure in terms of production and distribution. Now we have completed the digital chain by embarking on the digital exhibition platform. By advocating digital cinema deployments on a massive scale we hope to turn digital movies into mainstream popular culture that is readily available and affordable to the masses.” “China has always been an early adopter of digital cinema technologies ” says Jack Kline president and COO Christie Digital Systems USA Inc. “As early as 2001 the country started its nationwide film-to-digital transition. In addition to the state-level developments commercial market forces are now coming together to further spur the growth of digital cinema in the country. Time Antaeus’ massive rollout is the largest single commercial effort and places China at the forefront of the digital cinema evolution surpassing many other countries in the world. With its market of affluent consumers China demonstrates huge potential for the entertainment market especially for the cinema industry. These favorable market forces will continue to propel the explosive growth of digital cinema in the country.” “With eighty years of experience Christie is one of the pioneers directly involved in the early developments of the cinema industry ” says Lin-Yu vice-president Christie Asia Pacific. “With our extensive understanding of the cinema business and the success of massive deployments worldwide we’re pleased to extend our experience and expertise to theater owners in China and bring the digital cinema experience to a brand new level. We’re honored that Time Antaeus chose Christie for its second phase of digital cinema deployment. The excellent synergy between Christie and Time Antaeus during the 2008 Beijing Summer Games started a memorable working relationship and most importantly created an unforgettable visual experience witnessed by many around the world.”
