Dolby JPEG 2000 digital cinema mastering facility open for business

Dolby Laboratories has announced the first European JPEG 2000 digital cinema encode completed by its European mastering team.
Buena Vista International’s Secuestro Express was mastered, duplicated, and securely distributed by Dolby for commercial release in selected cinemas on the UK Film Council Digital Screen Network. In addition, Dolby provided 24-hour technical support to the cinemas showing the JPEG 2000 movie.
The digital cinema mastering facility in Dolby’s European headquarters is now fully equipped to master movies in both JPEG 2000 and MPEG compression formats, securely encrypt and package these movies, and produce copies for distribution with secure playback key creation and management. The facility, matching that available in Dolby’s Los Angeles office, boasts a state-of-the-art 60-seat screening room for full quality control of all digitally mastered content in a correctly aligned cinema environment.
Dolby is now mastering and distributing digital cinema movies to cinema screens throughout Europe for servers from a variety of manufacturers, utilizing the international standards currently in discussion with the DCI for digital cinema.
“This first JPEG 2000 mastering for the UK Film Council Digital Screen Network demonstrates our broader commitment to the JPEG 2000 standards, as we gear up to support the industry in its forthcoming transition to meeting Digital Cinema Initiatives specifications,” commented Graham Edmondson, Film Marketing Manager, Dolby Laboratories. “Dolby’s digital cinema mastering service in Europe has got off to a great start with the mastering for Secuestro Express, highlighting just how important open standards are in the business.”
The Dolby Digital Cinema system is installed in more than 160 cinemas in 12 countries worldwide including, most recently, new installations in Iceland. More than 40 digital movies have been presented using Dolby Digital Cinema, among them recent and current presentations of Mission: Impossible III, Over the Hedge, Cars, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
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