Press release

ARRI and XDC cooperate in the production, the duplication and the distribution of digital film copies (so-called Digital Cinema Packages or DCP’s). The collaboration permits ARRI to offer its customers an all-in service for the distribution of digital film copies. Thanks to the cooperation, it is possible to encode a distribution-DCP at Arri in Munich. XDC prepares and duplicates the digital copies for the respective theatre systems. To guarantee a secure and well-rehearsed workflow, XDC is in charge of the key management, logistics, time windows and their extensions as well.

„XDC is pleased to work together with established German partners in the production- and postproduction business“, affirms John Birchell Hughes, Senior Vice President for Production and Distributor Relations at XDC. „ Since May 2005, XDC realised on behalf of the German or foreign producers the encoding and/or duplication of 14 films for the commercial exploitation on the German market.“

„ARRI masters the whole postproduction workflow: from the delivery of the films up to the DCP completion. We want to offer an ideal solution to our customers, based on secure, well-rehearsed and tested solutions“, says Markus Kannewischer, Technical Manager at ARRI. “The cooperation is based for the time being upon the MPEG2 MXF Interop compression technique. Shortly we will be able to work with the JPEG2000 compression format, as requested from the DCI.”

„In order to integrate smoothly digital cinema in a network, XDC offers his know-how and experience in content preparation, server technology and automation. Services as the Hotline-Support, the remote access and key management support, guarantee a well-rehearsed devolution” following Till Cussmann, XDC Germany. „Together, ARRI and XDC guarantee that movie screenings in digital cinemas (nowadays more than 80 screens in the German speaking territories) work smoothly and in best conditions. A maximum of interoperability is achieved. This enables XDC and ARRI to send digital films to different installations of other interoperable manufacturers. In addition, the XDC-Network-Operations-Centre guarantees and accomplishes updates in the technical environment. They are executed securely, fast, automated and transparent“.