I wanted to know if anyone knows how many theaters across the USA have capabilities of showing films made on mini dv that have not been transfered to 35mm. We are having a distributor screening this wednesday in NY and would like to have this information available to them.

thank you.

Hmm I was watching a panel discussion at the Toronto International Film Festival today and someone who worked for a distributor said they transfer DV to 35mm for every film. Digital projection technology is not widely available right now (most theatres would need to rent the equipment).

The interesting thing is that I've seen numbers in the range of $40,000 to transfer a feature from DV to 35mm IIRC. The big 10,000+ lumen DLP projectors sell in the $100,000 range. If filmakers were happy with the results from these projectors then it would seem like a good investment....

I know of a couple of theatres here in The Netherlands where they
have at least one room equipped with a DVD player + digital
projector. That would be another option, ofcourse.

Landmark Theaters, and, believe it or not, the widely available Loews Theater chains (but they only use their Digital Projectors for Pre-Trailor Commercials, maybe you could change their minds ;)

You can find theaters that have DLP projectors using this websites search engine.

http://www.dlp.com/dlp_cinema/default.asp

As I thought... None here in The Netherlands. That sucks!

Actually, I believe there is a venue in Austin, TX that has Mini DV capabilities. They host an open film night where you can bring in anything you want to show the audience. If it sucks then it gets gonged. Check out http://drafthouse.com

Even down here in backwaters West Melbourne Fla, there is a theater that can show DVDs... Provided you bring the DVD player. They do this to help promote small and indi projects. Like mine!

cinema digital projectors in theaters are set up for HD ..

you would have your mini DV up rez to HD ..

sundance film festival has digital projectors. you must provide them with a HD copy.

It's about $300 per minute to transfer from dv to 35mm film.

In my neck of the woods (St. Louis) I don't know of any theatre that has a digital projector they own.

<<<-- Originally posted by Don Donatello :you would have your mini DV up rez to HD .. -->>>

This would be due to a desire not to reconfigure the projector, not some actual limitation. We are showing 16:9 DV right now on a big projector and it looks great. The projectors have simple menu options to set the resolution and other parameters.