Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
roles of the players in the value chain, and opens for new business models and
possibilities.
D-Cinema began as a purely technological change, but is continuing by involv-
ing all the processes in the motion picture industry affecting the complete value
chain. The change is destined to transform the whole business of cinema exhibition
into something different from what we know today. Change agents operating on the
D-Cinema arena, respected opinion leaders, and the industry itself influence this.
35mm film is the longest lasting and most universally adopted and used audio-
visual format of all time. Even audio technologies that have found global accep-
tance (78rpms, 45rpm, 33rpm, tapes, CD, DAT, SACD/DAD-A) have never lasted
as long as the century old cinema standard. While the road to D-Cinema has been
a long process, it is only correct that the replacement for such a universal medium
should take great care in crafting something that both surpasses it and finds as
much universal acceptance.
D-Cinema completely changes the roles of the players and stakeholders in the
media value chain. The NORDIC projects have shown that the changes in tech-
nology are manageable and largely solved by achieving interoperability. However,
the change on the business models is severe and not solved.
6 Discussions and Conclusions
Given the potential impact on quality introduced by D-Cinema and the quest for
quality in the media consumption by most users, the transition from 35 mm to D-
Cinema should happen as soon as possible. The higher quality of D-Cinema at the
relatively low cost can potentially increase the ticket sales and be the winner in the
battle for the eyeball - proving quality impacts the business model.
To assess the quality and utilize the result in the business models we need to be
able to measure and to model Quality of Experience (QoE). QoE always puts the
end-user at the centre of attention. This makes QoE research in the D-Cinema en-
vironment a strong change agent for enforcing and necessitating the D-Cinema
roll out - enhancing the fact that the motion picture industry exists to serve the
user, the moviegoers. Our quality assessment investigates how humans consume
and perceive digital media presentation in the cinema environment. The purpose is
to define objective parameters and models that can lead to a definite answer on
whether customers are indeed satisfied.
QoE is affected by several factors including perception, sensations, and expec-
tations of users as they consume digital content presented to them using their per-
ceptual sensors. In D-Cinema the main perceptual sensors are sight and hearing.
Hence perceived visual quality and perceived audio quality in D-Cinema are inte-
gral in QoE research. Nevertheless, it can be hypothesized that the most interest-
ing and prospective aspect of understanding the perceived visual and audio quality
in D-Cinema is not by viewing and treating these two factors separately but to-
gether to investigate how perceived quality is influenced by multimodal factors.
The most striking difference by using a cinema for subjective assessments than
just regular screens is the impressive sensation caused by the D-Cinema environ-
