London’s Deluxe Digital selects HP

Deluxe Digital Cinema EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), a technology and services provider to the film industry for digital cinema services and distribution throughout EMEA, is working with HP to enable improvement in the speed, security and quality of its feature film and trailer distribution.
Under the terms of the seven-year agreement, Deluxe Digital will use HP Business Exchange Services (BES) content distribution systems combined with HP Enterprise Cloud Services to improve distribution of the latest feature films from an initial 3,000 cinemas across Europe in the next 18 months, with potential growth to 8,600 cinemas within five years.

Deluxe currently delivers feature film and trailer content on either hard drive or satellite on behalf of the major Hollywood studios. Hard-drive distribution requires physical delivery and return, which creates a complex disk inventory management process. Deluxe is working with HP to create a more reliable, secure and scalable managed delivery process using a cloud environment.

The network is designed to handle petabytes of data each month in order to fulfill the current distribution needs of films, it also has been architected to seamlessly absorb the expected growth in film size based on increased frame rates, resolution, dynamic range and other emerging technologies.
The new delivery and storage method will enable studios to distribute films on demand from a secure cloud environment via fast and economical broadband networks managed by HP BES. HP also will provide a business process service delivered on a cloud-based architecture and implement the new delivery method using HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Virtual Private Cloud.

“As a global leader in digital cinema services, Deluxe is always working to identify the next-generation solutions that can deliver improved security, efficiency and faster time to market,” said Peter Wright, managing director, Deluxe Digital Cinema EMEA. “Leveraging HP’s business process with cloud services to transform our current methods will provide true quality, bandwidth and expertise. This will give cinema exhibition of all sizes across Europe, and potentially worldwide, more efficient and effective delivery of films to cinema sites. Our goal is always to increase service levels to our clients, the film distributors, ensuring they get on screen on time”

Deluxe and HP BES will manage the network and monitor the large quantity of Digital Cinema Packages distributed for each movie release. As the trading partner file exchange service provider, HP, working with Deluxe, will use the system to schedule each delivery and ensure all files are delivered and arrive in a safe and secure manner. Deluxe will install direct connectivity into cinemas, allowing sites to securely access and download films from the source via in-theater HP ProLiant servers. Feature and trailer content will then be loaded directly into the theater management system that manages the projection onto each theater screen.

Taking advantage of cloud technology creates better visibility into content location and status for Deluxe customers. Using managed cloud services rather than physical assets will provide many benefits for distribution and cinema management, including faster delivery and, over time, lower costs. This approach will significantly reduce physical hard-drive distribution and inventory, which will enable a reduction in carbon footprint.

“Technology plays a major role in all aspects of the movie value chain—from concept to production to distribution—to create experiences for viewers that are more real and entertaining while more efficient to create and distribute,” said Howard Hughes, senior vice president, HP Enterprise Services. “By bringing together our enterprise cloud services and file exchange capabilities, HP will deliver world-class solutions that help studios and cinemas become more efficient and effective behind the scenes so they can focus on delighting movie goers around the world.”

This agreement contributes to HP’s heritage of designing technology and solutions for the film industry. HP has deep roots in the film industry going back to the company’s first product: an audio oscillator, an electronic test instrument used by sound engineers, which was later sold to Disney, and played a key role in supplying sound effects for the animated film Fantasia.