I was recently thinking about how much better movies in theaters are than streaming, and had the thought: how do such undoubtedly massive files get sent to theaters everywhere?
Some kind of internet transfer could be good since you can just upload once and let whatever theaters need it take it, but the logistics of making some kind of website that can have every movie ever on it and is also completely secret would be horrifying. In addition, the file size and importance of losslessness makes any internet transfer I can think of impractical.
You could also give everyone physical copies of the movie, but that would entail massive shipping costs and effectively bar small theaters from getting all but the very most well funded movies. Producing millions of drives, especially ones with the capacity for your movies, seems like a silly way to run a business as well.
tl;dr full detail, complete movies have way too much detail and there are way too many movie theaters that need to receive them for any distribution process i can think of to work. how do movies get from “file on the last editors computer” to nearly every theater projector in the world having access to it?
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The company provides the movie in the DCP format, it is a very large and high-quality file format, to the theatre.
Usually on a hard drive, but also it is possible to download using Internet-based or satellite-based channels.
What is important: this file is encrypted with a special key. The key is coded to the serial number of the playback equipment AND the show date/time.
The system uses a special playback server and a special projector which is connected to the server using a high-encrypted connection (not your regular HDMI/DVI/VGA). There are a lot of security circuits, for example, the current date and time are stored in a special battery-backed chip and you are only allowed to change the time VERY LITTLE. This is to avoid using the same key by ‘going back in time’. If the battery has run dry and was not replaced in time in a proper manner (without a power termination), the current date and time as well as the decryption keys for the software are lost and the equipment is useless without expensive factory repair. So it is not possible to tamper with or extract the security data.
Also, as far as I know, there may be some ‘markers’ in the movie picture to track who have captured the movie using a camcorder (if it has happened).
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