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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They send out special drives that the projectors at the theatre can’t play without a decryption key. They send the drives out ahead of the films release and then send over the decryption code digitally when it’s time for the premiere. In the grand scheme of the cost of a movie, the cost of buying and shipping drives to theaters is nothing.
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