Eden Cinemas has signed an agreement with multinational California based company, MasterImage to provide equipment required to show the latest 3D movies in their cinemas.
Eden also concluded a deal with Belgian integrator XDC to install digital projection equipment in its three largest cinemas 16, 6 and 11. Fabrice Testa, XDC VP Sales and Development said,
"We are very proud to have been selected by Eden Cinemas, a very proactive exhibitor in Malta, for the supply, installation and service of their digital cinema equipment. The system will be connected to XDC Network Operations Centre which will allow the cinema team to benefit from hotline service, remote monitoring support, preventative maintenance, software updates as well as automatic KDM ingest and extranet services," Fabrice Testa, XDC VP Sales and Development said.
The installations are being timed to take advantage of the blockbuster 3D Hollywood films coming out in July - Shrek - For Ever After, Toy Story 3 and Harry Potter.
Simon De Cesare, General Manager, Eden Leisure Group, stated, "We are excited to be able to introduce this new technology to our customers. It is a huge investment but one which is expected to improve the customer experience and choice of products we can offer. We are investing over 350,000 euro in three screens alone this year and have teamed up with a world class player XDC to provide us with digital projectors with and MasterImage for its state of the art 3D technology.
We're excited to have 3D facilities at Eden. We have spent a lot of time looking for the right product that would be best for our customers and now we have found it. MasterImage offers a number of solutions to existing 3D problems.3D is still quite a new and evolving product. We have looked at all the 3D providers and are confident that we have chosen by far the best 3D technology which has solved the problem of loss of light (luminosity) being experienced in many cinemas today.
Eden explained that MasterImage has developed light weight disposable glasses. The first advantage is that their technology is not in the glasses but is in the projection equipment. This eliminates the need for heavy glasses that cause headaches. The MasterImage solution allows for a lightweight disposable pair of glasses.
The second and equally important advantage is that this system is one of the most light efficient systems on the market reducing light loss through its unique technology. 3D has been known to reduce the brightness by over half. Probably the most important feature that this new 3D system would offer would be the best light output to the customer. Watching a movie like Avatar with massive light loss loses a lot of the appeal and therefore this was an important consideration. Instrumental in our selection of MasterImage, was their recent development of a polarized light filter which significantly improves light output to the viewer. Eden Cinemas will be one of the first recipients of this new technology. To help improve the presentation further, Eden is replacing its normal screens to silver screens reducing further light loss experienced in other cinemas.