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Author
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Topic: Real D and 3D glasses & AccessIT financial trouble
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 05-15-2009 11:17 PM
From celluloid junkie
quote:
Digital Cinema integrator Cinedigm (formerly AccessIT) has been thrown a financial life line by its largest creditor GE Commercial Finance. From the press release, “The amendment significantly relaxes the financial covenant ratios that C/AIX is required to meet every quarter through the maturity of the loan in 2013. In addition, the new arrangement allows C/AIX to pay approximately $5 million in cash to its parent company, Cinedigm, as well as increase its ability to pay annual fees to Cinedigm. Reflecting the current market conditions, the amendment increases the interest rate on the credit facility from 4.5% to 6% above LIBOR and sets a LIBOR floor of 2.5%. C/AIX will pay a 0.5% amendment fee on the outstanding balance of $183.9 million.” The deal is a vote of confidence and saves Cinedigm and Christie/AIX, but staying afloat and surviving is not the same as expanding and thriving;
More money "thrown" at middle-men, less money for the actual people that are actually in the movie business.
quote:
With an installed base of fewer than 1,400 domestic 3-D screens, distribution of 3D glasses has been sufficiently limited to keep costs of outfitting customers in the low- to mid-single-digits -- so far. The glasses expense is expected quickly to swell to $10 million or more per release, once 3-D movies start playing in 2,000 or more theaters.
Such outlays come on top of about $15 million per pic in extra production costs tied to 3-D, as well as multimillion-dollar VPF payments. Fox execs quietly spread the word a couple months ago they intended to rein in their payments on glasses, but details of a new arrangement have yet to emerge.
"There is no way any studio can continue to pick up the entire cost of glasses," said a top distribution exec at another studio. "There has to be some equitable way of figuring out how to work things out. One thing we might want to look at is using re-useable glasses."
Dolby is the chief proponent of re-useable glasses among 3-D operators, with the more prolific vendor RealD testing re-useables but for now sticking with disposable eyewear. At upward of $25 a pair, upfront costs are vastly greater with re-useables -- and generally fall to the exhibitor -- so there is no consensus on the matter.
"If you could get the cost of disposables down to, say, 35 cents or even 45 cents a pair, then it wouldn't be a big deal," another top distribution exec suggested.
First shock: RealD is charging distributors more than 45 cents a pair of glasses. WTF? Do you know what's the cost to them? I recently got quoted less than amount for a small number (10.000 pairs) of plastic circular polarized 3D glasses from an Asian manufacturer.
Imagine how much RealD can get them made for.
You can buy them "retail" in quantities of one for $1.
Geezzz.
And Dolby is not much better. Their glasses waaaaayyy overpriced as well.
Greed is going to cost both of them in the long run. So it's their choice to try to nail the market for all they can or help the industry and themselves with a modest, sustainanble profit and help early adoption and smooth digital transition.
They way it is, it may all just explode in their faces. I'm planning on equiping a single 3D screen for year's end and unless I get a good deal from Master Image, I'm doing a dual projection setup and ordering the glasses manufactured myself.
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