Eastman Kodak Company unveiled its Kodak Digital Cinema Operating System (COS) Tuesday, June 25, at the Cinema Expo International Conference in Amsterstam, Netherlands, and announced that IBM will be a key technology provider. COS will provide a "digital backbone" to movie theatres; its components include a main server to receive and distribute information, a mini-server and projector for each screen in a multiplex, and a high-speed network to link all screens. IBM is supplying hardware such as eServers running on the Linux operating system, while Kodak is responsible for software and overall system and design.
The digital cinema system will equip theatres with the storage, scheduling, and playback capability to upgrade advertising content, and eventually with the means to digitally project movies. The COS prototype demonstrated at Cinema Expo doubles the resolution of other digital projectors with a JVC D-ILA three-million-pixel chip, and provides the flexibility for future upgrades. The system will be tested in select locations in late 2002, and should be widely available sometime in 2003.