The Digital Cinema Summit kicked off on Saturday to the biggest turnout in the event’s history. Last year’s poor box office performance and the launch of Movielink and other potential threats to the theater-going experience have helped accelerate digital cinema in a way the promise of substantial print savings never have. In past years, the summit was dominated by technical issue with DPs and SMPTE members weighing in on the relative merits of various compression schemes and the continuing 2K vs. 4K debate. Business and security issues have always been a topic of concern, but there was a distinct shift this year towards galvanizing cinematographers, studios, and exhibitors into implementing digital cinema.

John Fithian (pictured), president of the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO), spoke on Saturday making an appeal to end the technical debate and instead unite in selling the message that “digital is better than film.” More than once, Fithian spoke about the survival of the theater-going experience. This was echoed by director James Cameron during his presentation and heavy lobbying for the adoption of 3D technology as part of the transition to digital distribution and projection. In fact, the dominant theme of this year’s Digital Cinema Summit was the importance of 3D technology as a way to revive interest in the cineplex.

Cameron was even more direct than Fithian in invoking the end of the theatrical movie experience as a reason to get behind 3D cinema. His reasoning was that finally here was something that could not be duplicated on a mobile device or the home entertainment center. A few audience questions probing the limits of the 3D experience were brushed aside and there was definitely a sense that this was a time to lock arms and to quickly move ahead with digital cinema and to present a united front.

Clearly, the call to arms in 2006 would not be possible without the current level of development in digital projection equipment both in quality and price. After a decade of discussion and false starts, 10-bit 2K and 4K projection is extremely impressive but still a difficult expense for exhibitors to justify. John Fithian briefly mentioned investment groups that would work with studios to use the savings on the print side to help pay for the cost of conversion. The details of this have not been revealed, but as the spokeperson for the exhibitors his message was clear: The industry is ready to move beyond the talking stage of the digital distribution roll-out.

The 3D technology demonstrated on Saturday was a much improved experience over the 3D anaglyphic technologies of the 1950s so much so that it may very well become a popular attraction for some movie audiences. Cameron and 3D advocates that presented their technology or spoke as part of a panel following Camerons first presentation, described a 3D revolution that included the converting old movies to 3D. This was shown dramatically in an eight minute segment of the original (restored) version of Star Wars converted to stereoscopic projection by In-Three that was suprisingly successful.

While Cameron made the point that 3D movies would not be a substitute for good stories, the entire Digital Cinema Summit was devoid of more difficult questions about the changing demographic of the audience and the lack of financial incentive to produce movies that were not aimed at an increasingly infantile audience. The proposition that 3D was a major strategy to get audiences back into the theater was not attended by any commentary about what audience this might attract or what the cost of this initiative might be or whether there was a way to widen the appeal of movies rather than offer a more extreme experience to an every narrowing demographic. The possibility that 3D movies and the enormous marketing and infrastructure costs of 3D might further alienate other more thoughtful audiences was not considered. Of course that’s probably the subject of some other industry event.

NAB is essentially a political and trade event that finds solutions in delivery systems and new technologies not the development of new audiences through varied content. Spielberg, Lucas, and Cameron, directors who gave us the event film, are now ratcheting up the technology, since this strategy worked for them in the past. Judged from that narrow perspective of the hard sell, 3D stereoscopic technology may in the short run raise revenues and perhaps even be used to make a few unique films. Whether this will be good for moviegoing tradition in the United States is unclear. Judging from the personalities involved, 3D is coming at you, like it or not.