Norway first country to go fully digital with all cinemas

Norway have becomes the world`s first country with only digital cinema technology, according to Norwegian cinema association Film & Kino, which has overseen the rollout.

The country’s 420 screens are now all fully digital and no more 35mm film print will be distributed.

The roll-out, which started in June 2010 has taken a little over one year to fully implement. Despite being hampered by the country`s elongated shape and sparsely populated areas, the process took one year less than anticipated.

The installed technology consists primarily of Christie projectors and Doremi servers, but 65 Sony 4Ks have also been installed. About 80 percent of Norwegian Cinemas are 3D capable.

Film & Kino predicts that VPF payments will probably end in 2017.

“This is a great achievement for Norway”, said Jorgen Stensland, Head of Consultants at Film & Kino. “We would like to thank, Disney, Fox, Paramount, Universal, Sony and Warner as well as local distributors such as SF-Norway and Nordisk Film, for working with us in this scheme. We also would like to thank Unique Cinema Systems, Nordic Digital Alliance, DNB-NOR Finance, Christie, Doremi and Sony who all have contributed in this great effort. We are happy that Norwegians all over the country now are able to experience the perfect quality of a DCI-compliant digital exhibition in their local cinemas.”

While a number of European distributors have baulked at the VPF costs and some territories are taking longer than expected to digitise, Norway, with its smaller number of screens and healthy government subsidies, was always likely to be among the first to achieve full digitisation.