Further to the deal signed by the Tamil Nadu Film Producers’ Council (TFPC) with Aerox, a UK-based digital service provider, Senthil Kumar of QUBE Cinemas, the erstwhile DSP of Kollywood, declared in an exclusive chat with Silverscreen that the Producers’ Council has not been cognizant of the security aspects of the service while inking the new contract. “Our various security features include forensic watermarking and projector-server link locking (patent-pending) which effectively prevent direct piracy while verifying the source of any camcorder piracy from a theatre. The Producers’ Council is definitely not looking at these important security aspects,” he said.
Commenting on the VPF charged by Aerox, which is said to be half of QUBE’s rates, Senthil added, “They (Aerox Digital Cinema) haven’t revealed what the rates are exactly, so I’d like to wait and see if their rates are flat, or weekly, or per-show and what they translate to in INR. Our rates were arrived at based on detailed discussions with the Joint Action Committee of the South Indian film industry and provide the most benefit to small movies.”
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Distributor Tirupur Subramaniam, meanwhile, compared the new development to that of “upgrading to a smart phone”. “This deal is something similar. Kollywood is ready to move to the new and upgraded screening technology like the 8K system [screen resolution].”
About the ongoing strike that has effectively put an end to new releases in Tamil, Subramaniam said, “We still don’t have information about the strike coming to an end. But if they have found another DSP, they might have chosen to not continue protesting. There is a meeting with the Theatres Owners Association in a week where we will analyse the decision.”