Small Change. Big Difference.

Cinema Background

Located in Tokyo, Tollywood is conveniently located in Setagaya City, only a 5-minute walk from Shimokitazawa Station. Tollywood is an art-house cinema that opened in 1999. Tollywood specializes in famous directors’ early works, and new independent films offering young directors the opportunities to show their storytelling to the public. As Tollywood is the only movie theatre in Shimokitazawa, it is popular among local critics and movie buffs.

Tollywood has one auditorium (auditorium size: approximately 50 square meters, screen size 3380w x 1500h) with 45 cozy seats and features a quaint and bohemian atmosphere, bringing audiences a unique and comfortable moviegoing experience.  

Challenges

To exhibit content, Tollywood used a non-DCI projector (projector that cannot unencrypt a JPEG-2000 file format) and Blu-ray for its movie screenings. Due to the increasing number of independent movie titles delivered in form of a Digital Cinema Package (DCP), they switched to a DCI projector in order to playback encrypted content. However, the DCI projector generated excessive heat and noise. Also, the equipment did not offer a feature that could easily manage the DCP show playlist. “Tollywood had an unpleasant experience using a DCI-projector in the past in that its noise bothered us a lot. Its heat dissipation was also so terrible that we had to always keep the auditorium’s door open for cooling,” said Takahiro Otsuki, CEO of Tollywood.

During the DCI projector procurement process, Tollywood received several proposals from companies offering DCI projectors. Unfortunately, the costs of the projectors were not within budget or required Tollywood to renovate the auditorium in order to install the DCI projector. 

Solutions

Although Tollywood rejected all the proposals, they kept looking for a DCI projector. Fortunately, they heard about GDC’s Espedeo Supra-5000 RGB Plus laser phosphor cinema projector. The Supra-5000 is compliant with Hollywood’s digital right management based on digital cinema’s KDM and DCP playback. Given its form factor and powerful technical features, Tollywood selected Supra-5000 for its projection technology. The Supra-5000 is compact, lightweight, and quiet with a noise level below a whisper, only recording 35dB(A) when operating. In addition, Tollywood did not need to renovate the booth or invest in a hush box, saving thousands.

Also, the Supra-5000 allows Tollywood to fully utilize the auditorium area with minimal changes. The Supra-5000 is the only DCI professional-grade projector that does not require a specific distance from the viewers. Unlike digital cinema laser projectors commonly ranked as Risk Group 3, Supra-5000 is certified by the FDA as Risk Group 2 making it safe for home or office usage.

To meet Tollywood’s requirement for easy control over the show playlist, Supra-5000 provides operators an intuitive web-based control UI calls Supra Command Center. An operator can easily control the Supra-5000 projector with a tablet via Supra-5000’s built-in Wi-Fi.

Given its future-proof technology, Tollywood is able to upgrade their Supra-5000 projection system whenever they feel necessary. The Supra-5000 is engineered with GDC’s All-in-One board providing upgrade options such as CineCache™ 2TB solid-state storage, a professional cinema audio processor, and GoGoCinema^TM cinema-on-demand platform with GDC Cinema Automation CA2.0 that enables the playback of thousands of movies.

Results

“The Supra-5000 is very impressive and I am especially amazed by its low noise, said Mr. Otsuki. “The Supra-5000 is extremely quiet even if it is installed onto the ceiling inside the auditorium. In fact, the noise from the air conditioner is even more noticeable. I think this is a perfect projector for an auditorium with limited space. Best of all, the image quality is amazing.”

Mr. Otsuki continued, “Using a DCI-projector gives us more opportunities to screen more diversified and unique films in DCP format to movie lovers and it can support the growth of the Japanese mini-theatre industry. The Supra-5000 delivers a true cinematic experience to moviegoers exactly as the directors intended.”