China Film Digital Company signed a Memorandum of Intent (MOI) with the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the city state's MediaCorp Technologies Company in Singapore Thursday on digital movie distribution.

 

Under the MOI, the two companies will, with the support of IDA, jointly develop a commercial digital distribution model to make Chinese digital content available to audiences in Singapore and other countries and regions in Asia sooner and in better quality.

 

According to a press release issued by MediaCorp Technologies Thursday, Chinese digital movies will be transmitted to Singapore via satellite, by leveraging on the Cross Continental Transmission Project (CCTx), where subtitles in different languages and trailers creation will be added on to the movies before they are distributed to various markets in Asia.

 

The CCTx, which was first used to transmit digital content from the US to Singapore successfully in last June, establishes a secure, reliable and cost-effective way of digital delivery, the press release said.

 

A Chinese digital movie entitled Sunrise, Sunset has been delivered from Beijing to Singapore following this model.

 

Apart from MediaCorp Technologies' asset management and distribution process, which will help reduce distribution cost, other reasons for choosing Singapore as the partner, as quoted by Deputy General Manager of China Film Digital Jiang Defu, include its "excellent info communication infrastructure, strong IP (intellectual property) regime and digital media eco-system."

 

A subsidiary of the China Film Group, China Film Digital owns 180 digital cinema screens and has distributed 70 domestic and imported digital movies in China since 2002.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 3, 2006)