Digital Cinema Initiatives: better than HDTV?

How would you like to see a movie that is two to four times clearer than today's best HDTV sets? You should be able to as early as next year now that Hollywood has agreed upon the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI). The 176-page standards document of DCI addresses both technical and security concerns; apparently not even our hack a day friends will crack the encryption.

The DCI paves the way for an expected $3 billion transition from analog to digital cinemas. Several large studios are in support of the initiative: Twentieth Century Fox, Sony, Disney, Warner Brothers and others favor the approach which will save over $1.3 billion per year in creating and shipping physical film.

The DCI might actually get me off my duff and out to a theater if all of the claims are true. I'm already questioning one quote regarding HDTV's inability to display every color of the rainbow. For now, my pot of gold is at the end of HDTV's rainbow. Let's see if Hollywood can work together on these common digital standards and change my mind.