Digital Distribution Answers

1. When did UK distributors and exhibitors start to move towards digital distribution?
2005
2. What are the advantages of digital distribution compared to film?
more cost effective and logistics-light alternative to unwieldy model of 35mm print distribution. It will, eventually, be cheaper and much less stressful to send films as computer files to cinemas across the UK, than to transport 20-25kg tins of film in the back of a van.
3. In which countries has it been particularly successful?
China and Brasil.
4. In the UK, which institutions have particularly got to grips with it?
Film societies and schools.
5. What is the national body charged with encouraging digital film in the UK?
Digital Screen Network DSN.
6. How many cinema screens are there in the UK?
3,300
7. How many of these are digital?
211
8. In how many cinemas was your case study shown?
9. Describe briefly the process of digital transfer.
 files transferred from a high definition digital master (either HDD5, or HD Cam). 
The compressed and encrypted files will be sent directly to cinemas to be downloaded, de-encrypted (unlocked) and opened as files for screening with digital projection equipment.
10. Which key film institution was disbanded in 2011 and who took over their work?
UK Film Council
BFI
11. What are the implications for the future of digital distribution?
more titles, both mainstream and specialised, will receive wide theatrical openings, and this broadening of access at the point of release will dramatically reduce the overall theatrical period from 3-6 months to perhaps 1-3 months. Thereafter, films will enter into a second-run and repertory programming market aided by lower costs.
12. How might the share of profit change in the light of digital distribution?
The shortened first-run period will in turn bring forward the distributor's release of the DVD. And there's the rub. The adoption of digital technologies offers greater opportunities for distributors to create joined-up campaigns for theatrical and DVD releases, in which, increasingly, the theatrical opening is used as a way of providing a loss-leading marketing platform for the highly lucrative DVD leg.
In other words, the max profit will come from the DVD sales.