ZON Lusomundo Cinemas completes digital cinema roll-out with Barco

http://www.barco.com/digitalcinema/pressrelease/2541/

 

Kortrijk, Belgium, 15 June 2010. Barco, a global leader in digital cinema technology, is proud to announce that ZON Lusomundo Cinemas, the largest cinema chain in Portugal, has completed its digital cinema deployment with Barco's recently launched DP2K series. ZON Lusomundo has converted all of its screens to digital with the help of XDC, a leading digital cinema service company in Europe.

With 30 multiplexes and over 200 screens, ZON Lusomundo Cinemas is the absolute leader in the Portuguese digital cinema market. In 2009, the company started its conversion to digital with Barco's DP series. This year, as part of the second phase of this roll-out, XDC installed Barco's brand-new DP2K-C series in ZON Lusomundo's theaters. The DP2K-C series is a line of compact digital cinema projectors, based on Texas Instruments' 0.98” DLP Cinema® chip, developed for small and mid-size theaters with screens ranging from 12 to 20 meters. 

Serge Plasch, Chief Executive Officer XDC, says: “Over the years, Barco has proven to be a reliable business partner. Their projectors are easy to maintain and have a low cost of ownership, two features that are of great importance to us. We want to offer our customers the best possible technology on the market.” 

Luis Roboredo Mota, Managing Director of ZON Lusomundo Cinemas, states: “Our aim is to be among the most innovative cinema operators in the world. Barco's digital cinema projectors allow us to be at the forefront of new technologies. This year, we were able to install the new series and learned that many of the renowned features from the first series, such as modularity and commonality of spares, have even been improved.” 

“We strive to offer our clients a future-proof digital cinema projector tailored to their needs,” comments Wim Buyens, Vice President of Barco's digital cinema division. “To be chosen by important exhibitors, like ZON Lusomundo, confirms that our customers appreciate our efforts.” 

Supporting 2D and 3D projection, Barco's six new DP2K projectors represent, by far, the most complete projector family available today. In addition to advances in software, diagnostics and patented cooling technology, all DP2K projectors include enhanced security features as mandated by the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI). All of Barco's digital cinema projectors are based on the pioneering DLP Cinema® technology from Texas Instruments, guaranteeing perfect reproduction of film, time and time again, and ensuring that movie-goers enjoy the highest quality film experience with consistent picture brightness, contrast and vibrant colors. 

About XDC International 
XDC is the n°1 digital cinema company in Europe with more than 1,500 committed digital screens out of which 50% have already been deployed. XDC HQ is based in Liege (Belgium) and provides end-to-end digital cinema solutions including equipment supply, financing (VPF, leasing, …), training, installation and 24/7 maintenance, as well as content processing and delivery. The company is the first entity to have VPF digital cinema deployment agreements with all 6 major US studios Warner, Fox, Universal, Paramount, Sony and Disney for a total of 8,000 digital screens in 22 European countries. Besides its financing program with ING Lease, XDC has set up a global financing of 100 millions Euros with a bank consortium led by BNP Paribas Fortis to allow the VPF roll out of 2,000 digital screens for its European deployment program. XDC Digital Content Lab has been processing more than 600 different titles, and offers a full service including mastering, duplication, key management, 24/7 helpdesk, extranet tracking, physical/virtual delivery. Last but not least, XDC is also very active in Alternative Content by offering a full service from booking and promotion up to delivery, reporting and box office collection. 
The main shareholders are EVS Broadcast Equipment (Euronext Brussels: EVS, Bloomberg: EVS BB, Reuters: EVSB.BR) (www.evs-global.com), GIMV (Euronext Brussels: GIMB, Bloomberg: GIMB BB, Reuters: GIMV.BR) (www.gimv.com) and SRIW (www.sriw.be). 
More info available at www.xdcinema.com. 
XDC Marketing & Communication Department - Tel.: +32 4 364 12 00 - Email: marcom@xdcinema.com 

About ZON 
With over 1.5 million subscribers and 100% geographical Pay TV coverage (with a next-generation hybrid fiber coaxial network installed in over 2.8 million homes), ZON Multimedia is the leading Pay TV operator in Portugal. Using the ZON NetCabo brand, ZON is the second largest Internet provider with the fastest Internet speeds in Portugal (up to 200Mbps). With the launch of Voice and Mobile services (ZON Phone and ZON Mobile), ZON is now a Quadruple Play operator, offering more comprehensive and attractive choices to its customers in order to meet all of their telecommunications and entertainment needs. ZON also has audiovisual distribution (ZON Lusomundo Audiovisuals and cinema exhibition (ZON Lusomundo Cinemas) businesses. Holding the largest cinema network in the country with over 200 screens, these businesses negotiate exclusive rights to distribute DVDs and to exhibit cinema films. ZON is also a partner in a content joint-venture, which produces the leading premium sports channel in Portugal (Sport TV) and the four leading Pay TV movie channels (TVCine). 
For more information, please contact Luís Roboredo Mota - lrmota@zon.pt - www.zon.pt 

About Barco 
Barco, a global technology company, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of selected professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco (NYSE/Euronext Brussels: BAR) is active in more than 90 countries with about 3,300 employees worldwide. Barco posted sales of 638 million euro in 2009.