Global technology and Asian digital cinema rollout group GDC Technology has signed Virtual Print Fee agreements with 14 distributors in Hong Kong, facilitating the post-35mm management of prints and collection of VPF payments in a country that will very soon be fully digitised. Local exhibitors such as Broadway Circuit and UA Cinemas have signed digital cinema conversion deals with GDC.
Multi-distributor deals are still rare in the digital cinema world, although it does resemble the Ymagis deal in Spain, where a group of independents agreed to pay VPFs to screens managed by the French integrator. There is significant progress being made with regard to independent distributors around the world, albeit quite late in the day. Hong Kong is very close to being fully digitised and is also acting as a signpost for the switch off of 35mm format, with Fox announcing that it will no longer distribute 35mm in the country from January 2012.
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