EYE TO EYE ON DIGITAL TOP STUDIOS AGREE TO SEEK UNIFORM STANDARDS.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

The film industry's seven major studios may have been fierce rivals during this year's bitter Oscar race, but on Tuesday they presented a united front in announcing plans to develop uniform standards for digital cinema technology.

Compared by industry experts to something akin to the vinyl record advancing to the CD and the VHS tape progressing to the DVD, the digital technology is being touted as the best quality experience for the moviegoer in terms of sight and sound quality.

The effort by Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. is designed to avoid the proliferation of competing digital systems in theaters and to encourage more widespread use of the technology.

``Having all the studios agree on a venture is a major accomplishment in itself,'' said Bob Lambert, The Walt Disney Co.'s senior vice president of new technology and new media. ``I think the best thing is for moviegoers who will see consistent high-quality image and audio.''

The digital format is now preferred because it retains high image and audio quality throughout a film's theatrical run and is not subject to the wear and tear that affects traditional film after multiple showings.

Rick King, a spokesman for AMC Entertainment Inc., one of the largest theater chains in the United States, said the joint venture can help the industry avoid the mistakes made when digital sound was introduced to movie theaters in the 1990s without a common set of standards. This forced theaters to spend millions to equip auditoriums with each of the three major sound technologies.

``Digital sound was a problem,'' King told The Associated Press. ``It took some time and money to get all those problems resolved. The differences in time and money on digital projection will be exponential, compared to that.''

Initial plans for the studios call for adopting technical standards that ensure that competing digital formats are compatible. Their goal is to establish benchmarks to ensure high technical performance and quality control.

The studios will then work on developing a strategy to spur deployment of the digital systems in movie theaters nationwide.

``It will probably be an evolution over the next number of years that some portion of these theaters will evolve to digital,'' Lambert said. ``But we are not expecting film to stop being used in theaters. Many films will be made available in both formats.''

A management team to head up the venture is expected to be announced within the next few months. The cost of such a transition in format has not been determined.

There are currently only about 50 cinema-grade digital projection systems operating among the 150,000 screens in North America, South America, Australia, Europe and Asia.

The three in Southern California are located at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood, the AMC Burbank and the Edwards Theater at the Irvine Spectrum.

A growing number of films are being presented in the format, now totaling 35 offerings from 13 different distributors including Disney, which has released such digital titles as ``Monsters, Inc.''; ``Toy Story''; and ``Toy Story 2.''