PAIR OF VALLEY CINEMAS TO SHOW DIGITAL `MENACE'.

Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer

The digital Force is coming to the San Fernando Valley soon.

Two local theaters - Pacific's Winnetka 20 in Chatsworth and the AMC Burbank 14 - were tapped Thursday to screen digital showings of ``Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace,'' starting June 18 for four weeks. Only two other theaters, both in Loews Cineplexes in New Jersey, will offer digital runs.

The showings represent the first time that a film has been digitally projected for moviegoers. They will unveil competing projection systems by Texas Instruments (at the AMC) and Qualcomm affiliate CineComm (at the Winnetka).

``Star Wars'' creator George Lucas, long a proponent of bringing leading-edge technology into the movie business, decreed in March that ``Phantom Menace'' would screen on four digital projection systems a month after its May 19 opening.

Tom Sherak, 20th Century Fox's distribution chief, said the AMC and Pacific theaters were chosen for two reasons - their proximity to Hollywood studios and their ability to allow an immediate comparison with a showing of ``Phantom Menace'' on a conventional projector.

Although digital projection enthusiasts say the new technology greatly enhances the moviegoing experience, analysts have warned that digital projector technology could take a long time to catch on because of the huge installation costs - as much as $140,000 per system, compared with $20,000 for a conventional 35 mm projector.

Also, the industry has had a hard time reaching a format agreement.

The TI system relies on a chip with a million tiny mirrors, while CineComm's is based on a light valve produced by Hughes-JVC. The key selling point for both is that the magnetic tapes or digital disks in the new projection systems won't wear out, unlike film, and will be able to project pristine images even after hundreds of showings.

``You're going to get a consistently high level of image quality,'' said TI spokesman David Smith. ``We really want audiences to see it. We think that two or three years out, hundreds of theaters will have it; within five years, it will be in the thousands.''

TI and CineComm held side-by-side demonstrations with conventional prints at the ShoWest convention in March in Las Vegas. ``Most people in the business found that the differences were negligible,'' said Doug Darrow, marketing and business development manager for TI's DLP Cinema.

``This is a real-world test,'' Darrow said of the upcoming showings. ``We've already gotten a lot of interest from Hollywood studios.''

If digital movies catch on, it could be a massive blow to North Hollywood-based Technicolor Worldwide Film and Hollywood-based Deluxe Laboratories, top suppliers of prints to theaters. Technicolor chief Ron Jarvis noted his company has relaunched its dye transfer process, leading to major gains in color quality and durability, for several films on a limited basis.

``The new dye transfer prints are superior to digital by a big factor,'' Jarvis said. ``We're not sitting here shaking in our boots, but it's not necessarily going to be easy for film and electronic transfer to co-exist.''