This article was posted at: Baltimore City Paper Online

By the Numbers

Digital-Video Projection Promises Big Money for the Entertainment Industry--and Big Changes in the Way We Go to the Movies

By Ian Grey

Frank Barron has spent 27 of his 46 years at the movies. Literally. He's projected 35mm images on screens all over the Baltimore area--at Westview Cinemas, the Edmondson Drive-In, the Mayfair, the legendary Howard, and now Hoyts Cinemas Westminster 9. But a technological revolution is afoot in the art of showing movies--the coming of digitally shot, digitally projected movies, heralded by the all-digital Star Wars: Episode II--Attack of the Clones. And Frank Barron is liable to be a casualty.

Barron is a glass-half-full sort of guy; he remains upbeat about his future in film--or rather, digital video. "What if something gets a little out of sync?" he asks, referring to the newfangled projection machines. "Or you suddenly have blues where there should be reds? If this equipment runs anything like normal projectors, they're gonna need somebody else there."