Hoyts is undertaking conversion of its cinemas to digital following advances in digital cinema, including what the company says is the “exciting new wave of 3D movies” which it said prompted the project.

According to Hoyts, Director of Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking HP South Pacific, Paul Robson the company’s entire cinema circuit Australia-wide will be converted to full digital projection, with HP server specialist Daraco Services and networking specialist eintellego, commencing the full deployment in early 2010.

Robson said  the conversion would include 32 sites and over 300 screens, with installation of the latest 3D technology including specialised projectors and playout servers.

According to Robson, HP servers and storage solutions will be used to run critical theatre management systems both centrally and at each site. The HP equipment chosen for the project will underpin the networking of all digital cinema equipment within Hoyts’ cinema complexes.

“Digital cinemas require reliable infrastructure, to ensure patrons have a good experience and become return visitors,” said Paul Robson, Director of Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking HP South Pacific. “The powerful combination of HP servers, storage, networking and the Hoyts theatre management system will deliver the performance needed to serve the latest rich digital movies.”
 
Hoyts said it had selected HP because of the “quality of their products and services, based around a highly scalable end-to-end solution.”