Richard Gelfond
Analyst · Piper Jaffray
It does, Rich, and in fact that’s one of the primary attributes of laser technology, in particular, the Kodak system, is brightness, it’s orders of magnitude brighter than the existing system. And the Kodak system, which we’re developing with Barco, also has blacker blacks and better contrast. So, it truly is a revolutionary development in the cinema industry. In fact, when we did our diligence on it, we took one of the directors who is very well known for not liking digital and liking film, and we showed him the technology and he was really impressed and his input into this -- and by the way, we’re having other filmmakers involve as we put this together was extremely positive. So that’s the first part, Rich. There are 2 other parts that I have to answer your question. The second is, does it position us to participate in the regular segment, the non-premium segment? And the answer is, it does. We don’t -- I don’t think we would develop a product that we would sell to replace conventional 35 or existing digital. But under the terms of the agreement with Barco, Barco is in a position to use the Kodak IP in order to sell into that market and pay us a significant royalty out of it. So we had -- neither we nor Barco has decided how to proceed, but at some point, we are in a position through Barco to enter that market and reap some of those revenues. On the third point of it is, is it a replacement cycle for the existing kind of digital industry? And it could be, but the question I have is who is going to pay for it. Under the arrangements -- the financing arrangement DCIP that it’s kind of a lease financing, which is the way the exhibitors transitioned over, but that lease financing provides for a 10-year payback under the virtual print fees. So if there were additional cost to transition over, I just don’t know who would pay for it. And in fact, I think -- as a result of that, I think, Rich, that our differentiation is going to widen versus the existing digital technology.