Cine-Europe 2012 kicked off on Monday June 18, and the foremost question that was being discussed was what to do about the higher Frame Per Second (FPS) movies getting ready to come out, namely Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The movie is set to release on December 14, 2012 and it was filmed in the high quality 48 FPS format. In Europe most theaters currently can only play the standard 24 FPS (In some rare countries they use 25 FPS). The theater owners are worried about the extra cost of upgrading their projectors to be able to play that format. James Cameron has said that the second and third installments of Avatar will be shot in 60 FPS. So it is a topic that theater owners realize they need to look at now.
Interestingly, right now in North America there are over 4000 screens that currently have the ability to play the movie at 48 FPS as we speak. In addition Sony has announced that by the December release date another 13,000 of their 4k Digital Cinema Projectors will have access to a software update that will allow them to play the movie as well.
Peter Jackson has also said the movie will be edited to allow it to be played in different formats as well. So it looks like at the end of the day technology will be widely available in North America to view the film in the new format, but Europe may be behind the curve. At least Warner Brothers made a smart decision to allow the film to play in other formats so fans everywhere will be able to see the film even though it won't be in the new style.
