MUMBAI: Chennai-based Pyramid-Saimira Group has signed Rs 100 million deal with Kalasa Entertainment Media Private Limited (KEMPL) to install 70 theaters with digital cinema equipment. The installation will be made between September 2005 and July 2006.
 
 

The deal follows Pyramid-Saimira's earlier announcement of taking on lease 1000 theaters for digitalisation. The company plans to finish the assignment in three years and primary deadline is to digitalise 150 theaters by September 2006. In April 2005, the company had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Taiwan-based Delta Electronics for design, development and sourcing of about 15,000 digital projectors at a cost of about Rs 1.5 billion.
 
 

KEMPL had recently set up its own GDC encoder in Chennai. This facility is mainly used for those producers who insist to encode their movies in Chennai itself. However, a major chunk of its films are encoded by the Mumbai-based Adlabs. Kalasa presently has a chain of 11 digital theatres in Tamil Nadu. The company uses digital servers, provider by GDC Technology.

Digital cinema (D-Cinema) is slowly gaining ground as well as investments in India. Anil Ambani's Reliance Capital purchased a 70 per cent stake in Adlabs worth US$83 million this year. Meanwhile, private equity fund ICICI Venture invested Rs 380 million rupees ($8.7 million) in PVR Cinemas, and GW Capital put in about Rs 150 million in Shringar Cinemas Ltd. Mumbai-based Adlabs recently commenced operation at its front end-processing lab in Chennai in association with Vijaya Labs to expand its base in southern India.

"All these activities demonstrated credible corporate and institutional funding entering the entertainment industry heralding new opportunities presenting themselves in the coming years," states KEMPL CEO Ramesh V Subramaniam.