While most of the rest of the world has left it up to the movie industry to sort out conversion to digital projectors in cinemas, you can trust Europe to set up committees and have official plans. The idea is to set up a scheme that would allow cinemas outside the pre-establishe commercial models for upgrades to get their hands on cinema equipment (e.g. arthouse cinemas and those primarily showing movies made in the country the cinema operates in).
The EC has unveiled three plans, ranging from setting up a fund altering an already existing bonus into a subsidy awarded in advance to cinemas willing to upgrade, through to starting up an organisation that would equip and service participating cinemas.
Digital cinema is seen as important by the EC as Europe is currently lagging behind in the amount of cinemas able to show digital movies. While it’s more expensive to instal a digital projector than a traditional celluloid one, it’s cheaper for distirbutors to get movies to digitally equipped cinemas, meaning it’ll be easier for movies from EC member nations to get released and find an audience (all cinemas participating in the EC scheme would have to promise to show a certain amount of European movies). At the moment it’s only cinemas showing major Hollywood movies that can afford the equipment, an imbalance the EC is keen to sort out.