Kodak to Showcase its ‘Evolving’ Theatre Management System at ShowEast

"Kodak will demonstrate its comprehensive and commercialized Theatre Management System (TMS), to exhibition and distribution managers at the 2007 ShowEast convention and trade show in Orlando next week. These demonstrations come just seven months after the company showed prototypes at ShoWest and subsequently installed first systems in busy working cinemas.

The TMS is at the heart of the fully-integrated Kodak solution, which includes a central server, central storage capability, content players and feature projectors – all driven by Kodak software and connected through Kodak’s secure networking infrastructure to each other and to the cinema’s ticketing system. It’s designed to manage all content from all suppliers and bring new workflow efficiencies to the cinema.

Once content and keys are loaded, the TMS takes its direction from the ticketing system. Pre-show advertising and keys move automatically to the correct screen and play as scheduled. Software in development will automatically migrate feature content as well.

While the system is designed to run without operator involvement, Kodak showed how easy it is for the operator to interrupt the programmed content, to make changes. “The user interface screen has intuitive controls,” Mayson said. “For all the automation the Kodak TMS provides, exhibitors still want to be in control of their business.”

The upgraded version of the TMS delivers on a promise made when the company first showed the product in rough form last year. At that point, Kodak indicated that the TMS would be in constant evolution, adding features and upgrading functionality, based on listening to customers and responding.

“In the past few months, we’ve made a number of advancements, to increase the robustness of the centralized loading and migrating functions, to handle key delivery messages (KDMs) electronically, to connect to additional ticketing systems, and to support the single track 3D file format the industry is adopting,” Mayson said.

The Kodak solution comes with full Kodak service and support, as well the availability of a business plan that offers peace of mind."

Source: DCinemaToday