Premiere Cinema announced today it has completed converting all of its auditoriums at Baytown's San Jacinto Mall to digital projection, giving Baytown the distinction of being one of the few cities in Texas to have its own 100% all-digital multiplex.

Nesha Kradeih has been the Director of the Premiere Cinema in Baytown for most of its 8 years. Ms. Kradeih (known mostly as "Ms. Nesha" to her staff and guests) is a 24-year veteran of the cinema industry, and says she's never in her career witnessed such overwhelming customer response. "They're truly surprised at how good the picture and sound can be in digital; most of our guests have never seen a movie in digital since there aren't many theatres around that have it so when they do, they're amazed!" she explained echoing their enthusiasm. "For Baytown to be one of the first theatres in Texas to go all-digital even before the major cities is incredible. Baytown and Premiere have been good community partners together and we're doing our part to constantly improve the movie-going experience for guests who choose Premiere."

Most theatres still project 35mm film onto their screens. The movies have historically been shipped in on bulky reels which must be spliced together and threaded into a mechanical projector at each showtime. Customer's have long-endured film scratches, breaks and dirty worn-out film which begins deteriorating in quality after multiple showings. Digital cinema eliminates all that along with film itself, as the movies are beamed to the cinema via satellite and stored on large terabyte servers which distributes the content throughout the multiplex and tells each screen which movie it is showing and when it starts. "The whole process is so high-tech and automated, we basically choose which previews to run on the movie and which theatre it will show in, and the computers do everything else," says Ms. Nesha. "You don't need projectionists any more, it's more an I.T. function now."

Premiere's Director of I.T. Services Vince Bienek who handled the integration of the digital servers in Baytown said the most notable thing about digital is the consistency of performance. "The servers eliminate the possibility of human error such as mis-threading film, out-of-focus issues, etc., because it constantly monitors the quality and performance of the presentation. Wherever I am in the U.S., it signals me instantly and notifies me if it detects any problem whatsoever and we can tap into it right then remotely and usually correct the problem before it happens. The goal with 100% digital besides improving the quality of the movie presentation is also 100% reliability day after day." To Ms. Nesha, that means improved customer satisfaction. "I love it," she says. "And our customers love it. I think once people see it they'll definitely want to see more movies."

With digital, Premiere can now show movies in 3-D as well. The studios are releasing eleven major titles this year in 3-D, among which are "Monsters and Aliens", "Up", "Ice Age", "My Bloody Valentine", "Coraline", and more to come later in the year. New forms of alternative content are also becoming available through Premiere's affiliation with the Cinedigm digital network, including live concerts, sporting events, comedy shows, and other programming which can be shown on Baytown's new digital screens.

Bruce Wood, Manager of San Jacinto Mall, accompanied Premiere CEO, Gary Moore to City Hall in April to present Premiere's digital initiative for Baytown to executives with the City. "The City loved it and really got behind Premiere's plans. Everyone recognized what a great opportunity this was to continue improving the quality of lifestyle in Baytown and we're all excited about it."