SINGAPORE (AP) — Movies usually are shipped to Singapore theaters on film reels. But the latest installment of the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs" made its way to a cineplex in the Asian city-state in a novel fashion: It got beamed through undersea fiber-optic cables.
Singapore Telecom handled the transfer of the 80-gigabyte video file as part of a wider plan by Singapore's government to combine fiber-optic networks, digital cinemas and tough intellectual property laws to become an Asian digital distribution hub for Hollywood studios.
The digital transfer is far cheaper than having 35mm film reels copied and delivered by courier. And its instantaneous quality prevents pirated versions of a film from being sold on streets before the reels arrive at cinemas, said SingTel marketing vice president Thomas Yeo.