Colt is hosting the 65th Berlin International Film Festival - ‘the Berlinale’ - with its infrastructure catering for 2,500 film screenings in 16 venues for 10 days starting on February 5th.

Berlinale’s organisers asked Colt to address the technicalities of distributing 500 Tbyte of film data to half a million visitors who will want to choose between 1,100 different films. Meanwhile, the host must provide the capacity to handle inbound traffic, as amateur and independent film makers upload their entries to the Berlinale’s film competition.

Data centers are changing the way the film industry works, according to Colt executive VP Falk Weinreich. “The Berlinale shows in microcosm how digital transformation is changing the film industry. It exemplifies how to treat this opportunity, by continually developing its offering to filmmakers and film fans, giving them a unique customer experience.” 

Remote storage widens scope

Using a new 10 gigabit per second link film studios can directly upload film data from Colt’s facilities onto local servers within each screening venue. (Live streaming is not technically possible). By moving the main storage center away from the Berlinale offices and onto Colt’s data centers, the organisers have been able to widen the scope of the festival, with more films on offer and a wider diaspora of contributors from across the globe.

Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs) are stored centrally in the Colt Data Center on Rohde & Schwarz DVS storage systems with two Spycerbox devices providing a data capacity of 800 Tbyte. During the festival, the DCPs are then transferred from Colt’s Berlin data center to 51 halls in 16 different venues across a network of 250 kilometres of fibre optic cable. The films are temporarily stored on the cinema servers and projected onto the screen from there. The quality of projection has been improved by Colt’s involvement. Each DCP can now undergo a projection testing process with software designed to ensure films are presented in the correct format and screened runs smoothly.

Another improvement that data centers have made possible is the installation of the immersive audio system Dolby Atmos at the Berlinale Palast, which moves sounds anywhere in the theatre space, including above the audience. The festival’s opening film, “Nobody Wants The Night” will be shown in Dolby Atmos at the Berlinale Palace.

“The digitisation of the film industry is almost complete and the Berlinale festival has remained ahead of the curve with Colt’s support. We faced enormous technical and logistical challenges,” said festival director Dieter Kosslick. “With Colt as a partner, we are well equipped.”