INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - APRIL 1st - APRIL 15th - 2008
R-ADAG BUYS DTS DIGITAL IMAGES
Reliance Big Entertainment, the flagship entertainment company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has acquired 100% stake in the digital images business of US-based DTS Inc. DTS Digital Images (DDI), popularly known as Lowry Digital Images, is an independent restoration operation in Hollywood providing picture quality im-provement services to movies, television and video content. According to Reliance officials, the deal is about $18 million.
DDI works with Walt Disney, Paramount Pictures, MGM and 20th Century Fox and entertainment leaders like George Lucas and James Cameroon, and has restored more than 300 of the world's most rec-ognised feature films with output to DVD, HiDef, 35mm film, Digital Cinema and IMAX.
With the acquisition, Reliance Entertainment also gets access to the company's proprietary tools and algorithms it has developed over the years. The move will ensure large and a steady supply of outsourcing projects to its recently acquired animation company Anirights now called Big Animation in Pune.
The company's capabilities will also allow Reliance Big Entertainment to cater to the rapidly growing 3D content market, with technology solutions for correction in original stereoscopic footage as well as re-rendering of 2D footage into 3D. That apart, Reliance Big Entertain-ment will also get access to top Hollywood studios as clients for its content services through a known and trusted service provider that can be grown to include a spectrum of post-production services. There are opportunities in front ending work for country-specific restoration, digitisation and content services - with a large back office in India.
DTS' body of work includes Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard, Indiana Jones trilogy, Star Wars trilogy, James Bond films and numerous Disney classics such as Cinderella, Bambi, 101 Dalma-tians and Lady and the Tramp. Recently, DDI has provided custom im-age processing services for New Line Cinema and Walden Media's Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, the world's first digitally-captured stereoscopic live action feature film shot in digital 3D, which is slated for release in 2008.
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