History of Cinema and Film: 2000 to Current Date

2000:
TiVo - A digital video recorder (DVR) was introduced into the market but soon became
integrated into cable or satellite set top boxes, meaning TiVo as a standalone box quickly
came to an end.
HDTV - Space Cowboys (2000) used high definition television (HDTV) technology for the
first time in a Hollywood feature.

2001:
3 Films - There were the three premieres of the much-anticipated: Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone (2001), Shrek (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(2001). Each of which was to be the first in great sagas shaping the film industry within their
own rights.
Rise of DVD - For the first time DVD made more sales than VHS meaning the market was
leaning to this newer digital technology.

2002:
CGI - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), CGI-imagery was combined with a
"motion capturing" suit that recorded the actor Andy Serkis movements which were then
later applied to the digital character.

2003:
Home over Cinema For the first time film studio revenues from home entertainment
(DVD/VHS) were much more lucrative than from theatrical, box-office returns.
Beginning of the End of VHS - By March of 2003, DVD rentals first topped those of VHS
rental revenues. Many studios stopped creating VHS versions of their films, and major retail
stores stopped selling VHS versions or releases.
End of Hand Drawn - Disney announced that it would no longer be producing traditionallyhand-drawn animated feature films, but switching to the 3-D, full-CGI style originally
popularized by Pixar. It announced that its feature-length film Brother Bear (2003) was to
be the studio's last 2-D animated film.

2005:
No More VHS - The popularity of DVD (and the start of a new optical disc format called BluRay) doomed the VHS. By the end of 2005, JVC, the company that introduced the Video
Home System (VHS) format to the US in 1977, announced that it would no longer make
stand-alone videocassette recorders, further making it a "dead technology."
Decline of Cinema - Summer box-office was grim for Hollywood - the lowest since 2001, and
overall ticket sales and attendance totals were both down from the previous year. Many
factors were blamed: the rise in home theater sales, better interactive video games,
increasing gas-pump prices, a greater decrease in time between a film's theatrical release
and the sale of the DVD version, the increase in bootleg DVDs and illegally-downloaded
copies, greater competition from other forms of leisure entertainment, etc. It was suggested
that the industry make better films, provide discounted tickets, make cheaper films, and
eliminate various annoyances in movie theatres (i.e., commercials, use of cellphones, sticky
environments, etc.).

2006:
A Change in the Order - The traditional model of theatrical movie distribution was being
challenged with a triple-release strategy -- normally, the progression went from theatres, to
hotels, to in-flight showings, to DVD a few months later. Director Steven Soderbergh's
experimental, independent, R-rated, 73 minute film Bubble (2005), shot on hi-definition
video, was the first motion picture released in theatres, while simultaneously available on
pay-per-view cable channel HDNet and on DVD (four days later). Likewise, the dramatic
comedy 10 Items or Less (2006), the first feature film released by actor/producer Morgan
Freeman's joint-venture broadband entertainment service called ClickStar, was the first film
in film history to debut in theatres and then become legally and simultaneously available via
broadband within two weeks of national theatrical release.
The Rise of Streaming - The first YouTube video was uploaded in late April of 2005 -entitled Me at the Zoo -- but the site didn't officially launch until November 2005. By mid2006 (in its first full year of service), over 100 million videos were viewed daily on
YouTube.com, and it became the most prominent and popular participatory site for
uploading, viewing, and sharing self-produced video clips. Anyone could produce and
distribute their own video-media. However, many of them were short clips from
copyrighted movies despite their being officially banned by YouTube's terms of service. In
late 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google. More and more, consumers were viewing video
content from online sources, such as YouTube, and relative newcomers Hulu.com,
Amazon.com and Apple's iTunes - all examples of new-media revenue streams.

2007:
HD Pirates - The first pirated HD DVD download of a movie, available from the BitTorrent
network as a 19.6 GB .evo file Serenity (2005). It was Universal's first film to be released on
HD-DVD available in April 2006, and one of the first films to be released in this format. This
marked the beginning of widespread HD-DVD pirating.
On-Line First - The first broadband movie ever distributed by a major studio was
Paramount's prankster sequel Jackass 2.5 (2007), which was available for online viewing to
U.S. residents in late December of 2007 (for two weeks) before the DVD was released,
through a teaming up of Blockbuster and Viacom. It marked a new age of online-first movie
distribution.

2009:
Direct to 3-D - The DreamWorks sci-fi spoof of 50s monster movies, Monsters vs. Aliens
(2009) was the first computer-animated feature film to be shot directly in stereoscopic 3-D - dubbed the Ultimate 3-D.

2010:
7.1 Dolby 7.1 uses the bandwidths available from the transition to digital cinema to add
two separate surround channel in the back of the theatre.

2012:
11.1 - Barco Auro 11.1 adds a layer of five height channels to traditional 5.1 to feel more
immersive.
Steaming - After seven years of declining home entertainment revenue (due to decreased
standard DVD sales), US home audiences in 2012 spent more money watching movies at
home than they did in 2011. (Blu-ray discs did rise in 2012, generating larger profits for
studios than standard DVD sales.) The increase in home entertainment revenues was due, in
part, to increased downloading and streaming of movies from digital sources and the
Internet (through devices including smartphones, tablets, and SMART TVs), including buying
and renting from digital services (such as Netflix Inc., Apple Inc.'s iTunes and Amazon.com
Inc.). As an incentive to prospective digital purchasers, studios are also accelerating their
offerings of movies for sale online before they can be bought on disc. A coming trend will
involve a new technology dubbed Ultraviolet that will allow consumers to store digital
copies of movies in the cloud.
3-D in the Home - By the end of 2012, the number of domestic 3-D screens increased to
almost 15,000, more than four times the count in 2009.

ATMOS Dolby Atmos creates a 3-D sound experience so realistic one Time reviewer said
he instinctively ducked at the sound of objects passing overhead. Used in more than 70
titles, by all the major Hollywood studios.

Employing overhead speakers as well as surrounds, Dolby Atmos can create realistic and
natural sound experiences that envelop and involve you in the stories.

2013:
Closing the VFX - The visual-effects industry reached a crisis stage as many of the VFX
houses struggled to survive or closed. In late 2012, Digital Domain (co-founded by James
Cameron) declared bankruptcy and its assets were sold to new Indian and Chinese owners.
And in early 2013, Rhythm & Hues also filed for Chapter 11 and laid off 250 workers, and
was soon acquired by an affiliate of Prana Studios. (Shortly afterwards, Rhythm & Hues won
an Oscar for its work on director Ang Lee's acclaimed Life of Pi (2012)). A glut of VFX houses,
lack of work (and fewer films), expensive overhead costs with tiny profit margins, nonunionized VFX workers, and competition from cheaper labor overseas were some of the
factors for the growing problem.
Extensive LEDs - Gravity (2013) involved the most extensive lighting ever on a movie set.
"Zero-gravity" footage was filmed within a custom-bult light box containing 1.8 million highpowered LEDs. The LEDs were individually controlled by the film's special effects team to
recreate the natural light and shade of space photography. The light box took the form of a
hollow cube, within which the actors were suspended.
Less and Less - Entertainment dollars earned from attendance at the local multiplex were
being threatened by numerous portable devices, advanced home theater systems, and
video-on-demand (VOD) services which offered original premium programming and feature
films the same day as their theatrical release.

2014:
Movie Making Apps - A new free iPhone app named Cameo, a video editor and movie
maker app by Vimeo, was advertised as a means to "create beautiful short films on your
phone." It offered a convenient way to shoot short digital video clips (two minutes or under)
- and then edit them with its cloud video platform. Cameo tauted features including HD
recording, collaborative editing, and the ability to record and share videos.

Predictions that came true - Some in the industry predicted that old-fashioned celluloid, 35
mm filming would soon be COMPLETELY replaced by digital filming - the format chosen by
many studios for their cinematic releases.
Making their Own - Netflix, the on-demand internet streaming media provider, became a
game-changer in the way films were released and distributed, moving from its original
distribution platform of videos to an acquisition and production platform. It has been seen
that VOD (or Video-on-Demand) and online streaming have grown enormously in the last
few years, exemplified by Netflix's pre-eminence. Netflix's business plan has been to partner
with established production studios to create its content, and then to provide content to its
subscribers. Netflix has aggressively pursued increased original content (such as House of
Cards, Orange Is the New Black, and Marco Polo), and has been able to successfully bypass
standard distribution channels.

Illustrative Pictures
Avid Pro Tools Dolby Atmos Panner (the 3-D comes from the addition of the Z axis)

A short history of cinema sound by Dolby.