Dolby Laboratories announced yesterday [April 12] that the China Research Institute of Film Science & Technology (CRIFST) has selected its digital compression, encoding, packaging and encryption SCC2000 Secure Content Creator for its facilities.

CRIFST has also ordered a JPEG 2000-compatible Dolby Digital Cinema playback system for its facilities, to be supplied by local Dolby product distributor ACE. Digital deployments in China, one of the most prolific piracy markets in the world, have hitherto used the Mpeg format.

CRIFST, the Beijing-based organsation in charge of research and standardisation of film technologies in China, will instal the equipment at its digital cinema mastering facility to research and test digital cinema standards.

'Dolby's Secure Content Creator gives CRIFST an edge in following international digital cinema standards, as CRIFST is responsible for testing these standards for China,' CRIFST president Yang Xuepei said.

'Cooperation with a trusted company like Dolby is very important for CRIFST to deliver correct messaging and guidelines for the Chinese film industry.'

'Dolby is working hard to help establish a single set of international open standards for digital cinema that provide the highest levels of quality and security to ensure worldwide interoperability,' Dolby senior vice president and general manager of the professional division Tim Partridge said.

'CRIFST's selection of the Dolby SCC2000 system demonstrates their commitment to the JPEG 2000 format and their confidence in Dolby to supply the tools to deliver it.'