Singapore exhibitor Eng Wah Organization is on target to roll out the world's first full digital multiplex, strengthening Singapore's reputation as a pioneer in digital cinema technology.

Installation of 2K digital screens at a five-screen multiplex of Eng Wah is near completion. The five digital cinema screens supplied by Barco are the first batch of 20 digital cinemas and one outdoor digital screen that will be installed in Singapore by the third quarter of this year.

'We adopted this cutting edge technology with the view towards offering more flexibility, convenience, choice and even better quality movies in terms of audio and visual clarity to our patrons,' said Goh Min Yen, managing director of Eng Wah.

The publicly listed Eng Wah operates 29 cinema screen halls with a capacity of over 6,700 seats in Singapore.

The digital cinema developments are part of Digital Exchange, a larger government initiative to develop Singapore into a leading media hub for processing and distributing digital movies and other digital assets in Asia.

Singapore also aims to lower distribution cost by transporting digital films via computers. The first cross-border distribution of a digital movie took place in Asia in December last year. Hong Kong's crime sequel Infernal Affairs III was transferred from Hong Kong as a digital file and distributed to digital theaters in Singapore.