Digital film: Industry answers

Some of the leading figures in the global film industry have answered your questions about movies in the digital age.

The BBC News website asked for your queries about the way new technology is being used - and the eight sharpest and most pertinent questions were put to the virtual panel.

Click on each question to read the answers.

Q1. Will fans choose how they want to watch? Q3. Why not have simultaneous global release? Q5. What's being done to save cinemas? Q7. What's the point of DRM?

Q2. Why not illegally download? Q4. Why have region encoding on DVDs? Q6. Why have anti-piracy trailers? Q8. Was the video recorder damaging?

QUESTION 6

Why am I made to sit through fluff at the start of DVDs I bought with no option to skip it? The most insulting is the "Buy movies don't download them" one. I did buy the movie, and now I'm being made to sit through a video aimed at people who don't buy their movies! Stephen Moore, Lisburn, UK

Dan Glickman, Motion Picture Association of America:

On some DVDs, there are trailers to educate and encourage people not to steal copyrights. While not everyone who buys or rents a DVD is going to commit acts of piracy, we are trying to spread a message.

Protecting movie copyrights is vital to this industry and we hope that we can reach some people and that others will fast forward through these announcements and realise we are not focusing on them.

Lavinia Carey, British Video Association:

UK research shows that, on average, downloaders are film fans who view the same number of legitimate films (cinema, rented and bought DVDs) as the average active DVD consumer (24).

On top of that, they also consume illegitimately acquired movies. So even though they buy fewer legitimate DVDs, showing the anti-piracy trailer on a DVD is a good way to reach them with the message that file-sharing is a crime.