Internet movie to make history

Talented Mr Ripley Star Matt Damon voices Titan A E

Twentieth Century Fox is set to make movie history by sending a movie over the internet to a cinema audience on the other side of the US.

Fox's animated sci-fi epic Titan A E will be sent via a secure internet-based network from a studio in Burbank, California to an audience at the Supercomm trade show in Atlanta on Tuesday.

It's a small step toward looking at the future

Tom Sherak from Fox

Once the 90-minute movie has arrived in Atlanta it will be downloaded and projected digitally onto the screen.

The digital technology for the screening has been available for a while.

Indeed, a number of films - notably Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace - have already been digitally projected by cinemas since last year.

But the Atlanta event will be a landmark in movie distribution.

It will also showcase technology that could replace traditional analogue distribution systems dating back 80 years.

Saving mankind

However, with issues such as cost and copyright protection still unresolved, regular internet transmission of movies could still be a long way off.

Princess Amidala from the digitally projected Phantom Menace

"It's a small step toward looking at the future," said Tom Sherak, chairman of the Fox domestic film group.

Titan A E is set 1000 years in the future. It features the voices of Matt Damon and Drew Barrymore as teenagers on a quest to save mankind after Earth has been destroyed by an alien attack.

The movie mixes traditional cell animation with computer-generated imagery.

It will be shown using a digital projector and specially-made screen and sound system - but only after it has been fully downloaded which should take around four hours.

Real-time projection is prevented because of the size of the computer file containing the movie - 50 gigabytes.

Titan A E will have its official premiere on Saturday in Los Angeles. It opens to the general public on 16 June.