Sandra - CEO of a Large Cinema Distribution Company

As a company, we were very committed to taking our distribution digital. In addition to improving the quality of the movie experience for the consumer by showing movies in a digital format, we were looking to cut our distribution costs in a big way. The reproduction and reconditioning of celluloid film is expensive when you take into account that a theater should really send the film in for reconditioning after 25 showings. And, while shipping hard drives with digital movie files was great for the consumer, the shipping costs alone were extremely high considering we had to send hard drives to hundreds of movie theaters every time we released a new movie.

Because of the broadcast nature of satellite distribution, we decided that building a satellite network was our best way to reach a geographically diverse customer base in the most effective way. We began the process of approaching vendors and exploring our possibilities. Over the next year, we thought we were making good progress, but we still did not have a demo system up and running.

Mainstream caught wind of the project we were working on, they convinced us that they should be part of the RFP process, and in two weeks' time did what no other vendors had been able to do the entire year . . . they built a complete end-to-end functioning system for the distribution of feature length films over satellite. Needless to say, we were entirely impressed. We awarded Mainstream our business, and we now have the largest digital cinema network in North America.

It is no wonder to us that Mainstream has been leaders in the satellite business for more than 25 years.