MUMBAI: Texas Instruments has announced that its DLP Cinema technology has surpassed the 5,000 screen milestone on a path to doubling that next year.

There are 5,260 DLP Cinema enabled theatres installed across the globe, an increase of 140 per cent from the same period one year ago.

The company says that the picture quality and combination of contrast, color and brightness created by DLP Cinema allowed DLP Cinema technology to quickly become the industry standard.

DLP Cinema technology is deployed throughout 99 per cent of the digital cinema market and is in every continent in the world except Antartica. DLP Cinema expects to surpass 5,500 screens by mid November 2007 and 10,000 screens by the end of 2008.

The company adds that in today‘s highly competitive commercial theatrical market, DLP Cinema, which works in the area of digital cinema projection and imaging, is making it more economical for theatres to show both 2D and 3D feature presentations using the single projector solution, as compared to other emerging and commercially unproven formats.

DLP Cinema projectors are at the heart of 3-D feature presentations and 3-D movies have grown rapidly through 2007 to become a key catalyst in the expansion of DLP Cinema systems in the U.S. 300 additional DLP Cinema projectors are expected to be fitted with 3-D capability in anticipation of the November release of Beowulf from Paramount Pictures, bringing the total 3-D equipped movie screens in the US to 1,000.

DLP Cinema Products Group business manager Nancy Fares says, "DLP Cinema continues to be the driving force behind digital cinema. As companies like Real D and Dolby continue to push 3-D developments on DLP projection technology, DLP Cinema installations are surging to deliver the world‘s most engaging movie theatre experience."