Hollywood has yet to convert all films to digital, but drive-ins are still scrambling to make changes

Time could be running out for many of America's drive-in theaters. With film distributors planning to convert all movies to digital, theaters have been forced to spend between $70,000 and $100,000 per screen to stay in business. An online contest sponsored by Honda paid for 10 drive-ins to convert to digital, and the publicity saved 17 more theaters, says the contest website. But for theater owners who can't foot the bill to convert to digital, pieces of rural American history could be coming to an end. (Plain Dealer photo by Joshua Gunter: North Ridgeville, Ohio drive-in)

Rick Stinnett, owner of two drive-ins around Bessemer City, N.C., paid $100,000 to convert one theater to digital, but doing the other theater will require him to "build a new dust-free, air-tight projection room from scratch," Joe DePriest reports for the Charlotte Observer. "Whether he can afford the project depends on how well the drive-in does in coming months." If the 400-car theater doesn't make enough money to offset the costs of converting, the theater will likely close.

So far, converting to digital hasn't been "do or die" in the mom-and-pop world of drive-ins, mainly because Hollywood has yet to follow through on its promise to eliminate 35mm film, Michael Sangiacomo reports for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. Theater owner D. Edward Vogel told him, "Last year, the studios were saying that they would no longer make film copies of new movies, meaning if theaters didn't switch to digital, they could not get the movies. But here we are a year later, and the film copies are still being made."

Still, most of the roughly 350 drive-in theaters, with about 600 screens, are converting to digital—or attempting to—in anticipation of the conversion, Sangiacomo writes. Between 50 to 70 percent of drive-ins have already converted to digital, said Vogel, who said he has heard of only one theater—in Maine—closing because it was unable to convert. (Read more)

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/06/01/4948031/digital-technology-may-force-some.html#emlnl=Todays_Headlines#storylink=cpy