MEDIA is already fully aware of the need to be involved in filling the ?digital shortfall' of cinemas not targeted by commercial conversion schemes and those that will not fit into the national public schemes or other initiatives. The EC states that the use of public money should be undertaken with a view to preventing closure of cinemas with a high proportion of art-house programming and should follow the principle of technological neutrality, funding digital projection equipment that the exhibitor thinks is suitable for the particular auditorium and audience, to some extent regardless of wider market considerations.

This opens up the prospect of funding equipment that does not meet the global standard begun by the DCI process, although given the duty to explore all options to support European content and cinemas and to act in accordance with EU law, the position is understandable. It seems to suggest that standards are both a good idea and yet can be bypassed to suit the needs of less viable cinemas. The Irish digital funding scheme (see also Ireland has second digital cinema funding round in this section) offers funding to both DCI-compliant cinemas and those that wish to work with lower quality e-cinema systems. This is fine as long as it is clearly understood by all parties that operating at the lower standard will exclude those cinemas from screening Hollywood and some mainstream European content, for the foreseeable future at least.