Baahubali 2: The Conclusion global release management through Qube Wire

Qube Wire drives release across 63 countries, 2073 theatres and 13000+ screens worldwide
Published on Monday, June 19, 2017
Qube Wire

Barcelona, June 19, 2017: The epic blockbuster Baahubali 2: The Conclusion directed by S.S. Rajamouli and produced by Arka Mediaworks has gone on to become the highest grossing Indian movie with earnings of over $260 million at this time. The movie successfully used the Qube Wire ecosystem for the international release in 4 languages and 34 international versions across 63 countries, in 2,073 theatres comprising 13,000+ screens. Arka Mediaworks made 232 rights assignments within Qube Wire to the eight companies that handled distribution of the movie worldwide. About 60,000 KDMs were generated, and over 2,000 DCP deliveries made.

Arka Mediaworks is a leading name in motion picture production, television programming and digital content distribution in India. Since its inception in 2001, Arka Mediaworks has been hugely successful by remaining fiercely loyal to its core objective - to constantly and consistently push the boundaries of commercial cinema.

Sobhu Yarlagadda, head of Arka Mediaworks, was highly impressed with the ease and efficiency of the system: "Qube Wire is a pioneering technology, an innovation that has changed the dynamics of distribution to cinemas. Qube Cinema has certainly lived up to their reputation for advancing the movie business with their products."

Senthil Kumar, Qube Cinema Co-founder said: "Releasing Baahubali 2: The Conclusion through Qube Wire has been a very exciting and prestigious project for us. Qube Wire's unmatched level of security, comprehensive theatre database and unique rights management feature set will be invaluable for global content owners."

The digital assets of the 34 international versions of Baahubali 2 were uploaded by the digital cinema mastering facility using the Qube Wire desktop app. The Qube Wire desktop app allows DCPs to be uploaded to the Qube Wire cloud using all available bandwidth and ensures the shortest possible upload time. It also auto-resumes uploads in case of any interruption.

Arka Mediaworks assigned rights for one or more Compositions, each representing a specific version of Baahubali 2, to each of their eight regional distributors. In Qube Wire, each rights assignment creates a DKDM targeting the distributor's unique digital certificate and each such DKDM includes a validity period and can have specific territorial constraints, a patent-pending enhancement pioneered by Qube Wire. This allows content owners to assign rights to distributors for each territory and those distributors can, within the constraints of the assigned territories, make further rights assignments or make theatre bookings.

Arka Mediaworks could also specify the level of approval needed for assignments and bookings. They could allow a distributor total freedom to make regional bookings while optionally retaining the right to audit, or they could choose to individually approve every booking by the distributor.

Qube Wire thus effectively encompasses all the typical contractual terms of a distribution agreement in a signed, tamper-proof digital document that can be enforced through technology. Every theatre booking is trackable, making full audits incredibly easy, no matter how many distributors handle a movie or how many screens the movie is exhibited at.

Qube Wire has a comprehensive global database of screens that has been painstakingly built over the last few years. Screen additions and changes are constantly updated by a 24/7 support team. Theatre chains can also manage their own data and access their Universal Inbox on the Qube Wire website.

Qube Wire supports content delivery through multiple methods including satellite multicast to groups of theatres; unicast delivery to theatres using a partner delivery network; online direct delivery to theatres that have a Qube Wire theatre appliance; and last-mile physical drive delivery through service partners in each territory using a Qube Wire partner appliance that automates the duplication process. Qube Wire has a number of digital cinema service providers around the world as service partners and takes speed, cost, reliability and various other factors into account to make an optimum choice based on the delivery dates.

With Baahubali 2, it was a major challenge to deliver so many versions of the movie - each 200GB in size - globally in the highly compressed timeframe of less than a week from mastering to release. Qube Wire's secure peer-to-peer transfer mechanism ensured that Baahubali 2 reached every part of the globe within a few hours while remaining cost-effective and highly resilient to localised network failures or congestion. Baahubali 2 served as a pioneering stress test of the Qube Wire infrastructure and the movie will continue to be available on the Qube Wire cloud for any future re-releases or to serve on-demand platforms.

About Qube Wire:

Qube Wire is a self-service, single-window system for global theatrical distribution. With a simple but comprehensive user interface, distributors can manage their digital cinema assets, assign territorial rights for their content and have their Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs) and keys (aka Key Delivery Messages or KDMs) delivered to movie theatres across the world. Theatres can manage their own digital cinema device details and access their Universal Inbox on the Qube Wire service as well.

To sign up for the Qube Wire service, visit www.qubewire.com

About Qube Cinema:

Qube Cinema, Inc. is a provider of end-to-end digital cinema technology and solutions. The company draws on decades of experience in cinema and provides a seamless digital environment for exhibitors, filmmakers and post-production companies with DCI compliant products that are flexible, reliable and cost-effective.

For further information, visit www.qubecinema.com