The consultation will invite film exhibitors, distributors, film agencies, advertisers and public film organisations to discuss the future of the industry.
The two-month consultation will form part of the Commission's policy on digital cinema and will also be the basis of its communication on "Opportunities and challenges for European cinema in the digital era" in 2010.
It warned that, while digital cinema can make distribution cheaper and enable more European films to be accessed abroad, unless a new business model and public support schemes are developed, a third of European cinemas could face closure.
The US leads the way in digital cinema, where it is available in 90% of all new films, whereas in France - Europe's biggest film producer - less than half of new films are available on digital.
In Europe, only 2,428 screens have been converted to digital. Worldwide, around 12,000 screens have been digitally equipped out of a total of about 110,000. By 2012, it is estimated that nearly 20% of cinemas worldwide will be converted to digital.
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