Europe’s largest cinema operator, Odeon UCI, has announced that they are finalizing upgrades to their 2100 screens with digital cinema models from NEC Digital Cinema. The massive installation project has been underway at 231 cinemas in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

An Odeon spokesperson said that the NEC projectors have offered them the ability to give customers the best cinema experience possible. The goal is to complete installations in time for the Euro 2012 Football Championships and the Summer Olympic Games so they can stream live content to theaters from the events.

Once installations are complete, NEC and Odeon will consider expanding the partnership to include NEC digital signage for theater foyers and NEC products and services for network operations centers.

Recent forecasts by projector market research firm Pacific Media Associates estimate worldwide cumulative shipments of Digital Cinema projectors to top 90K by the end of 2012 – due primarily to theater conversions in Europe and China.