Arnie Herdendorf feeds film into the platters in the projection room at the Palace Theatre in Lockport, N.Y. With the movie industry's rapid switch to digital technology, Herdendorf worries if jobs like his, and even the historic movie houses themselves, will stick around.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The license plate on movie projectionist Arnie Herdendorf's Buick is 35MM MAN, a nod to his work in the booth at the 1925 Palace Theatre, with its velvet-draped stage and chandeliered mezzanine.

When he drove recently to a multiplex to watch as its film projectors were swapped out for new digital ones, the sight of old 35 mm workhorses “stacked up like wounded soldiers” had him wondering how long his job might be around.

The questions are even bigger for historic movie houses themselves.

With the future of motion pictures headed quickly toward an all-digital format played only on pricey new equipment, will the old theaters still show movies? Or will they be done in by the digital revolution that will soon render inadequate the projectors that have flickered and ticked with a little-changed technology for more than 120 years?

“Our guess is by the end of 2013 there won't be any film distributed anymore,” said John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners.

The Hollywood studios' industry-wide conversion from 35 mm film to digital satisfies modern-day demands for crisp clarity, cost savings and special effects like 3-D. About 60 percent of big-budget theaters in the United States have already converted, at a price of $70,000 to $80,000 a screen, Fithian said. That's more than double the price of a top-of-the-line film projector.

But for the community-owned Palace and other small and historic movie houses, the merging of nostalgia with high-tech is an expensive proposition, yet critical if they are to keep attracting audiences to their light bulb-studded marquees.

“This is another major threat to these theaters which were largely rescued and restored by grass-roots local efforts,” said Karen Colizzi Noonan, president of the THS, which records and preserves theaters' architectural and cultural history. “It is so sad that after all that hard work and dedication these groups now face another huge challenge just to survive.”

Edward Summer, president of the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival, worries that once older movie houses make the switch, they'll do away with their 35 mm projectors, “a hideous mistake,” he said.

Existing films that don't get digitized will be forever lost if the equipment isn't there to show them, he said.

“Every motion picture made between 1894 and right this minute is on 35 mm film, and those films not only still exist, but those film prints are the only way to see them,” Summer said.