The city I live in has a digital fulldome projection system, I've been there a couple times and I'm not as skeptical as the author (though I only skimmed larger parts of the article). It's still...
The city I live in has a digital fulldome projection system, I've been there a couple times and I'm not as skeptical as the author (though I only skimmed larger parts of the article). It's still great, much cooler than normal flat screen cinema when used well.
There is however one big issue with fulldome projection when compared to flat projection: a big fraction of the light shined at the projection dome is reflected back at other parts of the dome. This means that the projection is always going to have low contrast, and the lighter the image being projected, the lower the contrast.
I don't remember every film I've seen, but most were documentaries. A documentary about space or a documentary about basic particles look excellent. A documentary about coral reefs looks like shit, everything was kind of grey. They sometimes also do concerts with live projection, those are amazing as well.
Going digital means two things. First is the creation: not needing expensive monster cameras makes creating the content so much cheaper and easier. Second is that if you do what's mentioned in the article and use curved LED displays instead of laser (or even standard) digital projectors, you can finally largely erase this issue of low contrast that's been present since the very beginning and greatly expand the type of content that actually looks good in a fulldome.
Prague's planetarium recently purchased a 22 meters in diameter, 45 megapixel LED dome, opening in a few days, supposedly only the third place in the world with this technology, and I cannot fucking wait to go because I know it's going to be the coolest shit ever.
edit: Look at the video in this article and tell me it's not the coolest shit ever. The technology mentioned in the article could never do this.
Few Omnimax projectors remain. The Fleet, to their credit, installed the modern laser projectors in front of the projector well so that the original film projector could remain in place. It's still functional and used for reprisals of Omnimax-era documentaries. IMAX projectors in general are a dying breed, a number of them have been preserved but their complex, specialized design and the end of vendor support means that it may become infeasible to keep them operating.
We are, of course, well into the digital era. While far from inexpensive, digital projection systems are now able to match the quality of Omnimax projection. The newest dome theaters, like the Sphere, dispense with projection entirely. Instead, they use LED display panels capable of far brighter and more vivid images than projection, and with none of the complexity of water-cooled arc lamps.
Still, something has been lost. There was once a parallel theater industry, a world with none of the glamor of Hollywood but for whom James Cameron hauled a camera to the depths of the ocean and Leonardo DiCaprio narrated repairs to the Hubble. In a good few dozen science museums, two-ton behemoths rose from beneath the seats, the zenith of film projection technology. After decades of documentaries, I think people forgot how remarkable these theaters were.
I also grew up going to that museum! I always went into the Dino pit and of course down stairs with all the cool interactive exhibits and games. That place was for sure a highlight of my...
I also grew up going to that museum! I always went into the Dino pit and of course down stairs with all the cool interactive exhibits and games. That place was for sure a highlight of my childhood. I saw many movies at that dome theater and always geeked out when they do the POV run inside the jet cockpit.
The city I live in has a digital fulldome projection system, I've been there a couple times and I'm not as skeptical as the author (though I only skimmed larger parts of the article). It's still great, much cooler than normal flat screen cinema when used well.
There is however one big issue with fulldome projection when compared to flat projection: a big fraction of the light shined at the projection dome is reflected back at other parts of the dome. This means that the projection is always going to have low contrast, and the lighter the image being projected, the lower the contrast.
I don't remember every film I've seen, but most were documentaries. A documentary about space or a documentary about basic particles look excellent. A documentary about coral reefs looks like shit, everything was kind of grey. They sometimes also do concerts with live projection, those are amazing as well.
Going digital means two things. First is the creation: not needing expensive monster cameras makes creating the content so much cheaper and easier. Second is that if you do what's mentioned in the article and use curved LED displays instead of laser (or even standard) digital projectors, you can finally largely erase this issue of low contrast that's been present since the very beginning and greatly expand the type of content that actually looks good in a fulldome.
Prague's planetarium recently purchased a 22 meters in diameter, 45 megapixel LED dome, opening in a few days, supposedly only the third place in the world with this technology, and I cannot fucking wait to go because I know it's going to be the coolest shit ever.
edit: Look at the video in this article and tell me it's not the coolest shit ever. The technology mentioned in the article could never do this.
From the article:
I also grew up going to that museum! I always went into the Dino pit and of course down stairs with all the cool interactive exhibits and games. That place was for sure a highlight of my childhood. I saw many movies at that dome theater and always geeked out when they do the POV run inside the jet cockpit.