The Tennessee Aquarium and IMAX Corporation have signed an agreement to install IMAX’s next-generation digital laser projection system at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater. The new technology will reportedly provide audiences with the sharpest, brightest, clearest, and most vivid digital images ever seen.
Designed from the ground up for IMAX’s largest screens, the dual 4K laser projection system is equipped with a new optical engine and suite of proprietary IMAX technologies capable of projecting an image that will fill the Aquarium’s giant 89-foot wide by 66-foot tall screen with dramatic increases in sharpness, brightness, contrast, and color.
The Aquarium’s team has been studying various digital projection systems but didn’t see any that matched the visual quality of the 15/70 film format until now. “We’ve been waiting for the development of laser projection systems, to see how they compared to other digital projection systems,” said Gordon Stalans, the Aquarium’s director of finance and chair of the Giant Screen Cinema Association’s executive committee. “Laser showed us something beyond other systems, and is brighter and much sharper than film.”
The Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater will close on Jan. 4, 2016 to begin the construction work. It will take approximately four weeks to install the new laser projection system, new screen and IMAX’s next-generation sound technology, which includes 12 discreet channels throughout the theater and, for the first time, speakers on the ceiling.
The upgrades are expected to be in place by the first week in February.
In addition to showing documentaries and Hollywood blockbusters, the Aquarium will be able to leverage the high-speed Internet connectivity of the Gig-City. “The range of possibilities includes live screenings of concerts, sporting events, and theatrical presentations,” said Charlie Arant, the Aquarium’s president and CEO. “Also, school groups will be able to gather at our theater for real-time interactions with researchers in other parts of the world, or witness discoveries being made by deep sea or space explorers.”
Source: Tennessee Aquarium