The new 326-seat 4D theatre sits at the heart of a new 4,000sq.m area in the theme park, near London, built exclusively for the famous international game and brand, Angry Birds. The multi-sensory experience offers visitors a custom-produced 4D film and in-theatre special effects including wind, smell, water, leg ticklers, bubbles, smoke and catapult simulating seats to create an 'in-game' experience for park-goers.
UK-based Simworx was contracted to create and install the 4D experience by park operator Merlin Entertainments and Finnish company, Rovio Entertainment.
7thSense Design supplied a dual-head Delta Media Server with passive stereo 3D output to power the projection system. A further audio server with eight-channel output was also supplied to support a fully immersive and integrated experience.
Matt Barton, director at 7thSense added, "Our solutions are often integrated into demanding theme park exhibits worldwide since these installations require the very best image quality and reliability for maximum visitor experience. It's easy for viewers to see visual artefacts typically caused by compression techniques or misalignment on such large displays - Delta is designed to provide the very best quality movie playback with zero compression, day in and day out. For content producers, this means their productions are screened as they intended, while theme park operators are given confidence of maximum visual impact and system stability."
Terry Monkton, managing director at Simworx explained, "Using Delta for the Angry Birds attraction at Thorpe Park was an easy decision for us; in fact Delta is at the very core of all our AV designs which cover anything from a 4D theatre to a multi-channel Immersive Tunnel.
"The scalable hardware platform has really removed the technological barriers that existed just a couple of years ago, allowing us to create incredibly high resolution canvasses to play with in our new system designs; this, coupled with the ability to serve fully uncompressed TGA sequenced movies at high frame rates, means no loss of image quality and no file conversion requirement either, making the entire workflow simple for the creative team. The 7thSense team is also very receptive to feedback and new feature requests are incorporated rapidly; the level of support is second to none."
Matt Barton added, "We are proud to have our system installed at such a prestigious theme park location. Thorpe Park is renowned for providing outstanding entertainment experiences and audience feedback from the new theatre is already proving how this installation is another step up in the world of 4D immersive theatres."
(Jim Evans)
