Cinedom in Cologne Premieres 6P/4K Laser Projection Technology with Immersive Dolby-Atmos® Sound System

Right on time for the start of two current Hollywood blockbusters—the James Bond film Spectre and Star Wars: The Force Awakens—the Cinedom multiplex in Cologne, German has equipped its Premiere Auditorium with Germany’s very first 6P/4K laser projection system. To top it off, a Dolby-Atmos^® audio system—one of only about 30 in Germany—has been installed to ensure ultrarealistic sound. Thanks to this comprehensive modernization project, the auditorium (which seats 705) now offers a cinematic experience with state-of-the-art visual and acoustic quality. All components of the new projection and sound systems were planned, supplied and installed by Kinoton Digital Solutions.

The 6P (six-primary) laser cinema projection system from Barco, so far the only one installed in Germany, delivers 60,000 lumens onto a massive 22-meter-wide screen. This ensures a true premium large-format experience screen with laser-sharp, high-contrast, brilliant 3D images in 4K resolution. The innovative laser technology accomplishes this with an extremely light-efficient 3D projection path: no filters required in the projector and no additional equipment is mounted in front of the lens. Instead, it uses a native 3D color system with six primary colors to cast an enormous picture with a brightness level that not even conventional bi-xenon projectors can rival. The audience enjoys a more relaxed viewing—the eyes aren’t forced to work as hard to make out darker scenes, especially in 3D movies. The 6P laser technology deployed also ensures highly uniform illumination of the entire screen. Both 2D and 3D films can thus be projected with significantly more brightness across an entire giant screen. 6P laser illumination is ideal for cinemas that want to move beyond the current standard and begin showing 3D movies with truly outstanding brightness.

Three-dimensional Audio Objects Instead of Mixed Audio Tracks
To ensure that the sound is on a par with the image quality for a genuinely immersive cinema experience, the Cinedom has also installed one of Germany’s first Dolby-Atmos^® audio systems. This innovative audio solution abandons the traditional approach involving only a limited number of audio tracks and instead treats every sound source in the film as an audio object that can be freely assigned to any position in the room. To enable this, the Premiere Auditorium in Cologne has been equipped with a total of 44 high-performance surround speakers. 18 speaker, plus two powerful sub-bass surround speakers, are placed in the ceiling. The screen, with its enormous width, has received five four-way stage speaker systems. All of the speakers are fed by digital power amplifiers with total output of about 65,000 watts. The entire system was custom-designed, built, and configured to suit that particlar auditorium. Each surround loudspeaker is individually controlled to function as an indpendent source. The technology supports a maximum of 64 sources. The combination of side-, back- and top-surround loudspeakers makes it possible to position and move all sounds in space to match the 3D onscreen action. The result is a sound environment that moviegoers describe as extremely lifelike and absolutely realistic.

A Unique Cinema Experience—Thanks to a Competent Partner
According to Martin Ebert, the managing director of Cinedom Kinobetriebe GmbH, “Dolby Atmos^® and the 6P premium large-format laser system are a great choice for the Cinedom, because they additionally enhance the overall viewer experience. Together they also give us an unrivalled USP and ‘quality mark’, since at the moment we’re the only ones in Germany with this setup.” Lutz Schmidt, the managing director of Kinoton Digital Solutions, which supplied and installed the equipment, is also thrilled with the results: “The colors and details delivered by the 6P laser projector and the dynamic range of the Atmos^® system really make a difference. Spectators in the Cinedom now enjoy remarkably crystal-clear images and impactful immersive sound.”

The acoustics of the Premiere Auditorium, as a result of its size and structure, posed special challenges for the cinema equipper. The speakers also had to be installed in a way that avoids sound transmission leakage into the auditorium located directly above it. Despite these special requirements, however, Kinoton’s many years of experience enabled it to very quickly rise to the task and complete the modernization project. Says Ebert: “Design, planning, and delivery went extremely smoothly, thanks to the support of the whole Kinoton team at the installation site.” The Premiere Auditorium in the Cinedom, which with a total of 14 auditoriums is Germany’s fifth-largest multiplex, reopened on October 15, 2015 after only a few weeks of remodeling work.