When Lyd & Bilde attended the CES fair in Las Vegas earlier in January, we were naturally curious to see what the world’s electronics manufacturers would pull out of their hats. But a completely different attraction we also had on the “bucket list” was, of course, Sphere!
Sphere is among the newest entertainment venues on the Las Vegas Strip. The fascinating building is located next to the Venetian and Palazzo hotels. The extravagant building was completed in July 2023, took five years to build, and cost 2.3 billion dollars(!) to realize.
Sphere in Las Vegas: Huge, spherical entertainment arena
Anyone who has visited Las Vegas can confirm that “everything” is a little bigger than elsewhere, and the Sphere is undoubtedly a building for the record books as well.
With a height of 112 meters and a width of 157 meters, this is the world’s largest spherical building. The outside is covered with 1.2 million LEDs, which form a continuous, spherical LED screen. The building can be seen on the approach to Las Vegas, where it lights up with graphics, advertising and all kinds of round motifs.
On the inside of the Sphere sits another giant, but significantly sharper spherical LED screen. It spans 270 degrees, and spreads around the audience to the side and over our heads. The total screen area is a whopping 15,000 square metres, and the resolution is 16K, corresponding to 132 megapixels.
15,000 square meters of LED screen. (Photo: John A. Hvidlykke)
Such a colossal screen naturally needs a sound system to match, and the developers of Sphere have gone to great lengths here. The screen wall is partially acoustically transparent, and lets through the sound from a total of 164,000 speakers (!) mounted on the back. There are also separate speakers in the floor under the seats.
The speakers emit 3D surround sound from all directions, so that music and sound effects can be localized and shaped precisely in relation to the objects on the screen. Advanced techniques such as beamforming and wavefield synthesis are used to achieve clear and realistic sound for all seats. Everything from small insect sounds to large natural phenomena must be reproduced with a realistic level and scale.
In addition, Sphere uses 4D effects such as vibration, wind and scent to create an immersive experience. There are subharmonic generators (“rump shakers”) under the seats, which can reproduce ultra-low frequencies down to 5 Hz. The wind machines can create everything from fog and a light breeze to strong winds, and can also affect the temperature and humidity in the hall.
The “cinema hall” itself has 17,500 seats, but there is also room for thousands of standing spectators on the ground floor – for concerts and other events. (Photo: John A. Hvidlykke) At the bottom of the Sphere there is, of course, room for function rooms, a bar and VIP areas (we are in Vegas, after all). (Photo: John A. Hvidlykke)
A Postcard from Earth: The Sphere Experience
Such an arena naturally requires tailored content, and during CES week in Las Vegas we had the opportunity to check out the film A Postcard from Earth, which are among the main attractions. The film comes from director Darren Aronofsky, and was made exclusively for Sphere.
The raw material was filmed with the special Big Sky camera, which was developed in-house by Sphere Studios. This uses a square 18K image sensor from STMelectronics, and a huge 150 degree fisheye lens. These are the optics required to fill the huge Sphere screen with a sharp and detailed image. We assume this type of camera technology may also have several interesting uses in the future, for example VR glasses. Apple Vision Pro, anyone?
Big Sky – the camera used to film the content displayed in the Sphere. (Photo: Sphere Entertainment)
So how is the Sphere experienced in practice?
The action in A Postcard from Earth is quite simple and a little melancholic – “this is how the Earth was before we left it” – but the way it is conveyed is beyond anything we have experienced before. As mentioned, Sphere has an arsenal of tools, which result in a game-changing realistic film experience.
The action first takes us out into the universe and a futuristic spaceship, where Earth is just a dot in the distance. Eventually we fly back to Earth and get a close-up view of the natural and animal world across seven continents – natural phenomena as well as man-made monuments – all reproduced by Sphere’s huge, image, sound and wind machines.
The picture quality – contrast, brightness and color – is excellent, on par with a premium TV screen or cinema screen or better – only infinitely greater. It’s also sharper and more detailed than anything else we’ve seen, and virtually seamless.
We admittedly noticed a couple of screen panels where the colors were slightly different from the others, but overall the image quality was sharp and coherent. We could turn our heads and look at various objects in the picture, much like you do in reality.
The sound reproduction is just as enormous as the picture. The sound image could vary in size depending on the action, ranging from small and precisely localized sound effects to large sound events on a massive scale. Then came the realistic drone from the subwoofers that went through marrow and bones – well helped by infrasonic vibrators mounted under the seats. Not for the faint of heart!
Here you see a section (!) of the Sphere screen in action, during the screening of A Postcard from Earth. Also notice the wind machines in the front. Well blown! (Photo: John A. Hvidlykke).
With such massive tools that affect several of our senses at the same time, a completely different realism is achieved than we are used to from ordinary cinema. It wasn’t necessarily as good throughout the film, but when all the systems worked together, there were moments where we experienced a state of total immersion, where the action simply felt real – like being there, with both body and mind.
My colleague John Alex Hvidlykke, who is a former cinema operator in a digital 3D cinema, agrees:
“It’s the greatest cinema experience I’ve had in my life. Not the greatest cinematic experience, but visually the greatest.”
One thing is certain, we would like to see and hear more of this! Of course in Las Vegas, but we also hope that the technology will eventually be brought to Europe and the Nordic amusement parks. Vi have probably only seen the beginning of how this camera and screen technology can be used to convey different types of content. Even the rawest IMAX theaters pale in comparison to this…
Sphere remains open going forward and beyond A Postcard from Earth you will be able to experience bands like U2 and Phish inside the “sphere”. Ticket prices are around 150 dollars and up.
See more about the technology behind the Sphere and the Big Sky camera in this video from the Wall Street Journal:
2024-01-21 07:00:37
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