Later this year, a new live performance and entertainment venue will open in Las Vegas, a massive geodesic dome featuring the world’s highest-resolution LED display. Burbank, California-based Sphere Studios has been formed to develop immersive content and the technology to make it, starting with an ultra-high-resolution camera called Big Sky.
Back in 2016, Madison Square Garden Corporation and Las Vegas Sands Corp. Announce A huge, dome-shaped live music and entertainment venue is being planned for Las Vegas’ Sands Strip. Construction began in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed progress and delayed the project’s planned opening in 2021 until this year.
When complete, the arena will reportedly be the largest spherical structure in the world at 516 feet wide by 366 feet high (157 x 111.5 meters), and its exterior will house a 580,000-square-foot (53,883-square-meter) programmable LED display area . Inside, there will be seating for 17,600 guests and standing room for another 20,000.
The main space will feature an immersive IMAX-style 16K x 16K LED screen that “wraps, covers and surrounds the audience,” approximately 10,000 seats will include infrasonic haptics, and the experience will be enhanced and “familiar” with environmental effects such as temperature changes and moving air. Smell,” and “the world’s largest beamforming audio system” will provide guests with engaging audio.
Sphere Entertainment
The latest development from the newly named Sphere Entertainment Company is the launch of an immersive content studio for creating “multisensory live entertainment experiences purpose-built for Sphere” and the technology needed to make them — along with its first Innovative, Big Sky camera system.
The camera, which has been in development since 2021 and is designed to effectively replace the 10 to 15 cinema cameras previously required to produce the ultra-high-resolution content required for the Sphere screens, features a 316-megapixel, 3 x 3-inch HDR image sensor , which can capture images in 18K square format at 120 frames per second, or at lower resolutions for higher frame rates.
Sphere Entertainment
It’s paired with a single-lens setup featuring the “world’s sharpest cine lens” — pixel report There are currently two fixed-focus lenses, one with a 150-degree field of view and the other with a 165-degree field of view. Sphere also says “underwater and other footage” is in development.
Such captures are too large to store on CD or CFexpress media, so Big Sky has equipped its own media recorder capable of storing full-resolution, 60-fps uncompressed RAW footage at 30 GB per second . In addition to sporting built-in media duplication capabilities, the media recorder is also capable of up to 600 gigabits per second network connection “to speed up and streamline on-set and post-production workflows,” reports Sphere. 120 fps at 50 gigabytes per second Rates are also possible, but require capture to the system’s custom 32 TB media magazine.
The studio has also developed its own image processing software called SphereLab, which utilizes “GPU-accelerated RAW processing to make the workflow of capturing and delivering content to the Sphere’s ultra-high-resolution screens practical and efficient.” .”
Sphere Entertainment
While designed for filmmakers, artists, and collaborators creating content for the immersive Sphere screen, we have no word yet on when or if the Big Sky system will go on general sale.
From September 29th, U2 will hold a short-term Achtung Baby Live show at the new venue, which will be their first live performance at the new venue. The first Sphere Experience, called Postcard from Earth, is scheduled to premiere on October 16th.
source: Sphere Entertainment
