Canon was showing a dome theater in its booth at NAB that was frankly, not very good. Content was captured with seven Canon C-300 Mark II DSLRs in a Radiant Images rig. Time lapse photography of a desert scene from night to day was captured. The final stitched video was 12K, but only a 4K version was used in the dome.
Inside the dome, five Canon WUX6010 projectors were used. Unfortunately, the contrast and brightness were both very low and the impact not very good.
Nokia partnered with a company called igloo to set up a dome in the VR pavilion to show off content captured with the Ozo camera. The image was a full 360º cylinder, not a full dome, so the top had no images. They apparently did this to simplify the set up and avoid having to place projectors on the floor for the top of the dome.
Two clips of content were shown: one was not so good and the other was OK. The latter was a live capture of a football game with a serviceman overseas watching on a headset as the family sat in the stadium with the Ozo camera. This allowed the serviceman to feel he was at the game with the family and featured five BenQ projectors.
Zaxel introduced zDome, a complete solution to play back rectangular 2D video and applications, or dome master onto a full dome screen to create an immersive viewing experience. The company thinks there is pent-up demand to view video on a full dome screen for immersive applications at reasonable cost. However, obtaining a full dome screen is very difficult, and playing back 2D rectangular applications on a full dome screen requires ‘tremendous skill’.
As a result, Zaxel is now offering a complete turn-key solution at an ‘affordable price’. Its zDome consists of a 69″ (175cm) dome, a dome stand, video server, warping and edge blending software, and four optional HD projectors. zDome is suited for playing back rectangular 2D video, playing flight simulator, playing computer games, and playing AR/VR applications. Zaxel’s video server uses either an Nvidia Quadro P6000 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 for video output, and it can scale the video input in real time so that either oversized images or undersized images can be projected onto a 4K screen.
zDome is suited for building an entertainment kiosk, pilot training, R&D video playing system, or for a home entertainment system. – CC
