Big screens and larger-than-life experience are some of the reasons why people continue going to theatres despite many options of home entertainment.
And theatre owners are putting all efforts to enhance the cinema-viewing experience by bringing in immersive technologies.
Now, theatre owners are deploying screens that are putting an end to the old method of film projectors as the medium of display.
Samsung is offering this technology with its Onyx LED Cinema screen that is currently deployed in PVR’s Vasant Kunj theatre in Delhi, Cinepolis’ DLF Mall in Saket, Inox theatre in Malad and in Swagath theatre in Bengaluru.
While Samsung has deployed four Onyx LED Cinema screens so far, it has plans to ramp up deployment.
Talking to Moneycontrol, Puneet Sethi, Vice President, Consumer Electronics Enterprise Business, Samsung India, said, “We are in discussion with lot of cinema chains and existing customers and hope to do 20 screens by early 2020.”
Onyx LED Cinema screens are available in three sizes—5 metre for small auditorium, 10 metre for medium size auditoriums and 14 metre for large auditoriums.
For theatre owners, the cost of installing such screens falls in the range of Rs 3 crore to Rs 6 crore. And exhibitors are ready to shell out such amounts to up their game in the cinema business.
Giving a cost breakup for different sizes Samsung is offering, Sethi said, “14 metre screen costs around USD 8,00,000 -USD 9,00,000, a 10 metre screen costs around USD 5,00,000- USD 7,00,000.”
And multiplexes alone are not interested in getting the new technology to their theatres even standalone theatres are opting for the same.
Take the example of Swagath cinema in Bengaluru which is installed with 14-metre screen, the biggest Onyx LED Cinema screen as the auditorium has a seating capacity of 600 people.
Other theatres that have these screens are mid-size hence, they have installed the 10-metre Onyx LED Cinema screen.
Sethi also expects that the demand along with metros, will come from smaller town theatre owners as well.
“Exhibitors are increasing their screen presence and they are getting into tier II and III cities and top cinema chains are expanding and thus we are very positive about the Indian market,” he said.
He said that theatres having Onyx LED Cinema screen have seen higher occupancy especially for 3D films.
So, what does Onyx LED Cinema screen offer after all?
Sethi explained that “there are host of features the product has for example we divide this into three parts -- Onyx view, Onyx 3D and Onyx sound.”
“In view, we talk about infinity contrast ratio. For example, in the projector-based system they have a limited contrast ratio like 2000:1 or 3000:1 whereas this product has infinity. And it also comes with HDR technology,” he said.
As for 3D the key aspect is that resolution is not lost at all and the refresh rate is 144 hertz the brightness also doesn’t drop to low.
“In projector-based system it drops 40-50 percent but in Onyx it drops 15-20 percent. It gives you more immersive look and feel,” added Sethi.
And Onyx sound is sculpted with JBL.
“In projector-based system the sound comes from behind the screen in LED since it is hard body speakers go on top of the screen and below the screen. And then it has been sculpted in such a way that the sound is same throughout the auditorium,” he explained.
Globally, Samsung’s Onyx screens have been deployed in markets like North America, South America, China, South-east Asia, Korea.
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