Extrasensory perception

When the Lumiére brothers made film history in 1895 with the first commercial movie screening, so astounded was the audience at the realism of one of the clips L'Arrivee d'un train e  La Ciotat that, legend has it, viewers fled the cinema in fear for their lives.

In the subsequent century or so, the movie-going public has become more discerning, or jaded, depending upon your point of view, and footage of a train pulling into a station is hardly the sort of thing to get hearts racing.

Now that technology has progressed to the extent that we can re-create the cinema experience in the comfort of our own homes, finding a point of difference is becoming all-consuming.

Gavin Armstrong, audiovisual consultant with The Listening Post, says the owners of the project featured here were looking for that extra-special element to include in their home theatre.

"The owners approached us after seeing our home cinema stand at a local trade show, and were particularly impressed with the Clark Synthesis audio transducers we had installed in that setup."

When it came time to design their clients' home cinema, two such transducers were included.

"The technology is similar to what you would experience on a theme park ride like the Jurassic Park ride, for example," says Armstrong. "The transducers transmit an audio frequency that the viewer experiences as differing intensities of vibration. So not only do you see and hear the dinosaur walk past, but you feel the ground shake too."

Supplementing this technology are a 106in Stewart Filmscreen, 5.1 Jamo speaker system, Marantz flagship DVD player and receiver, and a BlackWing Two projector from Cineversum.

Story by: Justin Foote