Dolby Digital Cinema Helps Screen 'Prince Caspian' Premiere

Dolby Laboratories Inc., which features a complete digital system for storing, managing, and playing digital movies, provided digital cinema technical support for the premiere of 'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian', the UK's biggest single-screen digital cinema movie premiere to date in London last night.
Disney Pictures' and Walden Media's 'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian' was screened at the O2 Arena in London on Thursday night.
A giant 28-metre cinema screen was installed in the 02 Arena to accommodate the largest single-screen digital cinema audience to date in the UK. To help make this happen, Disney Pictures called upon the engineering support and consultancy of the Dolby Professional Services Group. Dolby provided digital playback for the three Christie DLP projectors via the renowned Dolby Digital Cinema system, as well as Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound audio processing for the massive auditorium.
Saul Mahoney, Executive Technical Director, Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture UK, said: "Because the UK is the home of CS Lewis, we wanted to do something unique for the premiere of 'Prince Caspian'. The huge screen size at the O2 Arena presents a number of technical challenges, so we wanted the very best technical expertise and equipment to ensure the highest quality digital presentation for this much-anticipated premiere."
With its massive seating capacity of 10,000, the O2 Arena can hold more than five times as many people as the UK's biggest existing cinema. Recreating a cinematic experience on such a large scale has its technical challenges. However, the technical team from Dolby worked to ensure that the quality of the image and the overall cinematic experience would be first-rate, even in the back row, which was more than 100 metres from the screen.
'Prince Caspian' is the latest installment of 'The Chronicles of Narnia' series. The first film, which earned USD 750 million worldwide. The premiere also generated a donation to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity as part of Disney's partnership with the hospital. 'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian' is on general release across the UK from June 26.
Further information is available at: www.dolby.com.
(KMcA)