The Chiryu Lobby Street Scene is a highly-themed area integrating the lobbies of three special effects theatres.This “movie-park” complex blends large screen formats, similation, and virtual reality technologies to create a futuristic cinematic city. Thorburn Associates was responsible for the programming and design of the multi-media audio/video presentation system which integrates the lobbies of all three theatres. With restaurants, bars, a video wall, lights, and music, the Lobby is an exciting place to be.

Throughout the design process, Thorburn Associates’ goal was to develop an audio/video system that would be simple to operate, yet still allow for the ability to expand as the lobby activities evolved.

The system design includes:

• Computer interface to a silicon graphics animation generator
• 3 camera audiovisual production system
• 5×5 screen video wall
• 7 laserdisc players and 1 SVHS
• 2 cable tuners
• Facility-wide sound system
• Stage audio system

A remote control touch screen panel is used for controlling the different components of the system. Due to the simplicity of the control system design, users can be quickly trained on the operation of the Lobby’s complex systems.

A cross-point audio/video switcher allows any input to be switched or routed to any output. This is used to route signals from the different audio, video, and VActor sources to the different loudspeaker, monitor, and video wall outputs. VActor and the video wall also have their own control systems to generate the VActor input source and route and create video wall effects.

This system design is the basis of a new themed destination/cinema attraction which will be located in various malls and shopping complexes throughout the world. The client, IWERKS Entertainment, is a multi-media cinema production company which operates many of its own theatres.