A unique public drive-in movie experience marked the opening of the new Eurostar terminal at Ebbsfleet.

1500 vehicles gathered over the weekend of 23rd and 24th August in the enormous Eurostar car park D to watch The Bourne Ultimatum and Moulin Rouge, projected in stunning HD onto two giant 50ft outdoor inflatable air screens using two Christie HD18K 17,500 ANSI lumen HD projectors fitted with 4.1-6.9:1 long throw zoom lenses.

With both the set-up and the screenings taking place on the same day and the screening due to start at 7.30pm the biggest challenge was always going to be how to line up the projectors in near daylight conditions and in front of the assembled audience of densely packed cars. Reliance on wireless projector control had never been so crucial as wired control was not a feasible option for Health and Safety reasons. Using wireless laptops both projectors were able to be lined up in literally a few minutes as soon as the projected images became visible on screen. Full wireless control meant that lens shift, zoom and focus plus geometric correction could all be performed whilst standing at the base of each screen just in front of all the parked vehicles.

Two synchronised Doremi Nugget Pro hard drives provided the HDSDI video playback with the audio soundtrack transmitted via FM radio. Additional advertising and announcements were shown using an Analog Way Di-Ventix seamless switcher which enabled the variety of 2.35:1, 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio material to be displayed correctly without any image distortion or cropping.

Key technical equipment

  • 2 x 50ft x 25ft air screens
  • 2 x Christie HD18K 3-chip DLP projectors
  • 2 x Doremi Nugget Pro video players
  • 1 x Analog Way seamless switcher/scaler
  • 1 x FM radio transmitter
  • 2 x Dell D800 wireless laptops
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