Visitors to Austria’s Salzwelten salt mine experience will unearth quite the AV treasure, thanks to some Indiana Jones-like ingenuity from Salzburg, Austria-based Scenomedia and manufacturer AV Stumpfl.
Deep down 400 meters below the Earth’s surface in Salzwelten lies the new Bronze Age Cinema, created in a specially blasted 1,000-cubic-meter cavern in the Rose Chamber of the Hallstatt Mountain Salt Mines’ natural limestone bedrock. In this unique backdrop, Scenomedia installed AV Stumpfl show control, multimedia and screens as core technology throughout.
The Bronze Age Cinema’s eight-minute presentation ends to reveal Europe’s oldest wooden staircase, which was restored and documented over a 10-year period by Vienna’s Natural History Museum.
Screen & Short-Throw Projectors Produce Gem
The theater seats up to 70 visitors and at the end they can view artifacts in custom-made cases featuring LED lighting. A 10 x 3-meter AV Stumpfl Magnum motorized projection screen is used to show a 5-minute film documenting the restoration process.
AV Stumpfl FHD players drive content to three Canon XEED WUX400ST short-throw projectors that are edge blended and located just 2.5 meters in front of the screen.
Photos: Explore the Hallstatt Mountain Salt Mine
“During installation, these were flown in by helicopter to the tunnel entrance and through narrow passageways with considerable skill,” says Tobias Stumpfl, CEO at AV Stumpfl. After the film, the screen reveals the staircase and a 2-minute holographic projection show using a fourth projector onto a rock wall creating a 3D effect.
Environment Dictates Carefully Crafted Design
Considering the underground environment, Scenomedia worked with the Fraunhofer Institute, Munich, to specially develop the transparent, protective screen materials. Content was recorded using RED EPIC Dragon cameras in 6K resolution (6,144 x 3,072 pixels), according to Scenomedia founder and managing director Andreas Scheucher.
Show control of DMX, Artnet, triggers and lighting and sound effects is achieved using the AV Stumpfl modular Avio show control system. To minimize wiring, the FHD players and IOBox media control box are fed by Power over Ethernet (PoE). Scenomedia designed lighting and audio using a Bose sound system.
“All show components are connected via a network and the installation is designed to operate during opening hours, seven days a week so operational staff don’t have to worry about a thing,” says Scheucher.
