Technical Innovations

Seattle’s Cinerama Theatre not only symbolizes the past by its preservation of mid-century film art and architecture - it also signifies the future in showcasing advances in entertainment technologies.

Active Movie Posters
Seattle’s renovated Cinerama Theatre features the world’s first "active movie posters" - fully digitized movie preview posters that promise to revolutionize the way coming attractions are advertised in theaters. Cinerama’s four proprietary active movie posters are controlled by a powerful video server located on-site, although each poster has the ability to accept streaming video from a remote server.

Sound System
Cinerama’s state-of-the-art digital sound and acoustics system, designed by renowned sound consultant Neil Grant, takes strategically positioned EAW-brand speakers and amplifiers and pairs them with a series of computer-designed and -positioned sound baffles to keep sound rich and clear. Cinerama patrons are completely enveloped in a surround-sound experience, regardless of where they sit in the theater.

Original Cinerama Sound
Committed to accurately recreating the original Cinerama experience, Cinerama’s sound engineers actually installed a second sound system in the theater which can be switched on for special presentations of true three-paneled classics like "How The West Was Won." This seven-channel analog system ensures that today’s audiences experience the same visceral Cinerama sound that amazed moviegoers 40 years ago.

Projection Equipment
Seattle’s Cinerama is equipped to show both 35mm and 70mm films. Project managers embarked on a world-wide search to find a salvageable Norelco AAII projector, originally manufactured in the 1950s. Widely regarded as the best 70mm projector ever made, the Norelco provides an extraordinarily bright and stable image. Seattle’s Cinerama also features three Cinerama projectors, making the landmark theater one of only two movie houses in the world currently capable of presenting true Cinerama extravaganzas as they were intended to be seen.

Click here to read a more technically specific letter from American Cinema Equipment.