Christie hosted a high-frame-rate (HFR) summit on April 12 at the company’s worldwide center for engineering, research and development in Kitchener, Ontario, taking cinema-industry leaders through its manufacturing facility and providing the first-ever laser projection of high-frame-rate cinema and alternative content on to a 30-foot white screen.

Recent Gordon E. Sawyer Academy Award winner Douglas Trumbull; Ian Bidgood, technical director, Park Road Post Production; Matt Cowan, chief scientific officer, RealD; John Helliker and Bert Dunk, directors at the Screen Industries Research and Training Centre, and stereographer Demetri Portelli met with Christie engineering and product development staff for an information-sharing session and discussion on high frame rates, laser projection, and the future of 3D and 4K projection.

The consensus of the assembled experts was that the industry needs to differentiate itself from the plethora of varied viewing options, from tablets to home theatres and all manner of exhibitor setups, to raise itself out of its current malaise.

Doug Trumbull said, “Spectacular movies delivered at high frame rates on big and vividly bright screens will enable the production and exhibition of amazingly immersive cinema experiences that will be far more powerful than any other medium.”

Bidgood declared, “3D images must be awe-inspiring to bring back the crowds to theatres worldwide, and the higher brightness levels that are required to do justice to these images, along with higher-frame-rate material, will be delivered by Christie’s technology in the laser field, with new projector and cinema solutions for today and the future.”

Christie plans on incorporating laser projection technology into its cinema product line, business products line and visualization and simulation solutions where it benefits its customer base.