3-D treat coming to Nelson

Digital 3-D is coming to Nelson's State Cinemas.

The 3-D digital equipment will be installed in time for the worldwide release of James Cameron's highly anticipated 3-D sci-fi movie Avatar on December 17, said State Cinemas director Mark Christensen.

He said Nelson would be among only 20 of 450 cinema screens in the country equipped to play 3-D digital, which was a huge advance on previous 3-D systems as it looked much more realistic and was easy to watch.

He said a new projection system for cinema one was being installed, and digital 3-D was likely to be installed at more of State Cinemas' cinema rooms in the future. "This is just the start of change to digital."

The 3-D system being installed is Real D, which uses special polarised light filtering to project the left eye and right eye images at 144 frames per second on to a special stereoscopic screen. The viewer wears lightweight glasses containing filters that ensure each eye sees the correct image.

Mr Christensen said the glasses, which will be available at the cinema, fitted easily over normal glasses and, unlike the old 3-D colour filter systems, there were no issues for people who were colour blind.

"It's the biggest technological change in the cinema since the introduction of sound in the 1930s."

While he would not reveal how much the new equipment cost, he said it was very expensive. This was because the cinema had had to put up a new screen which cost more than a standard screen, had to have a new digital projector which was three to four times the cost of existing 35mm projectors, and had to get Real D.

Mr Christensen said in the past year there had been about nine or 10 movies available in 3-D but State Cinemas had been unable to play them in 3-D, and had to play them in 2-D. About 30 films were being released in 3-D next year, he said.

Mr Christensen said Nelson moviegoers would be among the first in the world to see the US$200 million movie Avatar in 3-D digital. "I saw 20 minutes of Avatar in 3-D a couple of months ago and local moviegoers are in for a special treat."

- © Fairfax NZ News