Fraunhofer HHI’s TiME Lab sets new standards in media technologies! The acronym TiME Lab stands for Tomorrow‘s immersive Media Experience Laboratory. This showroom contains an entire chain of systems and applications, which can be explored and exploited within different projects. The setup integrates innovations in the areas of 180 ° video projection, steric audio rendition and the real-time broadcasting of panoramic recordings. In 2009, the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) opened the TiME Lab for the first time to demonstrate new media technologies. The lab is unique in its design: it measures about 60 square meters, features a 3.35 m high and 12 m long curved projection screen, has 14 HD projectors, has 120 speakers arrayed in circle at ear level plus 15 ceiling speakers, and 4 subwoofers.

The acoustic in this showroom outperforms the acoustic of cinema halls by far. Precise acoustic rendition is achieved by using, among other techniques, elaborate acoustic dampening. In the materials of the dampening speakers are integrated. Four independently controlled subwoofers reproduce acoustic 3-D effects and create a directional acoustic experience in the low-frequency range. Until now, a low-frequency sound came only from one direction – the front. The IOSONO Company provided the speaker system for the TiME Lab showroom.

Another special feature of the TiME Lab is the acoustically transparent, curved projection screen, behind which the ring of 120 speakers is located.

Since 2012, the mobile version of the TiME Lab allows to demonstrate many applications such as live broadcasts of ultra HD recordings. The mobile TiME Lab can also be used for panoramic projections for exhibitions or trade fairs. It resembles a so-called room-in-room treatment, in which up to 60 viewers can be accommodated. The mobile TiME Lab contains the same technical features as installed at the showroom at Fraunhofer HHI and has already been used on several occasions.