Watch behind the scenes at BBC Earth Experience Melbourne

Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, this exhibit at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Australia, is a product of collaboration between Moon Eye Productions, Live Nation, BBC Studio, and Tinker Imagineers. It offers a multi-room digital art journey through Earth’s diverse ecosystems, spanning seven continents.

The standout feature of the Melbourne’s BBC Earth Experience lies in its advanced playback technology. Australian video technology and production company, TDC, utilised the BeeBlade media server from HIVE to bring this project to life.

Michael Hassett, Managing Director at TDC, provides insight into the technological intricacies in the behind-the-scenes video. He states: “The main difference is that we’re inserting the HIVE players in the projectors and the great thing about that is it saves a lot of space and power. There’s no cable distribution system, no control room, just the media player in the projectors in the venue.”

The exhibition has 70 Panasonic projectors, with 55 of them creating a 360° high-resolution immersive panorama, which comprises over 127 million pixels. The HIVE software ensures the precise positioning and synchronisation of each projector.

This BBC Earth Experience is the latest in a series of digital art installations by TDC, which has previously undertaken technical design and engineering projects for the Australian Museum, the Australian National Maritime Museum, and the upcoming Dream Circus at Luna Park in Sydney.

Hassett further comments on the significance of this installation: “The fusion of technologies at Melbourne’s BBC Earth Experience are harbingers of a new, greener, and transformative approach to digital storytelling. It is an evolutionary leap, saving time, money, and the planet.” This sentiment underscores the exhibit's role not only as a medium for storytelling but also as a pioneer in sustainable and efficient digital exhibition technology.

Click here to watch the video.