Dolby Labs Delivers for 3D World Cup Alpine-Skiing Movie

Dolby Laboratories provided digital cinema mastering and technical support for the screening of Red Bull’s first 3D movie at the 70th annual Hahnenkamm World Cup Alpine-ski event in Kitzbühel, Austria, last weekend. Filmed in the days leading up to the celebrated World Cup race, the new movie features spectacular views of the famous Streif downhill course, including 3D point-of-view footage shot by a downhill skier, giving a unique perspective on what it’s like to tackle one of the world’s toughest ski pistes.

The movie, produced by Red Bull Media House GmbH, was shown for the first time in Dolby 3D to invited guests at the Red Bull Next Generation Media event, which is designed to showcase innovation and celebrate Red Bull’s participation in the Hahnenkamm event, the sporting and social highlight of the year in Kitzbühel.

“We were very excited to be able to give our guests this stunning 3D view of what is recognized as the Alpine-skiing world’s most difficult competition piste,” said Andreas Gall, chief technical officer of Red Bull Media House. “Red Bull gives wings to innovations, so, when we needed support to help us realize the presentation of this technically challenging project, we turned to Dolby, who we consider to be the most innovative brand in audio and cinema.”

With only a few days to capture, edit, and prepare the footage before the start of the Hahnenkamm event, Dolby Production Services Group provided digital-cinema mastering of the 3D footage captured by the Red Bull Media House team. Working on-site in Kitzbühel, the Dolby team used the Dolby SCC2000 Secure Content Creator JPEG 2000 encoder to produce a 3D Digital Cinema Package (DCP) of the exciting action. They then facilitated pristine digital screening of the movie via a Dolby 3D digital-cinema system for guests at the Next Generation Media event.

“The Dolby technical team is used to providing technical support to world-premiere screenings all over the globe,” said Julian Pinn, director, Distribution Services, Production Services Group, Dolby Laboratories, “but we were all very excited to work with Red Bull Media House to assist with such an unusual project. Working on location presented a few challenges, but we were delighted to help Red Bull ensure everyone enjoyed an outstanding 3D cinematic presentation of what is some truly spectacular action.”

Guests were also treated to a showing in Dolby Digital Cinema 2D of the dramatic and awe-inspiring feature documentary Mount St. Elias, which follows three ski mountaineers to the imposing Alaskan mountain in their attempt to realize the longest ski descent in the world.