Motion seats are usually associated with a theme park’s thrill rides but in some cinemas throughout the world, they are being used to deliver an enhanced cinematic experience for movie lovers. Some of them are located right here in Malaysia including Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC) which has just installed D-Box Motion Seats in one of its halls at 1 Utama. In fact, it is the same hall that GSC has equipped with Dolby Atmos sound system last year.
Interestingly, GSC chose to debut these new motion seats right in time for the hotly-anticipated Marvel’s Guardians of The Galaxy. I AM GROOT!
According to D-Box, the motion effects for these seats are painstakingly created frame by frame by the company’s “Motion Designers” which resulted in a set of motion instructions (called D-Box Motion Code) to determine how the integrated motion actuators and power drivers on D-Box Motion Seats move around during a movie. Despite that, users are actually able to set the seat’s motion intensity through its control panel or even disable the motion altogether should they choose to.
Here’s a very insightful video on how the D-Box Motion Seats system works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbEaEUqtnY
Naturally, the ticket price for D-Box Motion Seats costs more than your standard seats. Apparently, movie goers need to add RM 15 on top of the normal ticket price and an additional RM 5 if the movie is shown in 3D. Apart from Guardians of The Galaxy, D-Box Motion Seats will also be available for Into The Storm which will be released on 7 August as well as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Lucy, Planes: Fire & Rescue and The Equalizer.
For now, the D-Box Motion Seats are only available at GSC 1 Utama although GSC plans to equip them at its Mid Valley and Pavilion outlets as well by the end of the year. We can’t tell if D-Box Motion Seats at GSC 1 Utama are worth the extra money since we haven’t tried the seats ourselves but you can check out feedbacks from Lowyat.NET Forum members that have experienced D-Box recently.
[Source: Golden Screen Cinemas, D-Box, Cinema Online]
