For Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, DigiComm designed an exhibit that puts the visitor inside a digital cage with Great Whites, then teaches shark biology without breaking the illusion. It was built with Emaar Entertainment and Discovery Consumer Products at Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo.
The approach: 28 × 55-inch LG screens at the front, driven by seven BrightSign 4K players with tiled outputs, showing sharks circling divers. Three LG 86-inch stretch 4K displays (3840 × 600) mark entry and exit. Inside, 48 × 55-inch screens form the cage under a research-ship hull that protrudes from the aquarium wall. Buttons on the cage talk to BrightSign over UDP. Luma-key overlays play educational clips on top of the looping presentation — a workflow DigiComm developed with BrightSign’s Cambridge team so video, not just stills, could punch through the key.
A 20-metre demi-tunnel uses real fish against LG LED at 4mm pitch, driven by three BrightSign XD232 players. Guests pick shark species on touchscreens. Projectors on a translucent cage roof, also BrightSign-driven, show shark bellies overhead. Five portrait screens with motion sensors handle younger visitors.
DigiComm took the cage and tunnel from a pencil drawing through design and implementation. It is still the installation we point to when a museum or attraction needs BrightSign to do more than loop a playlist.
Technology
- 42 BrightSign players
- LG LCD and LED
- Luma-key video overlays
- UDP button control
- Projected roof