This paper presents the new cinema room at Fraunhofer IIS which has been designed as a laboratory for state of the art and future audio and video research. It provides vast flexibility in regard to playback options to support the researchers’ and engineers’ work in the field of Next Generation Audio production, delivery, transmission and reproduction. At the same time it fulfills all relevant requirements for theatrical playback. To achieve this, the Digital Cinema of Fraunhofer IIS underwent a major upgrade, providing up-to-date audio and video playback to serve as a reference reproduction facility for quality assessment. In order to reproduce all substantial speaker layout formats or channel configurations, a powerful and highly flexible audio matrix has been implemented as a core element. It allows for processing, altering and monitoring of all audio signals before they are fed to 67 speakers. Measurements have been conducted to confirm that the acoustic characteristics satisfy the relevant standards. This paper focuses on audio features and only briefly mentions video projector capabilities, the screen, media control, and biosignal acquisition.
