We are in Champaign, Illinois this weekend for my nephew's 1st birthday party, and it just so happens that about 2 weeks ago I ran across an article online about something called a D-Box motion simulator (http://www.d-box.com), and there is a dealer here in Champaign. Even though I live in the Des Moines, Iowa area (about 3 times larger than the Champaign/Urbana area) we did not have a dealer of D-Box near us.
Anyway, I swung by this little place in Champaign that carries these things (Oh, I called first to make sure that they really had one set up to demo.) and sure enough they did.
What an odd experience. My first home theater had bass shakers (see the bass shakers project page at Parts Express at http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=222), and they were pretty cool but these D-Box setups are really cool.
They can make you "feel" the bass effects just like the bass shakers, but they also can move you on seats using 4 actuators. Each corner of your seating moves up and down something like 1/2 of an inch, but the effect is amazing. You can tilt, tip, shake, vibrate, etc, etc, and all in sync to the movie. Not just bass movement like bass shakers, but tons of movies are completely programed and available for the D-Box to use exact key sequencing to move you through the movie.
Ok, here was my fear, and even more so my wife's fear. I'm gonna feel sick after watching a movie. I can tell you this, we started out with the sequece from Finding Nemo where Ray (the stingray for those that don't know) is taking the class on a trip over the coral reef, and we were gliding along right with him. Very subtle and smooth motion but still noticable and a possitive effect. Then we jumped to when Marlin (the dad) runs (literally) into Dory (the pacifc blue tang). Thud, then Marlin falls onto a rock, smaller thud, and then hits the ocean floor, light thud. These were comparable to bass shaker experiences. Still cool.
We then popped out the DVD and put in Charlie's Angels (which I had never seen before) but went to a scene with 2 formula-1 race cars. Again, sort of a bass shaker feel, but "cleaner". It felt like you were feeling each rotation of the engine, and not just a rumble of a bass shaker. Then, the sets would tilt a little, and actually felt like, at one point, you spun out just a little, like the car on the screen. The coolest part was when there was a camera shot right behind one of the cars, and the car did a slight "shimmy" to the left and right a couple of times, and the seats moved with it, all while still producing the engine vibration feeling.
All in all, very cool unit. The one that we were testing is one of the original D-Box units that require the D-Box processor unit, plus a D-Box seating set up. The set up that they had was just a 2 seat home theater style power recliner that was from D-Box.
I asked the price, and they wanted $10,000 for the processor and another $5,000 for each set of 2 seats.
Yikes! $20,000 just for my family of 4!!! It was cool, but get real.
Now, the newest model D-Box lists for quite a bit less. I was thinking around $5,000 for the processor and 4 actuators, and you use your own seating with it. A great improvement in price, but still very expensive.
I think that this was a very fun add-on, so if people want to start pooling their money together to get me one, I would be more than happy to do demos in my house of my Axiom speakers, and the D-Box motion simulators.
