About 1 December 2020
Season of Light
HD now available to rent/stream — or buy/download!
We're trying something new for this Xmas season. With most of our planetarium customers still in coronavirus shutdown, and their audiences missing their annual tradition of seeing our holiday show Season of Light on the dome, we're offering some new methods of delivering the goods — in flat-screen HD form.
Classroom/lecture hall audiences
Back in September, we added HD format flat-screen movies to selected fulldome rental packages. These are intended for classroom or lecture hall showings; the projector is just trained on a flat screen instead of a dome. Same rental fees, but obviously a socially-distanced audience would need to be present.
Online audiences
Recently we've been fielding questions about how planetarium directors could stream these movies to audiences over the Internet. One method that's been tried is renting the package and hosting a Zoom call — streaming the movie and hoping "Share Screen" works (and assuming everyone on the call has enough bandwidth to handle 30fps). For our usual $30/3 days rental, it might be worth a try.
For those who want to offer the show on their own Websites, we've added a new option: to buy/download the HD movie. It's $70, and comes with our permission for posting on a school/institutional webserver.
Holiday gift-giving
We're also getting enquiries for the show from the general public. They say, "With COVID-19, we can't go to our local planetarium, but have enjoyed seeing this production every year." To meet these requests, we're now offering just the HD show as a streaming rental, or a purchased download for individual/home use.
If you're a planetarium director, you can just point people to our Season of Light page here. You might consider buying some shows as gifts for your family, friends and supporters. Our Purchase Page on Vimeo OTT has a Gift this option that allows you to pay, and send the redeem codes to the lucky recipients.
Virtual planetarium theater experience
Of course, if audiences can't be in the planetarium, the next best thing is to experience the dome theater virtually. For four years now, we've operated the VR Dome Theater website, to do just that. There you can stream or download our movies in 4K equirectangular form, to watch on VR headsets and mobile devices. Here on our Season of Light page, we've included links to our Vimeo On Demand VR Dome Theater page for the show.
And 
Season of Light is now available in Spanish! Feliz Navidad!
10 November 2020
We added two new shows from Adler Planetarium...
Destination Solar System
Space Express Tours — the first tour company in deep space — offers a variety of adventures including its most popular trip, Destination Solar System. This out-of-this world jaunt takes place on board the fastest ship in the Space Express fleet, the only vehicle equipped with Space JumpTM technology.
Your guides are “Jesse,” a lovable rookie tour guide who can’t wait to show you the wonders of your celestial neighborhood, and “Max” — the highly knowledgeable, slightly grumpy shipboard computer. With Max steering the ship and Jesse chattering excitedly about each place you visit, you’ll soar through the Asteroid Belt, explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and hover over the roiling surface of the Sun.
This show was developed by Adler Planetarium scientists and educators working with experts in market research, science writing, space visualization, animation, and children’s entertainment. It combines real images of planets and other celestial objects with the latest in digital animation.
Tours of the hottest hot spots and the coldest, stormiest and most spectacular sights in the Solar System await curious space explorers of all ages, in Destination Solar System!
Imagine The Moon
The Moon has been a source of wonder for all of human history. Adler's 2019 sky show, Imagine the Moon, explores how the Moon has inspired human creativity, learning, and exploration ever since we have looked to the sky.
Each discovery has brought new opportunities to contemplate and imagine, until, driven by dreams, we left Earth and went there in the amazing journeys that culminated in astronauts walking on the Moon. People have imagined the Moon as a glowing disk in the sky, a destination in space, and a world that shares its origin with the Earth. The power of human imagination continues to inspire our relationship with the Moon as our partner in space and companion in our sky.
Both these shows are available in flat-screen HD and fisheye 2K too!
25 October 2020
Planet Nine
Now available in HD and 2K!
18 October 2020
It's back!
One World, One Sky
Our perennially popular show returns after a 2-year hiatus — now available in 2K too!
27 September 2020
Into The Deep
Now available in HD and 2K!
1 September 2020
We've added another option to selected show packages...
Flat-screen HD format movies
Obviously, the coronavirus is causing havoc in the dome theater community. Many of our good customers find their theaters shut down. Planetarians (those that still have jobs) are finding themselves reassigned as classroom teachers (if their schools are even open). Most are at least planning for a theater-less foreseeable future.
Over the years at Loch Ness Productions, we've had inquiries about flat-screen versions of our shows, particularly for use in classroom settings. But we've tended to keep focused on the dome; that's what we're good at, after all. Now with the worldwide slowdown, we've found the time to address those requests — we've created HD versions of LNP's shows.
For some shows, we have the original flat artwork and graphics to rebuild the shows for their HD rectangle. Others, like the Albedo shows we recently acquired, were created in fisheye form; so we've used the "prewarped sweet-spot cutout" approach, framing the rectangle optimally for the HD screen.
The good news is... we're providing these at no additional cost to you! We've always offered two formats of movies in our rental packages — fisheye and prewarped. Now in selected packages, there are three, with the addition of flat-screen HD. Just rent as usual, and send the format of your choice to your projector, wherever it happens to be (in the dome or in a lecture hall). Same great shows, new format added.
Not all rental packages have the HD option available yet. We started with most Loch Ness Productions and Albedo shows first. We'll see if we can get other producers on board with our plan (some already have expressed interest). You can tell which movies have HD versions by looking at their trailer preview tabs. If you see the 
HD - Flat Screen tab, select it and play them! You're good to go!
15 June 2020
LNP acquires Albedo Fulldome catalog
Since 2011, Loch Ness Productions has provided shows created by Albedo Fulldome (originally Antares FullDome Productions) to more than 300 planetarium customers around the world, with traditional long-term licensing, and from our start here in 2015, streaming on FULLDOME OnDemand.
Albedo's ownership announced their retirement, so we picked up exclusive ownership of their catalog, to carry it into the future.
One immediate benefit for you: the shows are now available in higher resolution! We've added them to our list of available shows with 2K fisheye -- and weekly rentals.
You'll find their five shows relocated to the Loch Ness Productions page now.
18 March 2020
California Academy of Sciences shows in 2K
Now available at 2K fisheye resolution... and with weekly rental options too!
19 February 2020
New Show from a New Producer...
Horizons of the Future
An immersive visual and sonic journey into the future, and beyond!
We are very pleased to present Horizons of the Future, an excellent artistic entertainment piece by Axon Genesis.
This 25-minute fulldome trip is a mesmerizing trip through lush animated landscapes set to downtempo, relaxing, progressive psytrance EDM (electronic dance music). It's a visual stunner, blending retro-futuristic styles with modern graphics and influences from geometric and shamanic forms to create a multi-sensory, mind-expanding experience.
Awaken your creativity and let your senses roam through this fantastic voyage.
1 January 2020
TRY Before You BUY Offer
If you're shopping for shows with long-term licenses, trying them out by renting them first is a great way to "test the waters".
If Loch Ness Productions distributes the show — and the producer is amenable — we have a "TRY Before You BUY" offer. Rent the show from FULLDOME OnDemand to try it out. Then, should you decide to purchase the long-term license from Loch Ness Productions, we'll credit the rental fees you paid for the show (up to 3 per show)!
We've indicated which shows qualify for this offer by displaying our 
TRY Before You BUY icon below their 
RENT NOW boxes. Follow the links to the Loch Ness Productions Website for more information on long-term licenses.
2019
Here's last year's news, if you haven't been here for a while and want to catch up.
Mark C. Petersen, webmaster
