Save the Date and Call for Submissions
Dear fellow Planetarians,
IPS is preparing for the May 7th, 2025, celebration of the “100th birthday of the planetariums”. At the IPS2024 conference in Berlin we discussed with you about these celebrations.
Based on your suggestions, IPS plans to celebrate the “100th birthday” in two steps:
- In an online live-transmitted event, held on May 7th at 6 pm UTC – save the date! This will be a “flat” image livestream presented via youtube, which will feature live and recorded greetings, show pieces, newly released materials, and other highlights from 100 years of planetarium history. We will keep you posted about the details! A detailed schedule will be posted early next year.
- An anniversary week on the following days, with a focus on the weekend of May 10th/11th.
IPS will prepare a number of show materials and make them available for download several weeks ahead of the event. In the May 7th event, we will present these materials and start the celebration week.
On the days following May 7th, we encourage planetariums, affiliates, and everyone in the community to create a local event in which these materials can form the backbone of your local celebration of the anniversary.
While most of the materials will be created by IPS and partners from science and industry, we ask you to create two types of short submissions which we plan to feature in the anniversary event:
- A very short greeting in your language, your local dialect, or in another way that is special to your country or region – in the form of a short “flat” video (not in Fulldome format), limited to a length of 10 seconds (maximum), and saying something like “happy birthday to the planetariums”, “greetings from …”, or similar. Please include a text file that explains what your exact words as spoken mean in standard English.
- A short Fulldome recording (3 minutes maximum, but it could be as short as a few seconds; it could be filmed, rendered, or created in any other method) showing a creative view of something that is special to your region, town, or your venue; something – objects, content, or anything – that is unique at your planetarium or its surroundings. Whatever you send, we ask you to provide it to IPS to use and distribute freely under a CC-SA license (Deed – Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International – Creative Commons)
Both requests are independent of each other. We understand that not everyone will be able to submit a Fulldome piece, but we hope that everybody could create a short greeting e.g. recorded with your phone!
Here are our recommendations for a recording, and how to submit it:
FLAT VIDEO (for the very short greetings in your language)
- 3840×2160 maximum resolution (or 2160×3840 if portrait)
- MP4 or MOV video container
- Audio should be encoded with the video if at all possible
FISHEYE VIDEO (for creative submissions)
- 4096×4096 maximum resolution
- MP4 video container, either H.264 or H.265 (HEVC) codec
- For H.264: minimum of 30 mbps, maximum of 125 mbps, CBR or VBR 1-pass; 8-bit color
- For H.265: minimum of 20 mbps, maximum of 50 mbps, CBR or VBR 1-pass; 8-bit or 10-bit color
- Frame rate of either 30 or 60 FPS (please specify in file name)
AUDIO
- Stereo (L & R channels) can be encoded within the video if preferred. Otherwise, uncompressed .WAV, 16-bit/48 kHz
- Sound files should be “0” timecode – playback of audio and video files must be synchronized.
No matter if you submit just a short, flat video greeting, or a creative Fulldome submission:
Please upload your file(s) here:
contentandconferences.wetransfer.com
Thanks!
Your IPS & Planetarium Centennial team