QATAR: HIVE and Panasonic have collaborated on one of the world’s most technologically ambitious immersive museum installations at the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ), where a distributed media infrastructure comprising more than 170 HIVE media engines drives 128 Panasonic 20,000-lumen 4K laser projectors to deliver synchronised visual storytelling across multiple large-scale exhibition spaces.

Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, the National Museum of Qatar is renowned for its distinctive desert rose-inspired architecture and immersive galleries, which combine cinematic projection, artefacts and exhibition design to chronicle Qatar’s history, culture and future ambitions.

Delivered in partnership with Secuoya QFC & BGL audiovisual, the installation represents one of HIVE’s largest deployments to date, with 172 Beeblade media engines supporting projection mapping and synchronised playback across ten immersive galleries. As part of an ongoing technology refresh, the museum is also upgrading all 128 projectors to Panasonic’s PT-RQ25K 3-Chip 4K DLP laser projectors, each equipped with HIVE’s embedded media playback technology via the Intel SDM slot. By integrating playback directly within the projectors, the installation eliminates the need for external media servers and extensive cabling, reducing system complexity, installation costs and potential points of failure.

“HIVE’s media servers proved to be an outstanding solution for a project of this scale and complexity. The platform is intuitive to operate, integrates seamlessly with the wider AV architecture and delivered significant rack space and installation efficiencies. What stood out most was HIVE’s collaborative, solutions-driven approach. Large-scale permanent projection environments inevitably present technical challenges, and the team consistently worked alongside us to find practical and reliable solutions throughout the project,” said Pedro Jiménez Train, Operations Manager, Secuoya QFC & BGL audiovisual.

At the heart of the deployment is a distributed playback architecture comprising 150 Beeblade Pluto media engines, 30 Beeblade Minima media engines and 14 Beehive enclosures. Together, the system delivers 8K 10-bit HEVC playback, projection mapping and site-wide scheduling while ensuring synchronised content playback across all galleries. Projection alignment and edge blending are managed using VIOSO software, while HIVE’s platform provides centralised monitoring, reporting and control for long-term operational efficiency.

The museum’s 128 Panasonic PT-RQ25K projectors deliver 20,000 lumens of brightness—approximately double that of the PT-RQ13K models being replaced—allowing the museum to operate at lower output levels while maintaining exceptional image quality, improving energy efficiency and extending system lifespan. The projectors display purpose-filmed 8K content across complex curved architectural surfaces, enabling visitors to experience immersive visuals from close proximity without compromising image fidelity.

“When the museum opened in 2019, immersive cultural attractions were still relatively rare. Today, immersive experiences are commonplace, but the National Museum of Qatar remains one of the pioneering examples of how technology and storytelling can be combined at scale. Specifically, the upgrade to PT-RQ25K projectors provides significantly greater brightness than the projectors it is replacing. This improves energy efficiency, reduces operational demands and helps extend the lifespan of the installation. Combined with HIVE’s distributed media architecture, which simplifies content management, monitoring and control across the entire site, the result is a highly efficient and future-ready platform for immersive storytelling,” said Anthony Molloy, Division Head MEA, Panasonic Projector & Display.

Processing more than 21 billion pixels of visual content every second, the installation demonstrates how distributed media server architecture can simplify the deployment and long-term management of complex projection environments while maintaining synchronised playback and consistent image quality across multiple immersive spaces.

“One of the biggest achievements of the project was simplifying what had previously been an extremely complex projection environment. From the visitor’s perspective the experience is visually richer than ever, but behind the scenes the system is now far easier to operate, maintain and scale long term. The National Museum of Qatar stands as a benchmark for immersive cultural experiences worldwide and we’re proud that HIVE technology plays such a central role in bringing that vision to life,” concluded Mark Calvert, CEO, HIVE.