A new platform is set to change the way operators and visitors interact with audiovisual content, allowing them to manage multimedia content from their smart device.

Videro, which makes its debut into the attractions industry at IAAPA today (17 November), is an operating system that removes the need for multiple hardware modules, streamlining the solution to a single, compact hardware, making it up to 60 per cent more energy efficient and many times more cost effective.

The operating system allows theme parks and museums to change their storytelling capabilities from their smart phone or smart device. With a single swipe of a finger, an operator can change the media displayed on any or all of the attraction's screens in an instant. The operating system was co-created by American-based Edwards Technologies and German-based Videro.

The technology is already in use in the retail sector, in major hotels such as the Intercontinental Miami and as a control system for the many screens in Time Square New York. It enables, for example, a coordinated product launch that can be simultaneously broadcast on every screen in Times Square.

Videro can be connected to an attraction's own database, so unique content can be managed by the operator and changed or updated at any time. Different content can be played on different screens, or the same content on all screens.

According to Brian Edwards, CEO of Edwards Technologies, the technology is such a leap forward, there's a gap between where immersive, digital storytelling is now and where it will be in the near future.

"If you look at your smart phone, the portal to our whole world these days, you don't think about the magic that happens behind the glass screen. We've brought this type of 'magic', beauty and simplicity to our storytelling world with the same seamless experience," Edwards told Attractions Management.

"Forget how we used to tell stories," Edwards said. "There's no real connection between how we used to tell linear stories in attractions and how we will soon be telling them in a 'fragmented narrative' way."

"We don't experience things on one screen any more. We use multiple devices and multiple delivery systems. Now we have the ability to tell a story by selecting the media we want to play with the slide of a finger," he said. "The magic is in how simple this is."

The Mercedes-Benz Museum is one example of an attraction using the Videro operating system, with 230 players running on that platform. Film-based attractions can also use the system, which not only hosts and plays the 3D film, but can also be programmed to control special effects such as seat vibrations, fog and water.

Videro is also being used by Legoland as the platform for its visitor app.