IT is considered by many to be the future of big screen entertainment.

And north west viewers will be among the first in the UK to experience Dolby Cinema thanks to the San Francisco company teaming up with Odeon Trafford Centre.

The Dolby Cinema is only the third of its kind to be launched in the country following similar luxury screens opening at Odeon Leicester Square in London and Odeon Thorpe Park in Leeds earlier this year.

Weekend was invited to a special event where the cutting edge technology, which combines Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, was being showcased. One of the most impressive features of the new experience is the contrast between black and white on screen.

On your average cinema screen you have a contrast ratio of 2,000 to one – meaning that the blacks are 2,000 times darker than the whites.

On Dolby Vision, the contrast ratio is a million to one – 500 times better than the usual milky grey black we have become accustomed to. During the showcase, a clip of the Live Aid sequence from the Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, was also used to demonstrate the power of Dolby Atmos.

Groundbreaking moving audio, that fills the room and flows all around you, brought the Wembley Stadium experience to the Trafford Centre.

The Dolby experience is matched with 160 luxury reclining seats which is part of a strategy for cinema to up its game in the face of the convenience of streaming sites like Netflix and Amazon.

And with the Dolby Cinema being as comfortable and luxurious as it is immersive and spectacular, hopefully it will draw more people back for that unparalleled big screen experience.

Dolby Cinema at Odeon Trafford Centre is open now. Ticket prices start from £11.75. Upcoming films in the Dolby Cinema format include Ad Astra, The Joker, Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker