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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: IMAX Digital semi-rant
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-02-2017 07:41 PM
I'd be interested to know if the audio level is actually legal.
In response to a customer complaint claiming that we were breaking the law during a screening at my last workplace (usual story: a-hole movie director at a fest screening believing that he has the right to damage his audience's ears, and insisting on a stupidly loud level), I took a course at the Google law school.
The only relevant thing I found was the California Code of Regulations, Subchapter 7, group 15, article 105, which states that in a workplace, an employee should not be exposed to 90dBA for more than eight minutes in every eight hours.
But that just covers employees in a workplace. Presumably, if a theater does not require an employee to be present in an auditorium throughout the screening, this is completely irrelevant, and the audio level that a movie is played at is completely unregulated. But I'd be astonished if there aren't any other jurisdictions with IMAX screens that do have a maximum volume law for movie theaters.
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Edward Summerhays
Film Handler
Posts: 16
From: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Registered: Sep 2016
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posted 08-02-2017 08:09 PM
To clarify, are you referring to the new 4K laser set up, or the LieMAX 2K set up?
I live in Sydney, home to the largest cinema screen in the world, being IMAX (however it's currently closed and won't reopen til 2019 due to a full rebuild).
I have a love/hate relationship with IMAX. I have gone back and re-watched Nolan's films several times. There is nothing out there like it. I am simply blown away despite having been several times. However, that was once ever two years when he'd release a film. He is the only director to shoot on IMAX and edit photo-chemically. Even when other directors used IMAX cameras (never as good as Nolan anyway) they were scanned in digitally at perhaps 4K and then printed back into film. Not the same thing.
Every other time other than these rare film presentations, you're watching a 2K presentation that doesn't even fit the width of the screen. Their digital projectors were obviously low resolution and chose not to fill up the screen, as you'd see the pixel structure more than you already could.
Before I educated myself on IMAX's digital setup, I was really excited to see Spectre, as I knew it was a 4K DCP, and knew it would look amazing on the IMAX screen. However, was so disappointed. I remember thinking "this is not sharp at all". I later learnt it was their 2K system. The image only fills about 60-70% of the screen width.
I have been to only one 4K IMAX laser presentation (this was in Melbourne as Sydney never installed the 4K digital projector), however it was a 2K film in 3D. It was hard to compare to 15/70 as I wasn't watching good source material.
I remember the Dunkirk trailer before hand looked good, but it was only a minute long.
IMAX always prided themselves on surpassing what ordinary cinemas provided, however perhaps they should have aimed higher and gone 8K? 4K is already what most cinemas can push out, and 70MM can scan in higher than 8K.
I always find it a big sad when locals and tourists come to Sydney to watch the biggest screen in the world, but they're given a 2K presentation that doesn't fill the screen. I could just go to my local multiplex and I'd be seeing a true 4K presentation on a screen not much smaller.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 08-02-2017 10:13 PM
I think IMAX is in a spot of trouble.
First of all, I agree extremely that the 2K digital projection system is woefully inadequate for giant sized IMAX screens originally built for 15-perf 70mm film projection. If you're not seeing the obvious pixel grid with such a setup then the projection system is merely dialed out of focus enough to turn the picture into a big blurry mess.
The dual 2K thing only works on modest-sized multiplex screens bearing the IMAX logo.
The dual 4K laser-based system would be better for all those previous 15/70mm IMAX houses. Unfortunately IMAX With Laser is costing IMAX over $2 million per screen to install. There's still only 13 IMAX With Laser installations in the US -it's been at that level for going on a year. Worse yet, there are complaints about all sorts of rainbow speckle in the imagery, something that doesn't seem to be affecting Dolby Cinema screens nearly as bad. Meanwhile AMC has over 50 Dolby Cinema screens, with plans to have more than 100 such screens by next year.
quote: Edward Summerhays
IMAX always prided themselves on surpassing what ordinary cinemas provided, however perhaps they should have aimed higher and gone 8K? 4K is already what most cinemas can push out, and 70MM can scan in higher than 8K.
Like I said, IMAX is in a tough spot.
IMAX does not have the capability, nor does any d-cinema equipment manufacturer, to build an 8K d-cinema projector. They might be able to put together the optics, light path and other hardware for the projection system, but they're dead in the water when it comes to the imaging chips. IMAX, like all the other d-cinema companies, are dependent on Texas Instruments to blow billions of dollars to develop new DLP chips that go past the 4K barrier. I don't think TI is ever going to do that.
In all actuality there is a real chance TI could pull the plug on DLP chip fabrication lines. There's really not much money in DLP anymore. Texas Instruments needs a hell of a lot more than just the professional cinema market to justify making DLP chips. Projection sales are in the toilet over in the consumer and industrial sector. Giant flat panel TVs have eaten a lot of the market for consumer and office video projectors. And no one is making rear projection screen TV sets anymore. So the market for DLP is shrinking worse and worse.
It costs a lot of money to keep a chip fabrication facility in operation. Every chip fabricator routinely kills off old product lines and re-uses that floor space to build different, newer, better lines of products. At some point TI is not going to feel like maintaining what amounts to a technology museum when they can use that production space to build different kinds of semiconductors that will sell in far greater numbers.
So, when it comes to showing off imagery that's better than 4K in a commercial movie theater, 70mm film projection is the only way to do it currently. The only possible digital-based, better than 4K solution that could come about in the years ahead is LED-based "jumbotron" movie screens. But the cost is so freaking ridiculous it won't be practical on any mainstream basis for a long time. And then there's the matter of developing a system that can pass sound through the screen.
Movie theaters are stuck doing no better than 4K in digital presentation, perhaps permanently. With that being said, Hollywood studios are still post producing and rendering most of their content in mere 2K, which even makes 4K overkill in both commercial settings and even at home where 4K UHDTV sets are now very common. And that gets back to the comment about 8K. Hollywood studios don't fart around blowing a ton of extra money to render something like 8K unless there is a specialized and high profile purpose behind it -like 70mm film-out of a big name project. And even some of the CGI material in Dunkirk was rendered in 6K. In most cases the bean counters are all too happy to "phone it in" and spit out the same old usual, TV-quality 2K stuff. It's "digital" and therefore "good enough."
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