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IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

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Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#131

Post by fsh »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #128
aulit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital cinema projectors are mostly stuck to narrow colour spaces so most often than not people will have better colours on film projections rather than digital. Same thing for dynamic range. Keep in mind that DCP standards have really not been updated since like 2010.

There are still no digital cameras matching the highlight DR of film. And the human eye is a million times better than that.

That's not true. Digital movie cameras have a few stops more dynamic range than any analog film or the human eye. Of course this doesn't really matter since analog projectors are astronomically worse than digital on that front. This shouldn't be too surprising considering that they are literally shining a lamp though a piece of plastic.

Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#132

Post by tshaddox »

KaiserPro wrote: post #123
tshaddox wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned, they obvious did a digital intermediary for visual effects shots. For Oppenheimer I don't think they was much CGI, but at the bare minimum I sure they did some digital compositing, so they must have matched their photochemical color grading with digital color grading for some scenes. Also, they had a digital colorist to produce the grade for the DCP anyway, to match the look of the film master. But it…

> so they must have matched their photochemical color grading with digital color grading The VFX would be matched to what ever the spec would be. Your argument would hold more water if it wasn't the _editorial_ department that had the DI in it. In that video from the linked article is them playing back the film on a baselight with a blackboard 2 https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/products/control/range_cn/index... (it migh…

Forgive me if my interpretation of this terminology is wrong. My impression is that "conforming" refers to assembling the final edit from the original source material, in this case literally cutting and splicing together film negatives according to exact frame counts output by Avid.

What do you mean by "conforming film colour in analogue?"

Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#134

Post by tshaddox »

ClikeX wrote: post #118
drob518 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chuckle at the thought of going back to letterboxing with people arguing that “we need to see the top and bottom of the frame, like the director intended!” What’s old is new again. Are hemlines up or down this year? Skinny jeans or baggy?

Preferably, I'd have a 4:3 OLED TV or laser projector at a decent enough size that it can just comfortably show all kinds of formats. My desktop is 21:9, my Macbook and Steamdeck are 16:10, my TV and Nintendo Switch are 16:9, and my iPhone is some weird aspect ratio. So it's not like I'm not used to varying formats. And I actually like it when movies take liberties with the screen format instead of forcing everything…

Once it’s large enough it doesn’t matter what the aspect ratio is. Just make it the exact size of the wall in your TV room. :)

Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#135

Post by circularfoyers »

dudefeliciano wrote: post #12
nntwozz wrote: post #7

I go to IMAX to see less smartphones show up during the movie. The rest is just icing on the cake.

i go to independent local cinemas, people are pretty respectful there too.

I've been to IMAX a lot of times and not a single time had a bad audience member. Whereas I've had at least one at each of the independent and arthouse ones I've been to sadly. I suspect in my case the tickets being significantly more expensive at IMAX keeps any disruptive people away.

Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#136

Post by 486sx33 »

davidferguson wrote: post #14

If you want a very in depth technical look at the differences between IMAX 70mm, 70mm and 35mm for _The Odyssey_, I wrote an article about this last month. https://www.theppt.org/rewind/articles/where-can-you-watch-t... But here are my nit-picks from the article linked here. I'm only commenting on the 15/70mm IMAX parts, because I'm not knowledgable enough about the digital IMAX foramats. > The extra resolution, up t…

[dead]

Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#137

Post by tim-projects »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #11
gempir wrote: post #2

I'm curious about the opinions on 70mm (non-IMAX) vs Digital IMAX. What do you prefer if you have tried both. Because those are the only mostly accessible options around the world. Sound is also something to consider, because depending on the Theater they might have wildy different sound setups even different audio standards.

For me, sound is more impactful than screen resolution or aspect ratio. Subwoofer arrays powerful enough for the audience to feel sub-bass are expensive, large, and need to be placed precisely in the room. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a movie theater that had acoustics rivaling a top-tier music venue or concert hall.

I went through a period of home theatre building. What I learned from that, is that cinema sound is so badly calibrated and just downright awful in most cases.

Its one of the things that led to me no longer going to the cinema. You can get a much better and immersive sound stage at home for not much money.

Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#138

Post by satvikpendem »

tshaddox wrote: post #83
fsh wrote: post #9

IMHO, the only reasons for using 70 mm IMAX are nostalgia and marketing. Digital movie cameras have far better color reproduction, more dynamic range, zero frame jitter, and plenty of resolution without grain. They are also small and silent which allows far more interesting shots than what is possible with a 70 mm monster. Kubrick and Lean used 70 mm because it was the best technology available at the time. Today, th…

I think it's misguided to say things like "IMAX 70 mm has an equivalent of 18k resolution." But have you seen a 70 mm IMAX projection? In my experience, the 70 mm image looks noticeably sharper than an equivalent 4K digital IMAX projection. 1.43 IMAX 4K is also a great experience, but its resolution is a meaningful and noticeable limitation given its massive angular image size. It's a compromise compared to a more tr…

I just watched Odyssey in IMAX 70 mm. It looked noticeably blurrier than even 4k, much less supposed 18k. The image was simply not crisp, perhaps due to all the grain.

Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#139

Post by ClikeX »

tshaddox wrote: post #134
ClikeX wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preferably, I'd have a 4:3 OLED TV or laser projector at a decent enough size that it can just comfortably show all kinds of formats. My desktop is 21:9, my Macbook and Steamdeck are 16:10, my TV and Nintendo Switch are 16:9, and my iPhone is some weird aspect ratio. So it's not like I'm not used to varying formats. And I actually like it when movies take liberties with the screen format instead of forcing everything…

Once it’s large enough it doesn’t matter what the aspect ratio is. Just make it the exact size of the wall in your TV room. :)

That’s my point, really. Just a large enough surface that it will show any format the way it was intended.

Re: IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats

#140

Post by KaiserPro »

tshaddox wrote: post #132
KaiserPro wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so they must have matched their photochemical color grading with digital color grading The VFX would be matched to what ever the spec would be. Your argument would hold more water if it wasn't the _editorial_ department that had the DI in it. In that video from the linked article is them playing back the film on a baselight with a blackboard 2 https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/products/control/range_cn/index... (it migh…

Forgive me if my interpretation of this terminology is wrong. My impression is that "conforming" refers to assembling the final edit from the original source material, in this case literally cutting and splicing together film negatives according to exact frame counts output by Avid. What do you mean by "conforming film colour in analogue?"

Sorry my bad.

Conform is the process of matching edits with the "master" edit, generally.

One of the odd things about the "movie pipeline" is that generally the thing thats passed between compmanies is not the actual edit, but an EDL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edit_decision_list) which is a loosegoosey format, horrible in _many_ ways.

But it means that you can assemble an edit from different media (ie proxies, or digital sources, or actual film.)

and thats the same everywhere.

in a finishing lab, you assemble the edit[1], and then apply a base grade. So you conform the edit, then "conform" the colour so the expensive colourist is not doing busy work infront of the director. Now, some labs might have different names for this, but where I worked, conform was the edit assembly (which was way more faff than you'd hope, EDL is a really really shit format for coordinating edits) then base grade/conform grade to make sure that everything was roughly a "neutral" grade. ie when you cut between two people talking at each other, one is not widly brighter/greener/darker than the other. In sound its like making sure the levels are the same between actors, so one isn't louder than the other.

This might also be called match grading, but from what I remember match grading was for VFX people trying make sure they were producing stuff that looked right.

Manual colour timing was pretty much dead back then, and that was 15 years ago. So going back and doing match/base/conform grade manually in film seems like a fucking stupid thing to do. So does doing a final grade as well, but as Nolan is the only director who manages to finish on time and budget reliably[2], perhaps I'll forgive his foibles. He seems to have actually done the final grade in analogue.

[1] the finishing lab can often be a different company to the editor, so they will need to transfer the raw footage and the EDL (or hopefully something more modern, EDLs were shit when I was there and that was 15 years ago)

[2] Every other director who's doing any amount of VFX seemed to always over run. they'd want clean up or changes weeks after the target end date. Nolan is the only director whos has 400+ VFX shots in a movie thats finished on time.

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