IMAX for home! Crowd sourcing for ideas!

[shyam_mv]

What's up people!!! To start with I'm not a cinema setup guru... In an absolute non-tech guy with a frugal outlook wrt. my money

Having said that, in highly ambitious about getting best viewing solution at the best price for my viewing experience...

So here's a thought that has been mulling in my head without giving me s moment's peace and I thought there are many who probably have the same thoughts but no direction- like me

So I had read a lot of articles that stated that IMAX had finally stepped into the home theaters business with their IMAX hone theater versions...

W while this sounds great! The caveat here is that IMAX charges the IMAX aspirant upwards of 2 million dollars which I'm sure is way beyond our budgets... Having said that, my quirk was also that it's about getting the right viewing experience and "we the people" can share ideas in terms of alternate/ DIY setups that will help all of us take some progressive steps and setup the "next best thing"

Here's what I know and have in terms of information.

1) aspect ratio goes beyond the standard 2.38:1 - key difference is the height of the screen

2) viewing angle: immersive experience add per IMAX is achieved as the viewing angle in IMAX is between 60%-70% as against 45%-58% in the standard theater formats

3) sound: as IMAX is all about propriety stuff, they haven't shared the specifications of doing systems, number of channels etc... We do know there are 2 fronts (gigantic speakers) and 1 gargantuan woofer behind the screen followed by surround speakers around the movie hall

4) 2D&3D- they have a dual projection system with linear polarized technology.. While there are rumors again are that they're working with Dolby on viewing solutions- but nothing specific I could find out.

This is all I have this far... I wanted to open this thread to discuss and crowdsource for ideas if you share my ambition that We CAN setup the solution closest to IMAX experience without spending a fortune.

So let's share ideas, opinions, suggestions and get the dream manifest in reality!!

Thanks... Shyam

 

[piyush608]

nice thought..looking forward for expert knowledge here..

 

[htfan17]

To add to the OP's list, some more specifications of IMAX:

1) There are two center speakers. One at a height to give the sense of dialogue coming from a height oriented screen.

2) Source point surrounds - No line of side Speakers like in regular theatres. Only two gigantic full range surround speakers at each corner SL and SR.

3) Screen is curved for immersive experience

Now the problems:

The biggest problem i feel with imax screen at home is the same that comes for screens of 16:9 (CIW screen) ratio- The viewing of regular 2.35:1 ratio movies- The black bars on top and bottom. Unavoidable. Then where is the question of taking advantage of any height that the IMAX screen has in the first place?

Secondly, in a commercial IMAX theatres, the 2K digital file of any 'non IMAX shot' movie goes through an IMAX DMR process which I am not sure but according to IMAX makes it better for IMAX viewing (Though the aspect ratio remains the same). So if at home the blu rays are not going through the IMAX DMR process, are we going to miss something significant in terms of IMAX resolution etc? For e.g. Gravity was marketed to be an IMAX experience but what exactly did anyone get out of IMAX experience? The only thing i can think of is because screens are bigger, the effect is equivalent of sitting closer to screen in regular theatre. Did I see the impact of DMR process, i donno i am not sure.

The movies that will benefit the most will be the ones framed in 16:9 (1.77:1) or 1.85:1 ratio which are very few - Avatar, Avengers to name a few. And ofcourse the IMAX specific documentry blurays will shine on IMAX screens. Mainstream commercial films actually shot in IMAX and available in Blu ray in the IMAX ratio for those scenes are extremely few (Dark Knights, Tron, Hunger games catching fire). Some of the others which were shot in IMAX are not available with the relevant scenes in IMAX ratio on Blu ray (Mission Impossible ghost protocol, Star Trek into darkness). So if the source material is so limited, the effort on building IMAX type HT is worthwhile?

Finally, the home IMAX would be closer to Digital IMAX screens which is much smaller than true IMAX screens. The real IMAX experience of True IMAX theatres has already been diluted by digital IMAX screens.

 

[sdurani]

One of the things that originally made IMAX so immersive is that the image crept into your peripheral vision, meaning a 60 degree viewing angle. Aspect ratio will be decided by the source material, assuming you don't crop off parts of the picture to fit your screen. To make things easy, get a 16x9 aspect ratio screen rather than trying to get some sort of custom screen with one of the IMAX aspect ratios. As for sound, IMAX only uses 2 surround speakers. I would not limit myself to such a set-up.