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Topic: People are catching wise to IMAX MPX/Digital...

Cameron Glendinning
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 845
From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia
Registered: Dec 2005

posted 05-22-2009 11:08 PM

Also how many people would really care about huge screens? What percentage of the public goes to the cinema in general? What percentage only watch DVD?

Could it be that that 2% actually represents 10% of regular moviegoers and that figure is growing daily.

Please note that like the IMAX ceo, I am pulling these figures out of my a**.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 05-22-2009 11:17 PM

quote: Ron Lacheur
Most of you are referring to MPX and less than perfect sound quality.

How do you know? WTF is MPX? Is that 8/70 or some nonsense like that? If so, why would the sound be any different due to the smaller film area? That's like saying DTS on 70mm sounds soooo much better than DTS on 35mm. The IMAXs I've been to have all been 15/70.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-23-2009 12:37 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Which translates to 98% percent of the public either doesn't know any better or they're just idiots.

Or they don't live within driving distance of an Imax. There's none of these "new" installations in existing theatres within at least 750 miles of me that I know of, except maybe in Denver (550 miles).

Or they really don't care to have their picture be THAT big. I sure don't. What's the point of not being able to see the whole picture without swiveling your head back and forth, anyway?

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Ron Lacheur
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 650
From: British Columbia, Canada
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-23-2009 12:55 AM

quote: Joe Redifer
How do you know? WTF is MPX? Is that 8/70 or some nonsense like that? If so, why would the sound be any different due to the smaller film area? That's like saying DTS on 70mm sounds soooo much better than DTS on 35mm. The IMAXs I've been to have all been 15/70.

The MPX systems ( which are 15/70 ) seem to have a different gear package than say the Classic equipped rooms.

Instead of Bryston 4Bs for amps, you may have Crowns for example.

While the PPS system sounds great, the 4-way JBLs have a sound of their own and have the edge on tonal quality.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 05-23-2009 09:59 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
Or they don't live within driving distance of an Imax. There's none of these "new" installations in existing theatres within at least 750 miles of me that I know of, except maybe in Denver (550 miles).

The 2% refers to saying that only 2% of people visiting the new installations find it to be less quality than the old IMAX, not saying that only 2% of people visit that type of show.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 05-23-2009 01:01 PM

Well, I just watched the movie critic show "Lyons & Bailes Reel Talk" with Jeffrey Lyons, a fairly well respected film critic -- I've not heard of the woman critic Bailes beside him. This is a syndicated show so I don't know what channel you might find it on but in NYC it was WCBS - Channel 2, I believe.

Anyway, it was on this morning and they did a story which they sandwiched between two film reviews. They teased it going into a commercial break with something like, "When we come back, we'll look into what dirty little secret that's going on in the new IMAX theatres." After the commercial they both whaled on what they called FAKE IMAX. The woman started off by explaining how the new IMAX installations in the multiplexes (she nor Lyons named AMC or Regal explicitly) are not the multi-story high screens that everyone has come to know what is meant when you say IMAX. Lyons chimed in saying that to charge extra for what obviously is NOT IMAX is just deceptive. He used the phrases, "FAKE IMAX" and "unethical' -- pretty strong stuff. He added that whoever made this decision in the company has made a big mistake. He also said that at the very least, the company should make it very clear the difference between the theatres with the smaller IMAX screens and those that still have the much large IMAX screens. He said the smaller ones should be called something like Mini-IMAX (his phrase). He ended the segment saying "hoisting this mini-IMAX and not distinguishing it from the largeer IMAX is a very bad bad idea." Unfortunately. they didn't bring the very significant resolution disparity between the two systems.

So I guess this Gelfond guy's idiot, lame and almost laughable spin, claiming that IMAX is NOT the large screen size (or presumably, it's also not the 15/70's ultra high image resolution either), but somehow it's good seats or some other nonsense (removing the first 4 rows?!) or perhaps the nice cup holders.....that THIS is what makes the new "IMAX Experience," has spread much farther than just that single original blog on the internet. These two commentators ripped IMAX execs a new one.

Gelfond should either reverse his stupid contention and admit what the most casual of observers, be they movie or cinema buffs or people in the industry or my very common sense aunt Betty, can see -- that if you were to put them in a 15/70 IMAX house and show them THE LAST BUFFALO, then you walk them down the hall and put them into a digital IMAX theatre and you say, "Are these two theatres the same?" Or more to the point, "Which of them do you think you should have to pay and extra $5 to see a movie?" It won't take a brain surgeon to know what the answer will be.

Come on Gelfond, the more you open your mouth trying to spin up as down and black as white, the more you sound like a HUGE ass....a BIG one...one projected on your 7 story high REAL IMAX screen.

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-23-2009 01:38 PM

Shall we call the IMAX Experience the movie equivalent of The Girlfriend Experience? [evil]

Without Sasha Grey, of course.

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Bill Enos
Film God

Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 05-23-2009 06:56 PM

Mini-Max and Maxi-Max?

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 05-23-2009 07:51 PM

How about iMAX? Y'know, like iPod and all of that other iShit?

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James B Gardiner
Film Handler

Posts: 91
From: North Altona, Victoria, Ausrtalia
Registered: Feb 2009

posted 05-24-2009 03:32 AM

Wow, this is a hot topic.
To busy to get on here to much these days, tho I must admit I posted a while back that IMAX at 2k was a big mistake.

IMAX is nothing more then another cinema chain who tend towards bigger screens. The point of difference, once punters start talking and know the quality on screen is no better then typical digital, will hurt them considerably in my opinion.

Imax is more then experiance, its also the type of content they make and how they show it. So..

If I want Imax experience, sit in the front row and pay the usual price.

Now 4K is getting traction (a little surprised but at interest rate of 0.2% in Japan, I suppose it not hard for them (Sony) to take on the investment risk for the cinema. A good deal for cinema chains in this economic climate)

If 4K does become so wide spread over the next year or so. Where can IMAX go? They should have come out with 4K. IMAX 2K will be old hat and it is only getting started..

Pitty.

James

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David E. Nedrow
Master Film Handler

Posts: 368
From: Columbus, OH, USA
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 05-26-2009 03:17 PM

According to reports, IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond has now hired a Hollywood market-research firm to determine how serious an issue the "size" matter is. When asked if they might mark theatres with the screen size, he apparently said that was a possibility.

Of course, lost in all of this is the whole digital issue. I wasn't so much angered by the size of the screen, since I knew beforehand that it was small, but by the digital projection. How is that in any way IMAX?

Oh well, I'm sure the market-research will confirm for Gelfond that only the people who care are complaining.

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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 05-26-2009 04:05 PM

I don't think people will massively complain, but after a while, they'll watch an Imax or two, watch a couple of Sony 4K over at AMC, and go:

-Hmmmm, that wasn't worth the extra $5 bucks for that Imax thing we saw...

And that'll be the end of it. Eventually.

Unless Imax starts offering what they did before: a massively larger screen with a large image quality (and arguably sound) improvement over a cineplex.

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Kevin Baglow
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 135
From: Yeppoon Qld, Australia
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 06-05-2009 07:05 AM

Hahahaha, they had it coming

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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 06-05-2009 04:03 PM

David Nedrow said:

quote: David E. Nedrow
According to reports, IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond has now hired a Hollywood market-research firm to determine how serious an issue the "size" matter is. When asked if they might mark theatres with the screen size, he apparently said that was a possibility.

I got a general film-goers survey recently, and there were a LOT of IMAX questions on it. I had a GREAT time filling it out.

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Ian Parfrey
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1049
From: Imbil Australia 26 deg 27' 42.66" S 152 deg 42' 23.40" E
Registered: Feb 2009

posted 06-05-2009 04:26 PM

Hey Dicky, size DOES matter! [fu]

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