Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: IMAX films on DVD

This is topic IMAX films on DVD in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 03-29-2004, 05:05 PM:

I now have a very good collection of IMAX films on DVD and enjoy them very much. Some of the one's I have are "AFRICA, THE SERENGETI", "SUPER SPEEDWAY", "BLUE PLANET", RING OF FIRE", "GRAND CANYON", DREAM IS ALIVE", "HIDDEN HAWAII" and "THE LIVING SEA". I have several others but the one's I have mentioned are my favorites. I have seen all of them in IMAX except "AFRICA THE SERENGETI". As a demo DVD to impress friends with my home theatre system, I have found "SUPER SPEEDWAY" , "AFRICA THE RERENGETI" and "DREAM IS ALIVE" to be the three best examples. All IMAX DVDs were mastered from the original large film format and have retained the sharpness and crispness of the original image The multi IMAX tracks have been nicely transfered to Dolby 5.1 and some in DTS 5.1 surround sound and retains much of the original LFE track. The only thing missing is the impact one gets from watching an image on the very huge screen in a IMAX theatre. Although there is an IMAX theatre on the north shore at the Polynesian Cultural Centre at Laie, I still miss Pacific's Waikiki IMAX because they used to show all current IMAX films both mainstream from the major studios as well as those from IMAX.

-Claude

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-29-2004, 08:09 PM:

Ya have to be careful here because if an Imax film seen in the theatre was in the least bit boring then on TV its bound to put you to sleep. Sleepy time Imax's are "Tropical Rain Forest", and "Grand Canyon, The Hidden Secret"

I have and reccomend "Fires Of Kuwait", "Dream Is Alive" This two films are what Imax is all about!, "Titanica",(have both the 2 hour Laserdisc and one hour DVD), "Everest" (in which "The Making Of Everest" is way better then the main feature!), "Chronos"...( Amazing anyway you can see it!), and "Zion Canyon-Treasure Of The Gods" which is by far one of the best ever done if you put the Gods aside and stick to the scenery, mountain climbing, and hang glider sequences which are literally mind blowing seen in any format.....they actually did this stuff for real...amazing! Also shown in the film are nice aeriel shots of Bryce Canyon in which I do a yearly hiking trip.

Other reccomended DVD documentaries which I have on the shelf are "Koyannisquatsi", "Trinity And Beyond, The Atomic Bomb Movie" These will hold your attention and all transfers are impeccable.

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 03-29-2004, 09:22 PM:

Here's what I've always wondered about:

With computers getting faster all the time, wouldn't it be possible to create a computer only DVD that contained the movie at a very high resolution and frame rate? Imagine watching Everest at 1024 x 768 full resolution at 60fps!

Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 03-29-2004, 09:52 PM:

Indeed it very easily can be done. The file would not use the DVD compression format, and so would probably be some sort of avi file that you would store in sections on several DVDs. Effectively the DVDs would be used in data-storage mode, rather than as a video disc image.

You'd also want a fairly decent computer system and graphics card to avoid possible frame-rate droppage.

BTW, 2.35 scope resolution would be 1024x436 as opposed to 4.3 1024x768.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-29-2004, 10:17 PM:

Size DOES matter! I have the DVD of "Everest", and it is one of the best demonstrations of how sharp an image can be. The image quality of 65mm origination comes through clear and sharp, even on an NTSC monitor.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 03-29-2004, 10:34 PM:

Mark,

Some of my other friends who also love IMAX film agree with you and also find "GRAND CANYON" boring but I love it for the way it photographically captured the grand vista of one of our most majestic natural wonders in that large screen film format. I agree that some parts of the film can be very boring especially when it touched on early Indian life but most of it was great in my opinion. The film was produced by Destination Cinema for the IMAX Theatre at the Grand Canyon just like it's other film "HIDDEN HAWAII which was made for the Hawaii IMAX Theatre. Destination Cinema at one time operated IMAX theatres at the Canyon, Niagara Falls and here in Hawaii. The Hawaii theatre's operation during it's final two years was taken over by Pacific who owned the land and building and it became the Waikiki IMAX. Until it' closed for good, "HIDDEN HAWAII" was the alternate IMAX film in addition to the special IMAX versions of "LION KING", "STAR WARS-EPISODE 2" and "MATRIX RELOADED" at the Waikiki IMAX.

-Claude

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 03-29-2004, 10:55 PM:

quote:
BTW, 2.35 scope resolution would be 1024x436 as opposed to 4.3 1024x768.

True, but Everest is 1.44:1 [Razz]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-29-2004, 11:00 PM:

...and it's only 24fps.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 03-29-2004, 11:04 PM:

Really? Is that Everest only? I thought all IMAX films played at 60fps, or at least higher than 24.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-29-2004, 11:10 PM:

IMAX HD runs at 48fps, but you can only do that before 11:00pm to avoid a noise violation citation. [Big Grin]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-30-2004, 12:06 AM:

quote:
All IMAX DVDs were mastered from the original large film format and have retained the sharpness and crispness of the original image

quote:
The image quality of 65mm origination comes through clear and sharp, even on an NTSC monitor.

Ummmmm, what are you guys smoking? We are talking about crappy low resolution regular NTSC DVDs, right?

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-30-2004, 01:40 AM:

quote:
I have the DVD of "Everest", and it is one of the best demonstrations of how sharp an image can be.

Didn't they only use a portion of the IMAX frame for the home video version?

quote:
IMAX HD runs at 48fps

And only a tiny fraction of IMAX films are HD. These days it's used mostly for rides such as RACE FOR ATLANTIS and BACK TO THE FUTURE.

Most "regular" IMAX films are 24fps.

Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 03-30-2004, 01:51 AM:

quote:
True, but Everest is 1.44:1

My bad. That would mean about a 710 or 711 virtical resolution. There would be a little bit of letter-boxing, but only a little.

I have to agree with Brad that there's only so good NTSC DVD can get. When I play DVDs from my computer drive on my monitor, I can really see the lossyness of the compression quite clearly. I end up using a lot of hardware overlay corrections to improve the image while I watch the movie.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-30-2004, 09:46 AM:

another thing is the picture will only be as good as the set you are watching it on will get it.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-30-2004, 09:55 AM:

Brad asked:

quote:
Ummmmm, what are you guys smoking? We are talking about crappy low resolution regular NTSC DVDs, right?

I'm saying that DVDs of 65mm features are generally noticeably sharper and less grainy than those of other features. The increased quality of the original negative comes through, even on an NTSC DVD. "Lawrence of Arabia", "My Fair Lady", "Patton" and "The Sound of Music" also come to mind as good examples.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 03-30-2004, 11:45 AM:

Destination Cinema still operates large format theaters at the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and Hearst Castle as well as the National Geographic Theater in Victoria, BC.

I think the most boring film I've ever seen was Ring of Fire, but there are several that rank up there with it. I wanted to kill myself long before SOS Planet ended.

A couple of great recent films are The Human Body for its visuals that make you wonder how the hell they got a camera in there; and Bugs 3D for its great soundtrack and sense of humour.

I watched Straight Up last night. It's about helicopters and vertical flight. Interesting subject, not-very-interesting film.

Slingshot Entertainment distributes a lot of large format films on DVD.

Posted by Rob Butler (Member # 2274) on 03-30-2004, 01:07 PM:

Since IMAX movies are designed for giant screens, don't the DVD versions kind of defeat the purpose of the film?

But if you're really into the concept of buying IMAX films on DVD, then here's something you might want to check out. It's a company called eDimensional, and they have a 3D viewing system for the TV, their IMAX 3D Package comes with 3 IMAX 3D films on DVD.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-30-2004, 08:19 PM:

Of the few IMAX film DVDs that I've seen they've all had higher bitrates than most other DVDs, possible since the films are shorter.

A higher bitrate has far more to do with the picture quality than a higher resolution when it comes to DVDs.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-30-2004, 10:49 PM:

"A couple of great recent films are The Human Body for its visuals that make you wonder how the hell they got a camera in there"
________________________________________________________________

Didn't you hear that they shrunk the camera and crew down and put them in a tiny submarine.... you know the rest.

I watched my DVD of Grand Canyon last night and to me it looks like a 35mm transfer. Heck, there are a couple of shots in there that have scratches running through them and I thik that if this was a 70mm transfer the scratches would not be visible. As compared to other Imax DVDs it also looks murky with high contrast during the first half, the second half looks better. This film must have been the practice run for filming Zion Canyon....very similar films just a different setting with Zion having far better daredevil stuff in the second half.

I agree with Daryl on the higher bit rate. My JVC DVD player has an on screen meter that reads mb per second of data and some of the IMAX disks are definately putting out more data than others....

Mark

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-31-2004, 02:31 PM:

Daryl wrote:

quote:
A higher bitrate has far more to do with the picture quality than a higher resolution when it comes to DVDs.

Agreed. But I've also seen the generally better quality of films originated on 65mm on broadcast and cable TV. In particular, when TBS broadcast Branaugh's "Hamlet" a few years ago, it looked much better than anything else they were carrying at the time. And the full length 65mm features I've seen on DVD have been very high quality, even if only recorded on one side of a disk (lower bitrates).

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-31-2004, 02:37 PM:

Also agreed. Any duplication from a higher resolution is going to look better than a dupe from a lower, but still greater than the final, resolution. This applies to pretty much anything, not only film to television transfers.

Posted by Rob Butler (Member # 2274) on 04-02-2004, 02:06 PM:

This whole thread reminds me of this comic that a friend emailed me.

Note: I don't claim any ownership of this image, if I am violating any copyright laws or policies by posting this, please let me know and I'll remove it imediatly.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-11-2004, 05:06 PM:

I just go through watching Rolling Stones at the MAX.

I noted an odd thing...though the picture was clear...there was chroma-crawl all over the picture. The odd thing was...I was outputting the DVD in component video (Y, R-Y, B-Y)...there shouldn't have been any chroma crawl. This leads me to believe that it was somehow mastered with a composite signal rather than some form of digital, or analog with color separation (RGB, Component, S-Video...etc.)

Are all of them that way?

Steve

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 07-11-2004, 05:43 PM:

I don't think they are all that way, but I've noticed big differences in quality amongst the IMAX video releases.

In your case Steve, it sounds like they encoded from a D2 master. If the original NTSC encoding wasn't handled carefully, one could end up with a good digital recording of NTSC artifacts.

I mentioned this in another thread a long time ago, but I have two different versions of The Dream is Alive on laser disc. One of them features what has to be one of the worst video transfers I've ever seen. I used to use it in my video projection classes as an example of the kinds of things that can go wrong during a video transfer session.

Posted by James B. Openshaw (Member # 1310) on 07-11-2004, 08:31 PM:

The best IMAX to DVD transfers that I have seen are the ones distributed by Warner Home Video (e.g. Dream Is Alive, Cosmic Voyage) by means of picture quality. The worst I've seen are from Slingshot, particularly the CGI transfers (e.g. Encounter in the 3rd Dimension, Haunted Castle)

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 07-12-2004, 04:21 PM:

I've seen that DVD box set with Haunted Castle, Encounters, and Alien Adventure ... they come with 3D glasses and everything. Those movies weren't worth watching on the IMAX screen to begin with, so it's quite understandable that they didn't give a damn about the transfer. But hey, you can release ANYTHING on DVD and SOMEONE'll buy it.

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 07-15-2005, 05:41 PM:

It has been 368 days since the last post.

Posted by Andy Summers (Member # 3207) on 07-15-2005, 05:41 PM:

I have around 7 IMAX DVD’s and they are all fantastic.

Ghosts of the Abyss
Hunted Castle
Hail Columbia
Blue Planet
The Dream is Alive
Mission to Mia
T-Rex Back to the Cretaceous

I like the sound mix on Hail Columbia where the press is asking lots of questions and the voice come from the side surrounds and the centre back surround as well, and the lunching of Columbia is frilling.

I was at Florida in 1981 with my uncle and auntie with there three children and it was a holiday of a lifetime I’m still kicking myself that I had to miss the launching of Columbia, which lifted off in April 12th 1981 and since I was there from early February to late February is was not going to be possible, however I did get to go to the cape, and see the testing of the shuttles main engines and the SRB live on TV at Clearwater Tamper Bay…

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 07-19-2005, 02:03 AM:

I never bothered to see it in 3D at an IMAX theatre, but I rented a DVD of "Ghosts of the Abyss" & very quickly was reminded why directors also need to hire writers & actors.

Posted by Mark Pierce (Member # 3196) on 07-19-2005, 11:11 AM:

I don't know if any of you have seen them yet but Macgillivray Freeman has released some of their films in the new Windows Media HD (WMV HD)format. When I was up at IMAX earlier this year another of our brethren (Hey Markus!!!) had purchased The Living Sea DVD. We threw it on my brand new laptop and it looked amazing! The obvious drawback is that you need a computer to run them. That is, until they start coming out with DVD players that will run WMV HD!

Posted by Andy Summers (Member # 3207) on 07-19-2005, 08:13 PM:

No sorry haven’t come across that one yet, is the sound mix good on it…

Posted by Mark Pierce (Member # 3196) on 07-19-2005, 10:44 PM:

Unfortunately, I can't say as it was on my laptop. It sounded fine coming out of two little laptop speakers though!!! [Big Grin]

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 07-22-2005, 07:28 PM:

For those that have HD-Cable some providers, I know Comcast does, have a couple of channels that frequently will broadcast IMAX movies in HD. INHD and INHD2. The picture quality is acutally pretty impressive.

I THINK they are presented in 1080i