quote: Paul Gordon

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Is there even going to be 35mm prints made?

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quote: Jonathan Althaus

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Not sure if the Cinemark in Dallas is still 15/70 capable. They haven't run film since DKR AFAIK

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quote: starwars.com

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The film will be presented in DOLBY VISION

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Is this merely a PR blurb from the El Capitan theater or is Star Wars actually being post-processed for HDR presentation? Will it really be in "Dolby Vision" or merely a standard 2K or 4K DCP played in a Dolby Vision capable theater?

The same question is posed about the sound mix. Dolby's web site and Facebook page mention nothing about the upcoming Star Wars movie sporting a real Dolby Atmos mix. The IMDb page for the movie claims it will have IMAX 12-track, Atmos and Auro 11.1 mixes, but IMDb has published inaccurate technical info in the past.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-22-2015, 09:59 PM:
 
^ Dolby does a piss-poor job at updating it's own master list on it's website. If we are to believe Disney and it's El Capitan's ad's - Pixar's 'The Good Dinosaur' and 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' both have Atmos (Seattle's Cinerama also denotes Dolby Atmos).

along the same line's the new Bond 'Spectre' imdb tech specs denotes:

Dolby Digital | Datasat | Dolby Atmos | SDDS | Auro 11.1 | 12-Track Digital Sound (IMAX 12 track)



SDDS? I haven't seen that noted in a very very long time ... essentially IMDB is never 100% accurate - but that's not new news.
 

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Posted by Daniel Schulz (Member # 1881) on 10-22-2015, 10:09 PM:
 

quote: Jonathan Goeldner

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along the same line's the new Bond 'Spectre' imdb tech specs denotes:

Dolby Digital | Datasat | Dolby Atmos | SDDS | Auro 11.1 | 12-Track Digital Sound (IMAX 12 track)

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Off topic from Star Wars, but Spectre definitely does not have a Datasat track. The last 35mm releases to carry Datasat were Terminator: Genisys and Minions back in July.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-22-2015, 11:16 PM:
 
Could Spectre possibly have a DTS-X audio track? If so, maybe they saw the DTS thing, got confused and defaulted it to Datasat notation.


Incidentally, I suppose we could add DTS-X to the list of "will Star Wars: Ep VII have a mix in:" question list.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-23-2015, 08:44 AM:
 
outside of Lionsgate - DTS (X) is not getting any support from the major studios - granted there are less than, what - 10 screens with DTS-X? 'Hunger Games Mockingjay Part II' is a plus, but it's a guessing game which next studio will release a movie as such - it also doesn't help that there are no East Coast installs.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-23-2015, 12:36 PM:
 
DTS-X appears to be getting a start similar to that of Auro, but with a more scattered or fractured sense of a product roll-out.

Carmike Cinemas had a deal to install half a dozen or so DTS-X systems in some of their "Big D" premium theaters, but I don't know if any of those installations have taken place yet. You won't find anything on Carmike's web site about it. Bigger questions involve how the speakers and amplifiers will be configured. Is Carmike going to add any ceiling surround speakers to the existing sound systems? Will they add more channels of amplification? They use a lot of QSC gear and QSC's newest Q-Sys systems can render DTS-X/Open MDA audio. But is it just going to be rendering to a conventional 7.1 layout or maybe 11.1? Or will it be something more comparable to a Dolby Atmos system?

One of the problems with DTS-X is there appears to be no minimum mandatory standards for it. Somebody stick "DTS-X" on the marquee or in showtime listings on the web solely on the virtue of having a piece of hardware from GDC, QSC or whoever. The sound being played in the auditorium would be virtually no different than regular 5.1 or 7.1 audio.

And this is assuming DTS-X is even advertised in the first place. Some of these theater chains are doing nothing to advertise next-gen audio formats like Dolby Atmos. They're pushing their premium screen brand name instead and treating the audio as if it's some kind of secret sauce. The glaringly stupid problem with that strategy is people who actually care about what kind of surround sound is being used demand specifics. I couldn't care less about some label like "RPX" or "Big D" or whatever. That says nothing about how the movie is really being presented. Considering the fact not all "RPX" or "Big D" screens are equipped identically that makes it more important get the screen and sound format out there. If they can't disclose the info I want they risk letting me just wait to see that movie on Blu-ray.

One thing I think DTS should do (if they're not already pushing it): get Open MDA encoding capability built into the most popular audio editing tools. I realize it could cannibalize some DTS-HD Master Audio sales, but then again, that software suite is pretty old. It either needs to be updated or its technology licensed out to other software companies. Dolby did that with a bunch of its DD and DD Plus encoding tech.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-25-2015, 01:16 PM:
 
I've only seen Carmike advertise it's Muvico Thousand Oaks 14 DTS-X theater system on Facebook and Twitter.
 

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Posted by Aron Toplitsky (Member # 6950) on 10-28-2015, 04:49 AM:
 
Regarding the laser installations for true IMAX screens like AMC Universal City -

Does this mean the IMAX shot sequence will be presented in the true IMAX aspect ratio taking up the entire 8 story tall screen? Is it true laser projection has the capability to project that kind of resolution?
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-28-2015, 08:36 AM:
 
^ well I was quite impressed when I saw the laser system at the Udvar Hazy Smithsonian Airbus IMAX screen present the Dubai skyscraper scene from 'Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol' full screen 4:3 demo'ed; excellent black levels and sharpness.
 

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Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 10-28-2015, 11:11 AM:
 
Aron, this has been discussed elsewhere and I'll try to answer your question accurately from memory: yes. The native 16:9 shape of the laser system is stretched in anamorphic optical fashion to the full 4x3 size. So Universal City Imax should use the full picture whenever the source equips it to.

It's also been said elsewhere that the Hollywood Chinese Imax is not a true 4x3 and may involve cropping of 4x3 images, but I've not seen it to confirm.

Just assure me the hot-spotting 3D screen will be replaced. The old Los Angeles Mitsubishi Imax rocked back in the 80s and 90s with a great sound system and perfect screen. I miss those days.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-28-2015, 07:44 PM:
 
The IMAX company will need some kind of effective plan to deal with installing "IMAX with Laser" into both kinds of IMAX branded theaters, true IMAX houses that ran 15/70mm film and all the ones that only showed 2K digital.

I don't think IMAX will be able to get away with sticking their laser-based system in only a small percentage of their screens, even though it appears this is exactly what they're trying to do. They need to upgrade the sound systems in ALL of their theaters so they're at least running the 12 channel version.

Right now not many people know about laser projection. More will find out about it as more systems are installed. Santikos is going to open a new multiplex in San Antonio featuring 4K 6P laser projection on all screens. Dolby Cinema is using laser projection and applying their own Dolby Vision thing to it.

I think the home consumer electronics angle will pressure IMAX to put the laser system in a lot more of its theaters, rather than just a few of the IMAX houses that used to run film. By the time this decade is finished 4K UHDTV sets will be standard; you probably won't be able to buy a new 2K TV set by 2020. TV sets that support REC 2020, Dolby Vision, HDR, etc. will also be common and affordable before the end of the decade.
 

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Posted by Aron Toplitsky (Member # 6950) on 10-29-2015, 01:52 AM:
 
Jonathan I wonder how the laser version vs the 15/70 version would look compared side by side? As someone I think posted in this thread, that will never happen. I would love to see it though!

"It's also been said elsewhere that the Hollywood Chinese Imax is not a true 4x3 and may involve cropping of 4x3 images, but I've not seen it to confirm."

I'm glad you mentioned that Bill. I've been to the Chinese IMAX and it doesn't appear to be a 4x3 screen. If anything it resembles Liemax. I have been wondering how they were able to pull off a 15/70 presentation of Interstellar? As I've mentioned before on this site, I'm also not very impressed with the low frequencies in that theater. I've seen two films there and both were lacking. Now I know they are two different mixes, but I saw Godzilla in their Atmos auditorium and it was a pulse pounding amazing experience! On the other hand, the IMAX presentation was no where near as good in the low end department. Another film I noticed was Furious 7 which was laser projected by the way. It looked great, but again, the sound was lacking for me. People swear they've had the ultimate audio experience there. Maybe it's just me? Anyhow, for those reasons I will not be seeing Star Wars there. If Universal can get Laser Projection in time, then that will be my choice.
 

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Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 10-30-2015, 05:36 PM:
 
The El Capitan will be Dolby Vision HDR. The information I have heard as of now is that they have only made a 2D HDR version so far (thank god) so let's hope that doesn't change to 3D before the release.

I'm kind of bummed that Universal and the Chinese have already yanked out their Interstellar 15/70 projectors. I'd love to see that version as well but from the list already posted here, it looks like nobody in LA will be playing 15/70.

I've been unimpressed with IMAX Laser so far. I've seen Furious 7 and Jurassic World 3D both at the Chinese and Dolby Vision beats it in every possible way. I might be a little biased though
 

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Posted by Allan Young (Member # 6332) on 10-31-2015, 09:10 AM:
 
The Science Museum in London has been added to the list of 15/70 locations.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-31-2015, 12:51 PM:
 
The OMNI Dome theater in at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History has been added to the 15/70mm list. I won't have to drive clear to Branson to see it in 15/70mm.

While I think this is a good development, I do have some concerns about unintended image cropping due to the dome screen shape. I may still have to check it out. I haven't visited this theater in a few years.

I'm really hoping this new Star Wars movie is actually good. If it ends up being crap it's not going to be worth seeing in different presentation formats for the fun of comparison.

Meanwhile:
IMAX hasn't added much to its laser installations list. Only 7 systems in North America (none in Texas or OK) and another 7 across the rest of the globe. That's pretty slow progress.
 

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Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 11-03-2015, 01:23 PM:
 
AMC Universal City's Imax screen is closed right now for laser projection installation, reopening on Thursday night with "Spectre." Too bad there's no word on a sound upgrade (that I've found).

Aron, you've confirmed the short-topped Chinese Imax screen, meaning they put in 15/70 for Interstellar to be run only for that one title, and would've had to crop a little from the bottom and a chunk of the top to make it fit that screen. Sorry to hear the bass is bad there, which I suspect is due to the cavernous size and acoustics of that space. Universal's bass is good but not excellent.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-03-2015, 03:45 PM:
 
I thought the 12-channel sound system was supposed to be standard for any "IMAX with Laser" theater.

IMAX really needs to upgrade the sound systems in ALL of its theaters, not just the handful of laser-based screens. The 5.0 systems in the other 99% of IMAX-branded houses is not so hot. I can understand IMAX proceeding very slowly with installing the new laser-based system, partly because it costs a fortune.

Upgrading a 5.0 sound system to 12-channel is not nearly as complicated and nowhere near as costly. If every freaking Cinemark "XD" screen out there can play Auro 11.1 then IMAX really ought to be able to pull off 12 channel surround in all its theaters especially when they're charging more money for it than XD.
 

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Posted by Daniel Schulz (Member # 1881) on 11-03-2015, 06:18 PM:
 

quote:

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Jonathan I wonder how the laser version vs the 15/70 version would look compared side by side? As someone I think posted in this thread, that will never happen. I would love to see it though!

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quote: Mark J. Marshall

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For clarification... 15/70 film projection or some smaller gauge film projection?

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The IMAX laser projected material that was derived from 15/70 negatives looked as good as actual 15/70 projection. IMO of course. I am told that Christopher Nolan disagrees with my assessment.

quote: Aron Toplitsky

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As far as I know, there are no 15/70 showings in Los Angeles. Still I'm a little excited about seeing it in 3D. Word is IMAX 3D laser looks much better than standard 3D IMAX digital.

Just curious, does anyone know if the 15/70 showings are in 2D or 3D?

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quote: Daniel Schulz

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IMAX 3D laser is night-and-day better than standard 3D IMAX digital.

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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Given the extra bump of HDR via Dolby Vision that might actually be a better way to see the new Star Wars movie than going out of the way to see it in an upgraded IMAX Digital screen.

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Well I will say that an advantage with IMAX is for the scenes that were shot in that format, and it takes more advantage of the screen. You don't get that with Dolby Vision.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-11-2015, 03:33 PM:
 
I just checked to see if IMAX had made any updates to its list of theaters featuring IMAX With Laser. I found this:



It turns out IMAX just re-vamped their web site.

It looks like yet another canned template based web site. Pretty much the whole damned Internet is moving to this shit. Viewing the source code I expected to see notes about WordPress, but found references to Drupal 7 instead. That's another canned theme front end for web development. This is one of the consequences of killing off Flash and promoting a totally disorganized, cluster-fucked "HTML5" approach. You damned near have to be a computer scientist in order to hand code a modern web site from scratch. It's so much faster (and cheaper) to crank out some spreadsheet looking bullshit out of WordPress.

Anyway! Back to the topic. With this re-vamp IMAX has gotten even more vague than ever with information about its theaters. Their theaters map no longer has any mention if a specific theater is showing film or digital or the very rare laser process. It's as if they're all the same.

That page specifically about the new laser process is gone. And so is the list of equipped theaters.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-11-2015, 08:35 PM:
 

quote: Bobby Henderson

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It's as if they're all the same.

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Well they ARE all the same aren't they? Because they're Imax, doesn't that mean they are all equally spectacular?
 

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Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 12-13-2015, 11:09 AM:
 
IMAX - The Future of Movie Technology Has Arrived web page

IMAX with Laser fact sheet

Can't find the Imax Blog.
 

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Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 12-19-2015, 03:53 PM:
 
So.... has anyone here seen the 15/70 prints of Star Wars yet? I'm curious as to how good they look. I've heard they are amazing.
 

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Posted by Stephen Brown (Member # 292) on 12-19-2015, 07:18 PM:
 
Saw it on opening day in Sydney at the IMAX in 15/70. The Full screen IMAX scenes look great, if not a little nauseating (a specific chase scene is in full IMAX screen height and width), but I did think some of the scenes shot in 35mm looked rather poor, especially face close ups.

Also, it strains the neck when they do the opening story roll up the screen. You have to turn your head side to side to read the text. Sort of like watching a tennis match from the side.

Im sure the audience didn't mind, they cheered overtime an old character appeared. I think I have to go back and watch it again in a normal cinema so I can concentrate more on the story and not the gee whiz bang of the big screen.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 12-27-2015, 09:57 PM:
 
man oh man - with a brief run down at the Air & Space museum intown (of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'), the IMAX-laser conversion begins on the 11th of next month another 15/70 screen bites the dust.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-27-2015, 10:39 PM:
 
I'm hoping to check out the 15/70mm show at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in the next week or two. It's a dome screen though. Not sure what to expect with how the movie will be cropped for that kind of screen. Best case scenario would involve driving clear up to Branson. But I don't like Branson that much.
 

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Posted by Eric Richard (Member # 8635) on 01-23-2016, 04:31 PM:
 
So Bobby, did you have a chance to see the film yet? I would like to see it if its still playing.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-23-2016, 09:12 PM:
 
No, I didn't make it down to Fort Worth to see the 15/70mm show at the museum there. Based on some comments about the blow-up's image quality (nearly all of it reportedly from a 2K resolution digital intermediate) it didn't seem like it would be worth the trip.

I'm happy I was at least able to see The Hateful Eight in 70mm. Although it would have been nice to see the movie projected on a larger, not HDTV shaped, movie screen.
 

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Posted by Eric Richard (Member # 8635) on 01-23-2016, 09:21 PM:
 
copy that. Wonder if Disney is going to want all those prints back? Although not to many locations can still run 15/70. I still would love the chance to run it at my theater. Believe it or not, my MPX still runs great and I bet it would look great on my screen. Maybe Disney will do a re-release..
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 02-13-2016, 06:12 AM:
 

quote: Jonathan Goeldner

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so do theater get a package deal (better pricing) through Dolby if they get a D-Vision system, than just getting a 4K Laser projector and Atmos system separately?

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You can say that. When you sign up for Dolby Cinema, you get the projection and sound equipment and install for free, typically that is the Christie Duo Laser solution + ATMOS based on Christie Vive components. However, you have to pay a fair bit of money to make your site 'compliant' to Dolbys expectations - Dolby lobby, auditorium, booth (you will never call it 'booth' afterwards).
Depending on your pre-existing situation, this could come close to the cost of a separate Laser+Atmos install.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-13-2016, 12:17 PM:
 
All that money and yet Dolby Cinema can't be bothered to put up proper masking.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 11-15-2016, 07:01 AM:
 
interestingly there appears to be one 15/70 engagement of 'Rogue One' in the UK (no word on prints in the US ??)

Rogue One: A Star Wars story – The 15/70mm IMAX Experience in 2D
 

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Posted by Max Hayman (Member # 8726) on 11-15-2016, 07:27 AM:
 
^^ Only cinema in europe. I don't think the science museum have any digital capabilities. I saw EP7 in 15/70 there and it was amazing.
 

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Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 11-15-2016, 12:30 PM:
 
I wrote to Imax asking what theaters would be showing Rogue One in 2D 70MM Imax. They do not seem to be interested in providing this info.

quote:

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Dear Geoff,

Thank you for expressing an interest in IMAX, we appreciate your e-mail.

Each theatre is independently owned and operated; therefore, they are responsible for their own ticketing and programming. Inquire with your local theatre directly for further information. Theatre contact information can be found in the "Find a Theatre" section at www.IMAX.com.

Best regards,



IMAX Corporation

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quote: Max Hayman

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Only cinema in europe.

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quote: Tom Tomlinson

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Indiana
IMAX, Indiana Stare Museum

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