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Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 01-30-2011, 08:03 AM:
 
Imax Finds a Niche in a Digital Future

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — Moviegoers in Moscow who do not want to munch popcorn with the multiplex masses will soon have an alternative. At a V.I.P. cinema that is set to open in April, they will be able to watch blockbusters on a large, curved Imax screen while lounging in oversize leather chairs. The cost of a ticket for one of the 80 seats: close to $100.

At a time when many media companies eye the digital future with dread, worrying about how to persuade consumers to buy their products when free information and entertainment abound on the Web, Imax, a Canadian company, not only gets consumers to spend but also gets them to pay a premium.

Imax had a very good recession. Global box office receipts at Imax theaters more than doubled last year, to $546 million from $270 million in 2009. Under agreements with movie studios and cinema operators, the company keeps about one-third of that revenue.

Only a few years ago, Imax was weighed down by debt and scouting around unsuccessfully for a financial rescuer. The turnaround has prompted speculation about possible offers for the company.

Imax has said it is unaware of any reasons for a recent increase in the price of its stock, which is traded in Toronto and on Nasdaq. But Richard Gelfond, the company’s chief executive, was eager to discuss the company’s turnaround, during the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.

At a time when other media companies are reeling from the effects of piracy, Imax benefits from the fact that it offers an experience that is difficult to replicate outside a specially equipped theater. The screens are big — typically 22 meters wide by 16 meters high, or about 72 feet by 52 feet, though some are much larger. Resolution is higher than that of conventional movies.

But the company needed a technological leap to take advantage of those attributes in ways that were practical and financially viable. Starting in 2007, it switched to a digital projection system, replacing analog film prints, which cost $30,000 apiece, with digital versions that cost $175 per theater.

That made it feasible to expand the number of Imax screens, which is expected to reach nearly 600 worldwide by the end of this year, up from fewer than 300 in 2005. Digitization also encouraged Hollywood studios to make blockbusters like “Avatar” available in the Imax format, which used to be known more for nature films and other educational fare.

Some critics say digital Imax movies are not as good as the film versions, offering lower resolution and, sometimes, smaller screens.

But viewers do not seem to mind. The average Imax ticket price in the United States last year was about $13, Mr. Gelfond said, about $5 more than the overall average cinema price.

Imax’s growth has been particularly speedy in countries like China and Russia, where going to the movies makes for a popular night out. In Russia, the number of Imax screens rose to 15 from four last year, while in China, the total doubled to about 100, Mr. Gelfond said.

“There’s not a lot of live sports or music in China, so movies are the place to be,” he said.

Average Imax ticket prices in China are almost as high as in the United States, and Chinese consumers resold seats to “Avatar” for up to $100 on eBay, Mr. Gelfond said.

In Russia, Imax screens produced an average of $3 million in revenue last year, he said. That was the highest average of any market for the company; in the United States, the comparable figure was $1.2 million.

The company developed plans for the new theater in Moscow, which will be run by a local exhibitor, Formula Kino, after hearing that wealthy Russians sometimes liked to buy up every seat in a theater to treat themselves and a few friends to a private screening.

If the theater is successful, Imax plans to open other V.I.P. rooms, in cities like St. Petersburg, Mr. Gelfond said.

“All over the world, people are willing to pay for premium content,” he said. “They want something they can’t get in the home.”

NYTIMES IMAX
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It's a matter of time as to when IMAX luxury theatres hit North America. I would like to see reserved seating.
 

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Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 01-30-2011, 07:05 PM:
 
V.I.P screens failed as a concept when they were only a few dollars/pounds more than a regular seat. How do they remotely think people will pay $100?
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 01-30-2011, 07:58 PM:
 
By making their VIP experience worth ~$100 instead of an extra $5? Just a guess.

And you gotta consider that not all VIP concepts are geared towards the same market, as different types of people go to "VIP" things that cost an extra $5 per person than ones that cost an extra $90.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-30-2011, 08:57 PM:
 
Still, a hundred bucks seems awful high for a movie. I would say maybe $25 - $30 would be the maximum people would pay. Truly, what could you do that would make people think it was worth $100 a ticket?!
 

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Posted by Jake Spell (Member # 5294) on 01-30-2011, 09:11 PM:
 
Maybe if you have enough money not to care , but if you had that then you prob already have a pretty badass home theater. But then again maybe they know something we dont...

quote: Tom Petrov

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I would like to see reserved seating.

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Still, a hundred bucks seems awful high for a movie. I would say maybe $25 - $30 would be the maximum people would pay. Truly, what could you do that would make people think it was worth $100 a ticket?!

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Cineplexes Getting IMAX, But Is It IMAX or CONSPIRACY?

You've probably seen the new phenomenon with your own eyes: A cineplex IMAX that doesn't have the monster screen you grew up with in science-museum IMAX theaters. Here's the what, the how and the why.

Just last night, comedian Aziz Ansari (from Parks and Recreation) published this piece describing the conspiracy of paying an extra $5 to see an "IMAX" movie that really wasn't much bigger than a normal screen.

I actually visited IMAX HQ a few weeks back, and a major point of discussion was the retrofitting process so lovingly described by Aziz. Basically, IMAX used to build their own massive theaters in their own buildings. But now, in order to expand, the company has made a deals with major theater chains like AMC in which they'll provide and install their proprietary mix of projectors, screens, speakers and hardware if the theater will foot the bill for the necessary structural renovations.

This plan, for better or worse, is IMAX's only current design for expansion in the US.
This conversion process, which has a patented geometry, includes installing a screen that's only slightly bigger (as little as 10 feet wider than before), but this screen is coupled with the removal of several rows of seats which allows it to be scooted roughly 30 feet closer to the audience, creating a sort of sitting too close the TV effect with a screen that, I was told, is perceived as 75 feet wider than before.

When the process was described to me, I thought it all sounded a bit hokey. But walking into IMAX's test multiplex, an otherwise typical AMC located in a Canada, I was shown a side-by-side of the same theater before and after the retrofitting process.

I will say, the new screen looked much bigger and far more imposing—"night and day" would make for a fair analogy. My mind wasn't mentally prepped for such a tangible difference, though I'd agree that it still fell short of, say, the unbelievable, multi-story beast of a screen that I watched Star Trek on several days later at a classic, standalone IMAX.

But the change I didn't expect (and I can't pretend to have perceived this tidbit up on my own) was a remarkable difference from acoustic paneling. Clapping in the original theater revealed a very live environment with a frightening amount of echo. The retrofit, however, absorbed the sound in a pleasant way, reminiscent of more than one acoustically-planned stage I performed on back in my band days.

There are other improvements as well, including a specifically non-THX-certified sound system, reaching up to 14,000W, that offers 117db of uncompressed digital sound without distortion. Engineers claimed that in a normal theater, the sweet spot for audio is in the dead center, and technicians make no effort to tend to those sitting in the back. Meanwhile, IMAX's system promised the same surround experience anywhere in the theater.

I tested that theory during a screening of some Rolling Stones at the Max footage by moving from the center of the theater to the back right corner. And there's absolutely no doubt, I lost a good deal of the side channels while the rear channel (in this case, it was the lead guitar, I believe), dominated the audio spectrum. I wouldn't have expected IMAX to have achieved the impossible unless, you know, they claimed that they had.
The other chief part of this retrofitting process is the new digital IMAX projector. Since its debut in the 70s, the Xenon-lamp-powered projector has stayed mostly unchanged. But with film prints reaching around $40,000 apiece, IMAX has embraced the digital revolution in their theaters (the cameras are still film with no plans mentioned to change that).
With the digital installations, films arrive on a standard hard drive, encrypted with DRM provisions that state just when a theater is authorized to play a film…errr…video.
Their projector is actually two, 2K Christie projectors that spit out the same image at the same time. A camera is positioned in between the projector lenses, tracking screen brightness in real time. An integrated server aggregates this and other data, adjusting both projectors for thermal shift, making sure the images don't change as they play. There are also a slew of other, top secret proprietary imaging adjustments going on at all times.

I know what you're thinking: Why didn't IMAX just use a 4K projector and save the hassle, especially with AMC announcing that all of their theaters would be equipped with 4K Sony projectors by 2012? IMAX does believe their projector offers a sub-pixel accuracy that, when combined with some extra imaging processing, looks better than Sony's 4K.

You can see imperfections in their digital projection system just like any digital system. The screen door effect, while minimized, can be noticed in bright spots of the image—if you're looking as closely and skeptically as I was. And you only need to move back in the theater to realize that the picture does appear sharper as you step away from the screen. In other words, it's not hitting some theoretical maximum perceived resolution…or even the best of what IMAX film can show. (As IMAX archives their own film into 8K and 12K prints, you can assume that the company feels the resolution of their product is much higher that their digital projectors may show).

The good news is that IMAX's digital projection system is "projector agnostic," meaning if a more suitable base projector comes around (be it 2K, 4K or higher), the realtime syncing and adjustment system can scale accordingly. In other words, when every AMC is stocked with 4K projectors in a few years, hopefully IMAX will be upping the ante as necessary by dual wielding 4K+ projectors instead.

So is this new IMAX, with smaller screens, with digital projection, still IMAX? Honestly, there are probably only a small handful of technicians—who aren't exactly sharing proprietary knowledge and decisions—capable of answering that question with complete scientific earnestness. To my eyes and my gut, it's more IMAX Lite or Normal Theater Enhanced—which makes sense, given that IMAX film has been estimated at a theoretical 18K resolution.

Is a retrofitted theater worth your extra $5? For the movies most likely to make it to the screen (big budget action), I think so...though maybe not for a family of four.

The price probably shouldn't be the same as a standalone IMAX theater, but I think that the point Ansari misses is that cineplexes are already benefiting from a pricing structure that makes viewers pay the same amount no matter what screen they see a movie on (how many times do beautiful art films get shunned to a broom closet of a theater while summer blockbusters are played on a plex's largest screen?). At minimum, the $5 IMAX premium ensures you see a movie on a screen that's better than the best AMC or whoever has in their building.

Personally, I hate to know that we will probably never see another 12,700sqft foot IMAX screen built (like that found in Mumbai), and that 70mm film projection is being traded for digital before digital is undeniable image perfection. But if the compromise is that more people will be seeing movies in theaters with bigger pictures and tighter quality control, then maybe it's a compromise worth making.

Look for lots more on our IMAX visit in the coming weeks.

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quote: Claude S. Ayakawa

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If IMAX did not change the name when they advertise their new digital system and refer to it as just IMAX like the original name, that could be considered a lie because everyone has come to associate "IMAX" with the 15/70 system. The digital system is now known as Digital IMAX or Digital IMAX 3-D and that is not a lie.

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The problem is Claude, they do just call it IMAX. They don't put Digital IMAX on there signs at multiplexs or where ever may have one. 15/70 and Digital is all the same under the IMAX brand name, and its not. You said so yourself. How is this not a "Lie"?

I also think that us posters that do call it LIEMax do so to make sure everyone knows that we are talking about one or the other and that they know where we stand
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 02-02-2011, 11:35 PM:
 

quote: Ron Lacheur

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I was under the impression that LieMAX was dual 4K projectors? Now they are running dual 2K? or has it always been this?

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quote: Kurt Zupin

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15/70 and Digital is all the same under the IMAX brand name, and its not.

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quote: Tom Petrov

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15/70 in a multiplex theatre will not have a bigger screen than the largest digital screen.

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quote: Tom Petrov

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15/70 in a multiplex theatre will not have a bigger screen than the largest digital screen.

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quote: Jake Spell

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To my knowledge, Imax Digital uses to modified Christie 2k projectors running the same 2k content for 2D and one left eye one right eye for 3D.

And IMAX should be AT LEAST 4K.

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quote: Tom Petrov

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15/70 at a multiplex vs a stand-alone 15/70 theatre is not the same. It says right on the IMAX website. The screen size in a standalone theatre will always be larger. IMAX states this.

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• IMAX 3D Theatre
• IMAX Theatre
• IMAX Dome

• at least 70' wide or
• 3,100 total square feet

quote: Caleb Johnstone-Cowan

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Michael, premium screens or offerings have not failed, far from it. We can be empty and people will choose our premium seating. You only need to look at The Rex in Berkhamsted to see how successful the premium experience can be. Every new large Cinema built recently in the UK has had a premium section in it. Our business is about escapism and if you're sat in some posh section looking half-decent you could be anyone. People will pay for that.

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I was talking more about the concept to having seperate VIP auditoriums, rather that VIP seating areas mixed in with standard seating in same auditorium. (which I agree has become popular).

I know of at least 4 multiplexes I've visited that once had seperate "VIP" auditoria all of which have now been converted back into normal auditoria.
 

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Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 02-07-2011, 08:12 PM:
 
Fair enough Michael, I think there is still scope for the seperate VIP section in select locations, mainly city-centre sites. I think part of the reason these screens failed was they were being booked as a second copy of an existing film when 'limited release'/art films could have been put in there to target the higher end of the market.
 

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Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 03-07-2011, 03:29 AM:
 
Can anyone please confirm which brand and model projection is used for IMAX digital?
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 03-07-2011, 07:23 AM:
 
Claude,

Is there still a 15/70 IMAX at the Polynesian Cultural Center on Oahu, or has that been converted to digital?
 

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