For Avatar 3 theatrical DCP distribution

[Carsten Kurz]

Very few systems can play 4k HFR in 3D.

[Chris Haller]

Wait, no 3D flat 4K HFR, except for Dolby? Not even for IMAX?

I never even got keys for the 4K HFR 2D version of the movie. According to someone at Deluxe I spoke to yesterday Disney hadn't even generated keys for the 4K Scope HFR 2D version of the movie yet, which doesn't sound real but I wasn't in the mood to argue. Ill never know if they did either - I swapped in the 2K Scope HFR 2D version instead to keep us going. I already had keys and everything. Such is life.

[Steve Guttag]

Checking one of my client's system:

In their Atmos theatre:

image.png

4K/2D/48fps/Scope/Atmos.

So, 4K/48fps DOES exist for Avatar.

There does seem to be the variety of 48fps versions (looking at the TMS):
image.png
So, in the US, if you can run 4K/48, they seem to have a version for you.

Perhaps, if you need a dubbed version, your choices are more limited. Or they just didn't distribute all of the versions everywhere.

Now, how all of this looks in your theatre is another question. And how discerning the Avatar patron of 2025 is also another question.

[Marcel Birgelen]

There are international/subtitled versions in 4K/3D/48fps/Scope|Flat/Atmos graded for Dolby Vision exclusively for Dolby Cinema...

So if you want to see it in 3D, 4K, HFR and HDR, Dolby Cinema is one of the few choices you have.

Unfortunately, the first reviews are pretty lackluster and I'm still not feeling the buzz for this one.

[Agnius Acus]

What’s weird to me is that IMAX is running it at 2K.

I would probably opt for 4K over HFR, considering the sizes of those screens, although HFR may be more of a selling point, similar to 3D.

[Chris Haller]

What’s weird to me is that IMAX is running it at 2K.

I would probably opt for 4K over HFR, considering the sizes of those screens, although HFR may be more of a selling point, similar to 3D.

Allegedly the big 4K Dual Laser IMAX machines can't do 4K 48fps without overheating. This was a big point of contention with The Way of Water where big theaters like Lincoln Square were forced to run it in 2K. I would wager they just cut their losses and went without a 4K DCP at all because of this. For what its worth, I saw it in 2K Xenon without HFR in IMAX last night, and while it was much, much dimmer than my 4K NEC projection, it didn't necessarily look terrible in 3D overall.

[Jim Cassedy]

Allegedly the big 4K Dual Laser IMAX machines can't do 4K 48fps without overheating.

I can't confirm the overheating issue, but for the technically curious, here's a picture of
a couple of IMAX digital projectors that I took earlier this week while that venue was
preparing for the Avatar onslaught. They will be running AVATAR F&A in IMAX 3D
there. The morning I took these pix, the film platters were loaded with 15/70 prints
of both SINNERS and OBAA. That's a LOT of film & weight on one platter stand!

Imax_Digital_1.jpg


Imax_Digital_2.jpg
-jc-

[Scotty Wright]

I can confirm that the IMAX GT Laser systems can’t do HFR 3D at 4K. 2K only. Our drives for Way of Water og, Way of Water rerelease, and Fire and Ash are all 2K HFR 3D. (And on top of all that the image is slightly shrunk a few percent and repositioned lower for 1.43 screens. Cameron does this for better 3D eyelines supposedly. The HFR shots look indistinguishable from 4k to me, but downshifting to 24 makes 2k very obvious)

My colleagues who were here for way of water’s original release had a ton of issues with HFR 3D. There were so many random bugs. Our service tech told me the root issue was the Image Enhancer imax uses for aligning the left and right projectors; it really did not like HFR and 3D at the same time. We’ve had more than a couple software updates since then that seem to have worked out all the bugs (knock on wood) bc we had no issues with the way of water rerelease in October.

Single laser cola and XT imax systems should be able to do 4k HFR 3D, but imax did not send 4K HFR 3D drives for the way of water rerelease or fire and ash. I haven’t been able to confirm about way of water’s original release.

despite the lower resolution, I had better experiences with avatar 1 and 2 in imax 3D than Dolby cinema. I don’t know if that’s down to specific location’s discipline with calibration or some other factor.

[Dave Macaulay]

We have a situation where an ICMP-X with 3x 1TB drives is having space issues. This RAID is roughly 2TB total capacity.

The Avatar feature is 3 hours 18 minutes

2D 2K HFR Total size   375.65 GB

2D 4K 24FPS Total size 305.67 GB

2D 2K HFR Total size   375.65 GB

3D 2K HFR Total size   1.27 Terabytes

So with 3D HFR and 2D HFR ingested, there is not all that much left for features (rental and/or kid's matinee) and trailers.
Yes using larger drives would have been prudent. But in what world is a 3h17m movie reasonable?

[Stefan Scholz]

What sense does it actually make to supply DCPs with highest frame rate, lets say, outside Dolby theatres, or any other form with a proven capability to support these.

All media blocks that I am aware of to offer real higher fps on 3D 4K are GDC SR 5400, which is more a special Venue type, or the recent Christie S4, which in combination with a Christie S4 projector offer a high bandwith.
The commonly often used IMS 3K is, afaik, limited to 4K 30 playback, and 2K 120 playback in 2D.
The Christie would be capable of 4K 96, hence 3D 4K 48. How many are there in the field?
I assume there's going to be new IMS types from all vendors that will take advantage of the higher projector capabilities soon, as soon as the stock of components for the old ones runs out.

[Steve Guttag]

Stefan,

The IMS3000 is good up to 4K/60 but, like so many things now, it all depends on what projector it is residing in as to what the server's limitations are. The ICP or the modern equivalent from the three OEMs sets the bandwidth capabilities. So, Barco, for instance, allows the IMS3000 output 4K/60 in their S4 projectors.

The Barco "Input" settings:

image.png

On the server side, in Device Manager, you would configure its output capabilities too:

image.png

And here is an example of said 4K/48fps CPL loaded and being used (with Atmos):

image.png

[Chris Haller]

We have a situation where an ICMP-X with 3x 1TB drives is having space issues. This RAID is roughly 2TB total capacity.

The Avatar feature is 3 hours 18 minutes

2D 2K HFR Total size   375.65 GB

2D 4K 24FPS Total size 305.67 GB

2D 2K HFR Total size   375.65 GB

3D 2K HFR Total size   1.27 Terabytes

So with 3D HFR and 2D HFR ingested, there is not all that much left for features (rental and/or kid's matinee) and trailers.
Yes using larger drives would have been prudent. But in what world is a 3h17m movie reasonable?

My 3D Full Lite HFR 2K file is 617gb. Is it possible you are also ingesting the Open Caption version too?

In this case I would simply choose to run 2 versions of it, not all 4 of them to manage that space. Is there a particular reason you're ingesting all of them?

[Scotty Wright]

Wait, no 3D flat 4K HFR, except for Dolby? Not even for IMAX?

IMAX DCPs for Fire and Ash are flat. And we only have 3D 24fps and 3D 48fps DCPs. No 2D IMAX.

[Stefan Scholz]

We have a situation where an ICMP-X with 3x 1TB drives is having space issues. This RAID is roughly 2TB total capacity.

The Avatar feature is 3 hours 18 minutes

2D 2K HFR Total size   375.65 GB

2D 4K 24FPS Total size 305.67 GB

2D 2K HFR Total size   375.65 GB

3D 2K HFR Total size   1.27 Terabytes

So with 3D HFR and 2D HFR ingested, there is not all that much left for features (rental and/or kid's matinee) and trailers.
Yes using larger drives would have been prudent. But in what world is a 3h17m movie reasonable?

That's a problem here. My integrated media block offers 2 TB native memory. Does't reach far here.
Luckily all modern media blocks allow the connection of an NAS storage or server using NFS protocol. Which in theory enables you to have a storage that can hold all movies of the world.
In practice mine offers 74 TB. Which is enough.
I know, this is difficult on legacy equipment.

[Agnius Acus]

That's a problem here. My integrated media block offers 2 TB native memory. Does't reach far here.
Luckily all modern media blocks allow the connection of an NAS storage or server using NFS protocol. Which in theory enables you to have a storage that can hold all movies of the world.
In practice mine offers 74 TB. Which is enough.
I know, this is difficult on legacy equipment.

I’ve been thinking about NAS for a while now, and for the same reasons.

I wonder if my NEC variant of IMS1000 would be capable of playing content directly from it. If so, what are the requirements for these sorts of configurations? Is it reliable?