IMAX At Home? What Does Disney+’s New IMAX Enhanced Offering Mean For You?
Are you experienced, OpinionNerds? You will be.
Yay, another home video format to learn about! I can literally hear through the screen how fucking thrilled you all are…
Like much of the film industry for the last 20 years, Disney has been dabbling in IMAX experiences for it’s films, urged onwards primarily by the adoption of the Arri Alexa 65 large format digital camera used for their Marvel Cinematic Universe brand. As a premium format experience, audiences line up to bask in the glory of seeing their heroes on the biggest screen possible while being pummeled from all sides by searing surround sound. Starting Nov. 12, the companies streaming service, Disney+, will be attempting to bring some of that big-ger screen glory into their your home, launching its IMAX Enhanced experience with 13 titles including Shang-Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings, Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame and Black Widow. So you might be asking what exactly is IMAX Enhanced, how does it work, can I use it and, most importantly, is it even worth it?
Thank god I got here when I did.First, lets remember that there are different kinds of, “IMAX Experiences” out there, one where the material is captured on large format IMAX film stock and projected in specifically designed IMAX theaters, one where a film is captured on a different size film stock (say, standard 35mm) and digitally upscaled using IMAX’s proprietary DMR process before being printed out on larger film stock for projection and the certification that grants the right to use the IMAX trademark on materials that fall within certain guidelines but are not produced on actual IMAX equipment. A true IMAX film has a large, almost square 1.43:1 image projected onto a domed screen with a booming multichannel sound system, while an average film presentation is either a 2.39:1 or 1.85:1 image with a 5.1 or 7.1 audio track. Most of the films being shown in IMAX right now, popular films like the latter Avengers movies, fall under the IMAX digital certification and will have material framed in an expanded 1.9:1 aspect ratio and put through some level of IMAX DMR for presentation in both full IMAX dome and digital IMAX theaters that have larger screens. These digital IMAX features can also be presented in non-IMAX branded, large format theaters less the IMAX post-processing.
For the past few years, home video equipment has been shipping with a new IMAX Enhanced label that, for the most part, just sits there on your receiver’s faceplate and laughs at you. The IMAX Enhanced format is meant to, according to the company, recreate the IMAX theatrical experience as closely as possible at home. When being transferred for home video, most films will have a master created from original or first generation release elements, be they film or digital, specifically for home video whether that be on a disc or as a streamed product. With an IMAX Enhanced product, the image you get is from the IMAX DMR master, and the audio is effected in an attempt to mimic what the movie would sound like in an IMAX theater — not just the sound of the movie, but the sound of the space as well, with the promise that the actual mix itself isn’t being altered in any way. Additionally, if you have an IMAX Enhanced image chain from your source device up to your TV, the material will tell the TV to turn off certain extra processing functions like motion smoothing and contrast boosting, much like the recently implemented Filmmaker Mode, in an attempt to keep the material as pure to the original source as possible as it exits the screen and burrows its way into your mushy brain stuff.
Not everyone has IMAX Enhanced equipment in their home, but let’s put that aside for the moment and talk about some plusses and minuses. On the sound side of the equation, this change probably wont matter to many or even be particularly noticeable. IMAX Enhanced uses DTS-X as its premium output format, but it’s still compatible with anything that can process a DTS formatted stream, which is just about everything. It might not be the, “IMAX theater” sound, but you won’t be left out. On the video side there is a better than average chance that, unless you own a Sony OLED TV, you don’t own an IMAX Enhanced capable screen. However you can still take advantage of the systems use of HDR10 (Disney+ material typically uses Dolby Vision) as well as all of the noise reduction, sharpness and brightness enhancements from the IMAX DMR process that’s baked into the image. More importantly, when applicable, the film will open up to the larger aspect ratio it was theatrically presented with, be that the more common 1.9:1 digital IMAX or the 1.43:1 of the full IMAX film format. While the 1.43:1 will present with window-boxing, or black bars on the sides of the screen where there is no picture, the 1.9:1 will fill a standard 16x9 widescreen TV from the bottom to the tippy-top with movie image. For some viewers, this will be a brand new experience. And for those with very large televisions (65" or larger) the change may be more than profound.
The downside for film purists will be in the fact that the image you are seeing may or may not represent the true, original image of the film. IMAX DMR is a post production process, meaning it is implemented after the film has been finalized for theatrical distribution. Though usually done with the assistance of the filmmakers the fact is that this is not the original image, having been, “enhanced” in order to be projected on a screen much larger than intended by way of the films original capture. A 35mm negative, still the most common film stock used, does not have the resolution (image information) to be projected on a screen up to 72ft wide without losing color and contrast integrity while the films grain becomes large enough to use for target practice. Even a digital film finished at 4K doesn’t have enough information to be projected at that scale without breaking down somewhat (true IMAX negative is said to be the equivalent of a 16K digital image). So instead of getting the image as originally finished, the IMAX Enhanced image is one that has been blown up and processed, then shrunk back down for use at home. Since the IMAX DMR process involves removing the noise or grain from the original image before inserting a little back at the filmmakers request, the image is going to look a little softer and smoother than the original, though probably not enough to be noticeable. Also, since IMAX Enhanced uses HDR10 instead of Dolby Vision, you lose some of the advantages of that format.
In practice, the most notable feature of this new format will be the shifting or expanded aspect ratio’s. While this may seem like an act of generosity from the house that Mickey built, the truth is there was nothing stopping Disney from giving this to their audience either on disc or through streaming up to this point. More than likely, the studio chose not to, likely because of the long running argument over exactly what aspect ratio the audience prefers at home. Since the near universal adoption of widescreen TV’s in the mid 2000s the feedback from the audience has been that they wanted an image that filled the entirety of the big, expensive screen they bought; artistic intent be damned. You can still find movies originally presented in 1.85:1 being slightly zoomed to take out the little bit of letterboxing present, and broadcast cable TV regularly zooms 2.39:1 to at least 1.85:1 to minimize the negative space. Consumers have also expressed a disinterest in material with shifting aspect ratio’s, citing it as being distracting and, again, causing them to ask why they can’t just get a full screen image from jump. And with the controversy that erupted with the announcement that Zack Snyder’s Justice League would be presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, audiences again sent a signal that they were not happy with any bit of their big, super-cool 4K TV’s going to waste. Ironically, when Netflix went all in on original content they were mandating that all material be shot digitally, mastered at 4K with HDR and framed in 1.90:1; meaning their original content presented to the home viewing audience, visually, the exact same way Disney’s IMAX Enhanced content will. Something to think about.
Of course now that the canary has escaped the coal mine with its lungs intact and films like ZSJL, the IMAX edition of Batman v Superman and Tenet being successful at home (though the latter does not present the full IMAX 1.43:1 image on disc), its become clear that audiences are more accepting of these alternate aspect ratios than they have been, and this is good news for a number of creative reasons. However, the examples here prove that this never required a big push for a new presentation format. Technically speaking, the image provided to home media is in a 1.78.1 aspect ratio regardless of the size of the film content. What we call a, “shifting aspect ratio” is nothing more than the picture on the screen showing more or less negative space in different places. Pixel wise, the size of the image never changes, so just presenting the different shaped images costs virtually nothing and, honestly, people would have gotten over it soon enough. The rigmarole of the whole IMAX Enhanced process, which again the larger percentage of the audience won’t even be able to take full advantage of, was irrelevant to giving the expanded images to the audience that wanted them. So the question I pose to Disney is, what changed and why now? Maybe the IMAX brand name has recovered its prestige sufficiently to make using the branded process seem worth it for marketing purposes. It isn’t as if it requires anything more of Disney than to upload the files to the Disney+ servers and make sure they’re usable by the people who don’t have the IMAX branded equipment. I don’t think it a stretch to see that this launch, accompanied by a new, ridiculously low introductory subscription rate of $2, as less of an upgrade than a bribe.
Still, there’s nothing damaging or harmful about adopting the new format that should leave any customers out of sorts. It shouldn’t degrade the quality of the presentation; streaming isn’t exactly the best quality format to begin with. The subscription rate won’t increase and, if the end user doesn’t want to spend the money on new equipment, they don’t have to. I suspect that as the interest in the format increases, more hardware manufacturers will choose to include whatever chips and bits are necessary to make it work in their TV’s and soundabars and whatever. It will remain to be seen if the audience ends up caring as much for the extra image and sound processing as much as having access to what was, up until now, a limited theatrical only experience. It’s entirely possible most people won’t notice and won’t care about any of this, and, “IMAX Enhanced” will be little more than another logo on the screen next to the title of the movie. This won’t really shake out for at least a couple of years when the IMAX Enhanced processing starts to filter down into less expensive gear but, for the time being, it looks like Disney is making the statement that you can go big and go home.
Clever endings aren’t my bag.
Laterz
Additional content at: NotThePopularOpinion.Wordpress.Com