4 ms·

I went to an IMAX™®℠℗(U.S. Patent 3,494,524) theatre once. Having to recline and look up at the screen was annoying, and the size was gratuitous with most of i

I went to an IMAX™®℠℗(U.S. Patent 3,494,524) theatre once. Having to recline and look up at the screen was annoying, and the size was gratuitous with most of it wasted to peripheral vision. That's definitely not something I'd want in my living room.

zyxley 11y ago
> and the size was gratuitous with most of it wasted to peripheral vision From what I understand, movies shot specifically for IMAX are meant to be framed something like a stage play, with your eyes wandering around the screen rather than staying fixed near the center. Of course, that presumes the movie was made for it (or had a cut framed specifically for it), rather than just being "normal theatrical cut but bigger".
hydrogen18 11y ago
Likewise. It was more like if I wanted to watch the whole movie, I had to pan my head constantly through an arc. It's a horrible experience. You can buy a horribly cheap TV, a 5.1 sound system and plop it in your living room and get a better experience. Getting the sound right takes a long time, but my end conclusion was that suspending bunch of cardboard everywhere seemed to negate the poor acoustics of the room.
- ytdht 11y ago
  Could you hang paintings on the walls instead of cardboard everywhere?
  - Cantremeber 11y ago
    I personally used those cheap canvas tarps you get to put down while painting. You can paint them, they're huge for the money, and they prevent weird echos in my cavern of a living room.
- protonfish 11y ago
  To simulate the IMAX experience, sit 10" away from your TV.
nogridbag 11y ago
A proper large format 15/70 IMAX theater is definitely worth it given you arrive early to get the better seats - especially for 3D films where the 3D glasses tend to make the screen look smaller. Sadly, the IMAX CEO says screen size does not matter [1] and thus the majority of them are being replaced by smaller digital screens in multiplexes. lfexaminer.com has a great list of IMAX theaters and their formats [2]. [1] http://www.wired.com/2009/05/imax-ceo-screen-size-isnt-everything http://www.wired.com/2009/05/imax-ceo-screen-size-isnt-every... [2] http://www.lfexaminer.com/theaUSA.htm http://www.lfexaminer.com/theaUSA.htm
- chinpokomon 11y ago
  Regarding the 3D experience, Real3D's circular polarization is significantly better than IMAX's more traditional polarization filters. The large screen format serves well for immersion, but the employed 3D tech detracts from the overall experience so much that I'd rather watch the smaller format screens.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    In my city, we have a cinema that has a 18m by 8m screen and uses 4K projectors with reald 3D. It’s still an amazing quality, and faaar cheaper than IMAX. (About 3 times cheaper). And they clean the room after every showing, so the floor, although carpet, is always clean, you get reserved seats, and the popcorn is fresh. IMAX, especially as current IMAX Digital theaters have similar screen sizes and also only 2.8K (two 2K projectors on the same screen), just isn’t really worth it anymore.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Having to recline and look up at the screen was annoying, and the size was gratuitous with most of it wasted to peripheral vision. The first feature is a function of sitting to close to the screen, and isn't specific to IMAX format. The second is by design -- a major point of large-format cinema screens like IMAX is to provide a more immersive experience by making it so that, in shots where there is a strong central focus, even the non-focal parts of your vision field are occupied by the movie screen rather than (usually, just black) background from the theater, and, second, enabling shots that are composed so as to invite audience members to not just focus near center, but to look around the screen (this second feature isn't taken advantage of in films not designed for large-format screens, but major films now generally are made in a large-format aware manner.)

zyxley 11y ago

> and the size was gratuitous with most of it wasted to peripheral vision From what I understand, movies shot specifically for IMAX are meant to be framed something like a stage play, with your eyes wandering around the screen rather than staying fixed near the center. Of course, that presumes the movie was made for it (or had a cut framed specifically for it), rather than just being "normal theatrical cut but bigger".

hydrogen18 11y ago

Likewise. It was more like if I wanted to watch the whole movie, I had to pan my head constantly through an arc. It's a horrible experience. You can buy a horribly cheap TV, a 5.1 sound system and plop it in your living room and get a better experience. Getting the sound right takes a long time, but my end conclusion was that suspending bunch of cardboard everywhere seemed to negate the poor acoustics of the room.

ytdht 11y ago
Could you hang paintings on the walls instead of cardboard everywhere?
- Cantremeber 11y ago
  I personally used those cheap canvas tarps you get to put down while painting. You can paint them, they're huge for the money, and they prevent weird echos in my cavern of a living room.
protonfish 11y ago
To simulate the IMAX experience, sit 10" away from your TV.

nogridbag 11y ago

A proper large format 15/70 IMAX theater is definitely worth it given you arrive early to get the better seats - especially for 3D films where the 3D glasses tend to make the screen look smaller. Sadly, the IMAX CEO says screen size does not matter [1] and thus the majority of them are being replaced by smaller digital screens in multiplexes. lfexaminer.com has a great list of IMAX theaters and their formats [2]. [1] http://www.wired.com/2009/05/imax-ceo-screen-size-isnt-everything http://www.wired.com/2009/05/imax-ceo-screen-size-isnt-every... [2] http://www.lfexaminer.com/theaUSA.htm http://www.lfexaminer.com/theaUSA.htm

chinpokomon 11y ago
Regarding the 3D experience, Real3D's circular polarization is significantly better than IMAX's more traditional polarization filters. The large screen format serves well for immersion, but the employed 3D tech detracts from the overall experience so much that I'd rather watch the smaller format screens.
- kuschku 11y ago
  In my city, we have a cinema that has a 18m by 8m screen and uses 4K projectors with reald 3D. It’s still an amazing quality, and faaar cheaper than IMAX. (About 3 times cheaper). And they clean the room after every showing, so the floor, although carpet, is always clean, you get reserved seats, and the popcorn is fresh. IMAX, especially as current IMAX Digital theaters have similar screen sizes and also only 2.8K (two 2K projectors on the same screen), just isn’t really worth it anymore.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Having to recline and look up at the screen was annoying, and the size was gratuitous with most of it wasted to peripheral vision. The first feature is a function of sitting to close to the screen, and isn't specific to IMAX format. The second is by design -- a major point of large-format cinema screens like IMAX is to provide a more immersive experience by making it so that, in shots where there is a strong central focus, even the non-focal parts of your vision field are occupied by the movie screen rather than (usually, just black) background from the theater, and, second, enabling shots that are composed so as to invite audience members to not just focus near center, but to look around the screen (this second feature isn't taken advantage of in films not designed for large-format screens, but major films now generally are made in a large-format aware manner.)