Inside Out is Pixar's latest animated movie and the second title to be released in Dolby Vision HDR (high dynamic range). I couldn't see it until this week, because I was in New York at CE Week during the movie's opening week. But I've seen it now—two and a half times, actually.

Two and a half times? Yep. First, I went to the AMC Burbank 16 multiplex, where the Prime auditorium has just finished its upgrade to become a full-fledged Dolby Cinema at Prime location with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos sound. After that screening, I snuck into another auditorium in the same multiplex that was showing the movie in SDR without Atmos and watched the second half again to compare it with what I had just seen. Two days later, I joined Joe Kane and several others to see it at the El Capitan in Hollywood, CA, which also has Dolby Vision and Atmos.

I won't say much about the movie itself, except that I loved it! It's a wonderful, creative story about the voices in our heads—in other words, the nature of consciousness, one of my all-time favorite subjects—full of imaginative humor, great voice acting (especially Lewis Black as Anger—the most perfect casting ever!), gorgeous imagery, and beautiful music. Of course, the basic structure is universal—things are great, trouble ensues, leading to a crisis that is happily resolved—but the specifics of this particular telling are delightful, with plenty of appeal for adults as well as kids.

Even better, it wasn't too loud. Unfortunately, I lost the measurements from the Burbank 16, but I also measured the levels at the El Cap—Leq = 82.4 dBC, Lmax = 103 dBC, L10 = 85 dBC, L50 = 76 dBC, L90 = 66 dBC. As I recall looking at the data from the Burbank 16 before it was lost, the levels were a bit higher in that theater, but not by much.

Interestingly, Inside Out is being shown in 3D at some locations, but not in the two Dolby Vision venues I attended. This is strange, since one of the touted hallmarks of Dolby Vision laser-illuminated projection is Dolby 3D, which uses spectrum-separation glasses. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad it wasn't in 3D when I saw it—I hate that type of 3D because of the internal reflections between the 3D glasses and my prescription glasses. It just seemed odd that a 3D animated movie was not shown in 3D at two Dolby Vision locations.

At both Dolby Vision screenings, the image was clearly brighter than conventional cinema presentations, and the blacks were obviously deeper—as verified by watching some of an SDR showing. The character Joy (wonderfully voiced by Amy Poehler) glows throughout the movie, and that glow is much brighter in HDR. Likewise, the dark environment of the subconscious and the memory dump is deeper in HDR than it is in SDR.

Still, I couldn't help thinking that the blacks were not as deep as I thought they could—or should—be, and I found myself wishing for even more contrast. For example, referring to the very first shot in the movie, some of the press material I received said, "A bright yellow figure suddenly appears on a completely black screen—it's Joy, the first Emotion born inside the mind." I'm sorry, but that screen was not completely black at either Dolby Vision presentation, and neither was the background inside the memory dump, which would have been truly startling.

In fact, I went to see it at the El Cap to make sure there wasn't something wrong with the Burbank 16 system, which had a glitch at the beginning—the trailers didn't start for nearly 15 minutes, and as I was staring at the blank screen, I saw the Windows start bar appear at the bottom. That did not inspire confidence, but once things got going, it was fine. Both presentations were the same in terms of apparent brightness, black levels, and contrast.

I assume that what I saw was an artistic choice, not a limitation of the projection system, since Tomorrowland had moments of true black, and I remember being more impressed with the overall contrast of that movie. Perhaps it has something to do with animation versus live action, but the creators have even more control over animation than live action, so I'm not sure what's going on here.

While the visuals at both locations were essentially identical, I was greatly surprised that the Dolby Atmos presentations were not. At the Burbank 16, the Atmos soundtrack was excellent, with lots of stuff happening all around; I especially liked Joy's voiceovers in the surrounds and overheads. However, there was much less of that at the El Cap; the voiceovers were much more front-loaded, and I heard only a few isolated instances of sounds overhead. I have no idea how that could be—I assume it was an identical DCP (digital-cinema package) in both theaters, so it should have sounded the same.

Despite my quibbles, I thoroughly enjoyed Inside Out in Dolby Vision HDR and Atmos sound, especially in the Burbank 16 Prime auditorium. Unfortunately, it might not be playing at Dolby Cinema locations any more; the Burbank 16 Prime is now showing Terminator: Genisys, which is not HDR. If you live in Los Angeles—or you visit here—you can see it at the El Cap through August 19.

Check out this short video posted by Dolby about Inside Out: