[imagic]

While IMAX Enhanced was first announced at CEDIA 2018, unquestionably CES 2019 represented the true debut of the initiative to bring the IMAX cinematic experience home.

During the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, IMAX Corporation announced a slew of new partners that have joined the IMAX Enhanced program. The new additions include streaming partners, hardware partners and movie studios.

The announcement of movie titles from Sony Home Pictures Entertainment and Paramount Pictures ranks us some of the most exciting news, since availability of content is key to the success of any initiative like this.

On the streaming side, this new group of partners includes FandangoNOW (U.S.), Tencent Video (China) and Rakuten TV (Europe). And on the hardware front there are eight new companies joining IMAX Enhanced: Arcam , Elite , Integra , Lexicon , Onkyo , Pioneer , TCL and Trinnov .

“We are pleased to announce the growth of the IMAX Enhanced ecosystem with leading studios, streaming services, and device partners who share our vision of raising the bar for home entertainment by delivering the highest quality content to premium devices,”said Xperi EVP and Chief Products and Services Officer, Geir Skaaden. (DTS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Xperi).

Of course, there is a connection between the streaming announcements and the studio announcements. IMAX Enhanced will not just be disc based, you will be able to stream titles as well. And regardless of whether you stream or play a Ultra HD Blu-ray, there are 15 confirmed launch titles on the way including Venom and Alpha.

The eight new hardware partners join Sony Electronics plus Sound United brands Denon and Marantz, bringing the total to 11. You can expect to see AV receivers or processors from Arcam, Elite, Integra, Lexicon, Onkyo, Pioneer and Trinnov. And in 2019, TCL will join Sony Electronics in offering IMAX Enhanced-certified televisions.

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During my visit to CES 2019, I had a chance to see and hear clips from IMAX Enhanced movies including Jumanji and Spider-Man: Homecoming. It's show conditions, so I'll wait until I get to see and hear these titles at home before drilling down on the viewing experience. Having said that, the demo given by Sound United at The Venetian, which leveraged Denon and Definitive Technology gear, sounded excellent and the Sony VPL-VW885ES projector looked good with IMAX Enhanced content as the source material. The main point is that IMAX Enhanced is not just about nature documentaries; major Hollywood blockbusters are also on the way and they both look and sound great.

“We’re encouraged by the significant momentum and high-caliber partners that are embracing the IMAX Enhanced program in just the first few months of its launch,” said IMAX CFO and Head of Corporate Strategy & Development Patrick McClymont.“These premium partners and the blockbuster titles announced today extend our product and content offering and advance our efforts to deliver the best at-home entertainment experiences to more consumers around the world.” 

The key thing to understand with IMAX Enhanced is that is open. You can get started with experiencing it by simply obtaining the content. Some features are universal in nature, meaning you'll experience the effects of the mastering process that maximizes picture quality. But for the full effect, you will want IMAX Enhanced gear to your system so that you get an at home rendition of how IMAX masters the sound and visuals for its director-approved theatrical presentations. Truly, the idea here is to bring the movie theater experience into your home.

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[Dan Hitchman]

So far, it looks to be more like bull pucky than anything. IMAX and DTS are groping.

 

[sdurani]

Finally, studio titles.

 

[imagic]

Finally, studio titles.

Indeed... this whole initiative depends on content.

 

[bjaurelio]

I still have no idea what IMAX enhanced actually means in terms of differences in content. Some of the promotional material makes it sound like a new HDR format, but it appears to rely on HDR 10 with special video processing of the HDR signal on the content creation side. The audio appears to just be DTS' immersive audio format. I don't need new gear for either of these, so why the big push for "IMAX enhanced gear?"

 

[markmon]

I still have no idea what IMAX enhanced actually means in terms of differences in content. Some of the promotional material makes it sound like a new HDR format, but it appears to rely on HDR 10 with special video processing of the HDR signal on the content creation side. The audio appears to just be DTS' immersive audio format. I don't need new gear for either of these, so why the big push for "IMAX enhanced gear?"

Marketing

 

[the7mcs]

I still have no idea what IMAX enhanced actually means in terms of differences in content. Some of the promotional material makes it sound like a new HDR format, but it appears to rely on HDR 10 with special video processing of the HDR signal on the content creation side. The audio appears to just be DTS' immersive audio format. I don't need new gear for either of these, so why the big push for "IMAX enhanced gear?"

Well Dolby and DTS battled on the audio front for the longest of time...

Dolby has expanded to the video side of things with Dolby Vision

So DTS kinda feels the need to do something about that..... but instead of doing their own separate thing they decided yo team up with IMAX, a well known and respected name in the Video Industry for instant street Cred and thus

IMAX Enhanced was born

- that's just my official unlicensed take on how things went down

 

[imagic]

I still have no idea what IMAX enhanced actually means in terms of differences in content. Some of the promotional material makes it sound like a new HDR format, but it appears to rely on HDR 10 with special video processing of the HDR signal on the content creation side. The audio appears to just be DTS' immersive audio format. I don't need new gear for either of these, so why the big push for "IMAX enhanced gear?"

For the content itself it means the video is processed at the mastering stage, and in some cases the aspect ratio shifts featured in theatrical presentations will also be included. For the mastering, noise and/or film grain is mitigated to the extent needed to make it look natural on HDR displays (otherwise it looks exaggerated). These are features anyone buying the disc and watching it on any display will be able to appreciate.

Yes IMAX enhanced uses the existing technologies of HDR10 and DTS:X. This is a plus, not a minus. It means the discs and streams will work on just about any system that supports HDR 4K and DTS surround sound. IMAX did not want to create a format that freezes people out, so content uses currently available, ubiquitous formats and simply plays. Long story short, some of the what IMAX Enhanced offers is baked right into "software" i.e. the content.

But...

IMAX is about big screens. IMAX is about big sound. So, IMAX Enhanced certified gear amounts to equipment that passes a threshold of performance. Beyond that, metadata flags automatically configure gear to play back IMAX Enhanced.

On the audio side things are more complex. You'll still hear a standard surround mix if you do not have IMAX Enhanced AV gear. But if you do have the gear, it will go into an IMAX Enhanced mode that more closely emulates how audio is delivered in IMAX commercial cinemas.

It's clear not everyone sees value in it. But the key thing to note is that IMAX is involved in filmmaking starting with the cameras, so uninformed cynics who are immediately dismissive that it's "another THX" need to take into account that IMAX is involved in the filmmaking process every step of the way and that when you provide the primary cameras for action scenes in Marvel movies, you likely know what you are doing.

People are looking for some mysterious thing that's simply not there. Gear the performs at a high level will play back IMAX Enhanced content in a satisfying manner. If you want to come closest to creative intent and how IMAX movies are shown at the premiere then looking for the IMAX Enhanced logo is an easy way for consumers to do it.

Someone who built out their system last year should be in no hurry to upgrade, their system will do the content justice regardless of whether it's "official" IMAX Enhanced or not. Just look at how Sony's projectors were retroactively included...

For now, the focus should be on the content itself and how it differs from a standard 4K HDR release of the film.

 

[dfa973]

I still have no idea what IMAX enhanced actually means in terms of differences in content. Some of the promotional material makes it sound like a new HDR format, but it appears to rely on HDR 10 with special video processing of the HDR signal on the content creation side. The audio appears to just be DTS' immersive audio format. I don't need new gear for either of these, so why the big push for "IMAX enhanced gear?"

The video is processed in "IMAX style" (some noise reduction, enhanced colours, etc.), and delivered over standard HDR10 or HDR10+.
The audio is where the most differences are, when the IMAX content is detected, it's doing some proprietary override of the bass management and applying a 70Hz global value crossover for subwoofer, and delivered over standard DTS:X with a IMAX flag stamped. Also, the soundtrack is mixed louder than regular, non-IMAX titles, so it can have more impact on the viewer. So it messes also the reference calibration of your system. After the title is stopped, the modifications are returned to their previous values.

Conclusions: you do not loose anything by ignoring IMAX Enhanced. As @markmon1 said, is mostly marketing, to counter the Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos big market penetration.

 

[imagic]

I read elsewhere that this "enhancement" will be movies in full screen 16x9 with DNR to scrub out the grain to make it look clean. However, in my mind, IMAX is a large format presentation and anything less than 100" would be a waste. Still can't get over the ridiculous notion that 55"/65" displays warrant 8K and in most cases the 4K looks no different than 1080p and normal viewing distances at those small sizes. I guess those with CIH screens are screwed out of the IMAX Enhancement and shouldn't even bother with it. Those are typically with screen sizes that truly matter.

It is my hope that members here will make a conscious effort to properly describe what is happening. First of all, the expansion to 16x9 will occurr during scenes that are shot with IMAX cameras. In these scenes, the view will actually expand because otherwise the top and bottom are cropped to make it 2.40:1. The key point is you actually see more of the scene this way. But that does not mean the whole movie will be 16x9, Just the expanded scenes. This is exactly how the movies are presented in IMAX commercial cinemas and therefore represents director's intent.

As for the noise reduction, grain is not being scrubbed to make it look clean. The reason that digital noise reduction is applied is to mitigate the effect of HDR on noise and film grain. The reasoning behind this is that noise/grain that looks proper in commercial theatrical presentations will look exaggerated on a display that has high native contrast. So, think of it more as a compensation for the fact that home HDR is mastered to 1000 or 4000 nits while commercial cinema presentations are not. It's a necessary and advantageous step, and not akin to how Vudu just blasts some movies with DNR and eliminates grain altogether.

 

[imagic]

The video is processed in "IMAX style" (some noise reduction, enhanced colours, etc.), and delivered over standard HDR10 or HDR10+.
The audio is where the most differences are, when the IMAX content is detected, it's doing some proprietary override of the bass management and applying a 70Hz global value crossover for subwoofer, and delivered over standard DTS:X with a IMAX flag stamped. Also, the soundtrack is mixed louder than regular, non-IMAX titles, so it can have more impact on the viewer. So it messes also the reference calibration of your system. After the title is stopped, the modifications are returned to their previous values.

Conclusions: you do not loose anything by ignoring IMAX Enhanced. As @markmon1 said, is mostly marketing, to counter the Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos big market penetration.

What you'll probably want to mention here is that IMAX Enhanced uses second-order filters and its own "recipe" to deliver bass in a manner consistent with its commercial cinemas. It means that the speakers are handling more of the bass in a region where you often see issues with room effect causing peaks and dips in response. So... this "formula" has the rest of the speakers "smooth out" that response by having ALL the other speaker pitch in a little bit. It's actually a great approach as long as your speakers and amplification are up to it since most folks are not going to go beyond two subs in their system and many will only use one. This brings a little bit of the advantage of a multi-sub system.

Also, nobody needs to "ignore" it... if you buy the disc and play it, you are watching IMAX Enhanced. If people want to build on that, the logo gear is certified to deliver the optimal presentation of that content. And on the sound side, you simply cannot set up your AVR to emulate the IMAX Enhanced mode, and even if you could it would be a pain in the butt to switch from that mode to a regular mode for other content. So, having that be automated is quite advantageous.

But yeah... IMAX Enhanced content will work with non IMAX Enhanced gear so people can "ignore" it per se.

 

[bjaurelio]

Thanks @imagic and @dfa973 for the explanations. I do agree the lack of a new proprietary format is an advantage. I'll stick to DTS:X on my new Marantz 6012 since that appears preferable to me to the IMAX enhanced overrides. Once I finally upgrade my TV, which I believe will finally be this year to take the 4k HDR plunge with an OLED, I will assume it's more than capable of meeting the video standards even though LG products are not being certified by IMAX.


With Dolby making huge leaps in the audio format competition (I assume due to their presence in commercial theaters), it was smart for DTS to sign on as the exclusive audio format to movies that will have IMAX aspect ratio shifts for scenes shot on IMAX cameras. All that said, I think the marketing focus should be less about new gear certification and more about the guarantee of quality on the content along with 16x9 aspect ratio finally coming to HDR Blu-Rays.

 

[imagic]

Thanks @imagic and @dfa973 for the explanations. I do agree the lack of a new proprietary format is an advantage. I'll stick to DTS:X on my new Marantz 6012 since that appears preferable to me to the IMAX enhanced overrides. Once I finally upgrade my TV, which I believe will finally be this year to take the 4k HDR plunge with an OLED, I will assume it's more than capable of meeting the video standards even though LG products are not being certified by IMAX.


With Dolby making huge leaps in the audio format competition (I assume due to their presence in commercial theaters), it was smart for DTS to sign on as the exclusive audio format to movies that will have IMAX aspect ratio shifts for scenes shot on IMAX cameras. All that said, I think the marketing focus should be less about new gear certification and more about the guarantee of quality on the content along with 16x9 aspect ratio finally coming to HDR Blu-Rays.

Hard to do that without content

It'll be different when dozens of movies are out.

 

[dfa973]

What you'll probably want to mention here is that IMAX Enhanced uses second-order filters instead of fourth order filters for the subwoofer crossover.

Can you post where IMAX said that?

That and the 70 Hz crossover point means that the speakers are handling more of the bass in a region where you often see issues with room effect causing peaks and dips in response.

I am not so sure that the reason for 70Hz global crossover was for the benefit of improving the room response...
Knowing IMAX, I believe that the lowered crossover motivation is to put more bass to the speakers, so that the overall sound is BIGGER, more POWERFULL, how IMAX likes and does in IMAX cinema's. Linked to increased sound level of the soundtrack, it makes sense.

 

[imagic]

Can you post where IMAX said that?


I am not so sure that the reason for 70Hz global crossover was for the benefit of improving the room response...

Knowing IMAX, I believe that the lowered crossover motivation is to put more bass to the speakers, so that the overall sound is BIGGER, more POWERFULL, how IMAX likes and does in IMAX cinema's. Linked to increased sound level of the soundtrack, it makes sense.

I'm sure of it being a technical reason for doing that because it was said to me, verbally, by someone who would know. That's why you will not find it in writing. It was not just a random show rep, it was during a lunchtime meeting with the DTS folks at CES. The explanation was totally clear and logical

The IMAX folks noted that yes, "big" bass sound is part of the experience. But... the technical rationale includes what I described, which if you set up and measure a lot of systems in different residential rooms, makes a fair bit of sense. You can always "dial in" more bass but if you have peaks and nulls then that variation in response will dominate the individual experience, based on exactly where you are seated. Mitigating the effects of peaks and nulls in typical residential spaces is a valid reason to use a 70 Hz crossover and the different application of crossover slopes vs. standard bass management in AVRs.

 

[Erod]

Yet another reason to stick with 16:9 screens.

 

[Erod]

It is my hope that members here will make a conscious effort to properly describe what is happening. First of all, the expansion to 16x9 will occurr during scenes that are shot with IMAX cameras. In these scenes, the view will actually expand because otherwise the top and bottom are cropped to make it 2.40:1. The key point is you actually see more of the scene this way. But that does not mean the whole movie will be 16x9, Just the expanded scenes. This is exactly how the movies are presented in IMAX commercial cinemas and therefore represents director's intent.

Otherwise known as the "Christopher Nolan Effect."

 

[dfa973]

What you'll probably want to mention here is that IMAX Enhanced uses second-order filters instead of fourth order filters for the subwoofer crossover.

Yes, using a second-order slope means that the slope is less aggressive so the bass "leaks" more in the speakers and also content above the crossover "leaks" into the subwoofer. Since in IMAX cinema there is no LFE channel, probably this is the way IMAX is simulating the IMAX "sound" at home.

 

[the7mcs]

For the content itself it means the video is processed at the mastering stage, and in some cases the aspect ratio shifts featured in theatrical presentations will also be included. For the mastering, noise and/or film grain is mitigated to the extent needed to make it look natural on HDR displays (otherwise it looks exaggerated). These are features anyone buying the disc and watching it on any display will be able to appreciate.

Yes IMAX enhanced uses the existing technologies of HDR10 and DTS:X. This is a plus, not a minus. It means the discs and streams will work on just about any system that supports HDR 4K and DTS surround sound. IMAX did not want to create a format that freezes people out, so content uses currently available, ubiquitous formats and simply plays. Long story short, some of the what IMAX Enhanced offers is baked right into "software" i.e. the content.

But...

IMAX is about big screens. IMAX is about big sound. So, IMAX Enhanced certified gear amounts to equipment that passes a threshold of performance. Beyond that, metadata flags automatically configure gear to play back IMAX Enhanced.

On the audio side things are more complex. You'll still hear a standard surround mix if you do not have IMAX Enhanced AV gear. But if you do have the gear, it will go into an IMAX Enhanced mode that more closely emulates how audio is delivered in IMAX commercial cinemas.

It's clear not everyone sees value in it. But the key thing to note is that IMAX is involved in filmmaking starting with the cameras, so uninformed cynics who are immediately dismissive that it's "another THX" need to take into account that IMAX is involved in the filmmaking process every step of the way and that when you provide the primary cameras for action scenes in Marvel movies, you likely know what you are doing.

People are looking for some mysterious thing that's simply not there. Gear the performs at a high level will play back IMAX Enhanced content in a satisfying manner. If you want to come closest to creative intent and how IMAX movies are shown at the premiere then looking for the IMAX Enhanced logo is an easy way for consumers to do it.

Someone who built out their system last year should be in no hurry to upgrade, their system will do the content justice regardless of whether it's "official" IMAX Enhanced or not. Just look at how Sony's projectors were retroactively included...

For now, the focus should be on the content itself and how it differs from a standard 4K HDR release of the film.

That was smart the way DTS & IMAX approached things allowing the receiver to do the processing rather than TV
This was something I thought DOLBY would have done with Dolby Vision but instead you need to have a Dolby Vision TV to see benefits

 

[imagic]

That was smart the way DTS & IMAX approached things allowing the receiver to do the processing rather than TV
This was something I thought DOLBY would have done with Dolby Vision but instead you need to have a Dolby Vision TV to see benefits

AVRs will simply pass the HDR10 from IMAX Enhanced video content to the display. The processing is related to audio.