IMAX 'Gallery'

TheMagicPirate · 18 Dec 2009 at 23:11

Teasy said:
TheMagicPirate, I'm interested to hear the exact size of the screen (especially if you can get height and width) as there seems to be some confusion on exactly what kind of IMAX screen it is.

Apparently there's a few different kinds. According to Wiki the standard IMAX is 53x72 feet while the new much smaller IMAX Digital is only 28x58 feet. People are calling the second one "fake" IMAX because its not that much bigger then a lot of standard cinema screen and is usually used to update a standard cinema auditorium to an IMAX like experience (standard seating but with a slightly bigger screen and digital projectors).

I watched Avatar in the Metro IMAX yesterday and I have to say the screen looked absolutely massive to me and the auditorium certainly looked like a custom built IMAX cinema from what I've heard of them, never been to one before though. I mean if that is "fake" IMAX then I like fake IMAX .. but I doubt it.

Our whole building is custom built.

The architect who designed our building was told to simply leave a space for Screen 7 and Imax designed the rest of the auditorium.

I'm fairly confident our Digital Imax is 85ft although I wouldn't like to put money on it. It is defiantly not however a 'fake' Imax, it custom build with custom sound etc... I love her....

arknor · 19 Dec 2009 at 08:26

surely you can tell wether its 53x72 or 28x58 just by looking at it?
imagine a 6ft bloke how many of them standing on top of each other to the top

i think real imax are suposed to be 5 stories high but as the metro centre is all digital they are probably using the smaller screen

james.miller · 19 Dec 2009 at 08:43

arknor said:
surely you can tell wether its 53x72 or 28x58 just by looking at it?
imagine a 6ft bloke how many of them standing on top of each other to the top

i think real imax are suposed to be 5 stories high but as the metro centre is all digital they are probably using the smaller screen

bigger than that.

http://www.imax.com.au/visitor_info/

117ft x 96 ft

arknor · 19 Dec 2009 at 12:22

james.miller said:
bigger than that.

http://www.imax.com.au/visitor_info/

117ft x 96 ft

sydney is a one off not a typical imax

EvilGrin · 19 Dec 2009 at 12:59

arknor said:
sydney is a one off not a typical imax

Having been there to see Star Trek back during my honeymoon... I can confirm that the sydney screen is AWESOME.

Teasy · 19 Dec 2009 at 13:13

arknor said:
surely you can tell wether its 53x72 or 28x58 just by looking at it?
imagine a 6ft bloke how many of them standing on top of each other to the top

i think real imax are suposed to be 5 stories high but as the metro centre is all digital they are probably using the smaller screen

I could certainly tell if I was looking at it now, but all I have is memory of watching one movie and I was pretty engrossed in the whole thing so the exact size of the screen is quite fuzzy in my mind. I remember thinking it was massive, many times bigger then a normal cinema screen.

As far as I see on the net most IMAX screens vary in size but it seems anything around 53x72 or larger is considered "real" IMAX. I'm only interested because I was reading a post from someone who was saying the MetroCentre's new screen was only IMAX Digital and so must use a smaller screen, which sounded wrong considering what I saw, but I have no frame of reference, so I decided to try to find out

Never mind though, like I said it looked absolutely huge to me.

sean · 19 Dec 2009 at 23:53

EvilGrin said:
Really? Well then, that's extra useless! I knew it was right across the stream from the SECC, yeah.. didn't know it was small though.

I don't know where the idea that it's a small IMAX comes from. It's 58x78ft or about 18x24m according to LFExaminer and certainly didn't feel "small" when we went to see Avatar.

Xenoxide · 20 Dec 2009 at 01:13

Afaik the Odeon IMAX Digital screens in the UK are smaller than normal IMAX screens. IMAX Digital has a much lower resolution than the traditional 70mm film IMAX.

EDIT: Here's a comparison (Also see here). The one in the Glasgow Science Center is a traditional 70mm film IMAX.

Teasy · 20 Dec 2009 at 20:20

Xenoxide said:
Afaik the Odeon IMAX Digital screens in the UK are smaller than normal IMAX screens. IMAX Digital has a much lower resolution than the traditional 70mm film IMAX.

EDIT: Here's a comparison (Also see here). The one in the Glasgow Science Center is a traditional 70mm film IMAX.

From what I can see Odeon Digital screens are usually around 26 feet by 55 feet. Though they aren't limited to that size since there are IMAX Digital screens as big as 60 feet by 79 feet (bigger then a lot of tranditional IMAX screens). I'd assume they've used that size in most of their cinema's because most of them were current cinemas that were upgraded to IMAX rather then newly built cinemas.