Beauty and the Beast in the IMAX

[Chris Blount]

I just got back from our local IMAX theater to see Disney's Beauty and the Beast. All I can say is that is looked and sounded AWESOME!!!

I was a little skeptical going in because usually with this sort of feature, they just blow up the 35mm print. Not in this case. All of the images were stored digitally to begin with so the producers went back and tranferred the digital images to the large format film.

The picture is amazing. There is absolutely zero film grain and the colors are deep and rich with no distortion at all. The animated characters look clean with smooth looking lines.

The sound has also been beefed up. Lots of split surround action with plenty of low frequency bass. Towards the end when the townspeople were banging on the door of the castle with a log, I could feel the bass all through my body. The sound was overall very dynamic.

The DVD should be coming out soon and hopefully be treated to the same digital transfer. If so, it will look and sound quite good. BUT, if you have an IMAX theater nearby, I highly recommend going. It will never look this good anywhere.

[Steve Mehs]

I love IMax, the only time I went to one was in Michigan at the Henry Ford Museaum & Village. i saw some movie about a group of explorers traveling to Antarticia, it was awsome. Im going to buy it on DVD if/when its avaliable. But the Imax experience was breath taking. I dont like movie threaters but the Imax is an exception.

[Richard King]

Many years ago (20 or so) I was awarded the contract to design and install the sound system for the new IMAX theater at Valley Fair amusement park in suburban Minneapolis. For main speakers we used JBL 4435 studio monitors, a two way system consisting of dual 15" LF speakers and HF compression drivers attached to constant directivity horns ("Dolly Parton" horns). Each speaker was bi-amped with 350 watts per speaker (250 Watts to the low freq. section and 100W to the high freq. section). I use the smaller single 15" version with all of 90 watts per speaker in my home theatre: http://www.pbase.com/image/780604
We supplemented the JBL monitors with 6 custom built to JBL specs 18" subwoofers measuring about 30W x 24D x 48H. Each subwoofer was powered by a bridged 250/ch BGW power amp providing 500 watts total per subwoofer. Needless to say, we were able to move some air in there during the install and test phase.

An IMAX projector is a beautiful piece of Rube Goldberg artwork. If I can find the pictures that I took of the system I will scan them and post them on the net and a link to them here.

[Chris Blount]

Wow! Very cool. Would love to see the pictures. The sound system I heard today was one of the best I've ever heard in a a long time. What amazed me were the acoustics of the room. Sitting in the middle of the theater with 5 other people (the place was empty since it was Sunday morning at 10:30) the speakers never sounded more than 6 feet from my ears. There were absolutely no reflected waves coming off the walls or ceiling. Really amazing stuff.

[Steve Mehs]

10 Thousand watts of pure digital sourround sound, gotta love it :)

[Richard King]

Here you go....
Some IMAX Pix: http://www.pbase.com/rking401/valleyfair

[Steve Mehs]

Thats cool, that must have been fun to work on. I also broused the rest of your site, was that crab real??? That thing would scare the crap out of me!

[Richard King]

10 Thousand watts of pure digital sourround sound, gotta love it

Ah, but it was all analog in the old days. That big reel that you see standing behind the projector is a six channel mag tape audio playback unit that locks to the projector. Things have changed since then though.

[Richard King]

It was one of many fun projects. I was in the pro audio business for 18 years before I got burned out and decided to work for me and started my satellite/home theatre business. I designed systems for recording studios, theaters, churches, bands, corporate presentation rooms and board rooms, etc. throughout the midwest. I designed, wired and installed the "portable" 24 track recording studio system Prince used for major work on Purple Rain in 1983. If you get the DVD of the movie I sold him all the microphones he used in the movie and rented him many of the prop electronics. Also if you look closely you will see that all his mic cables are purple. That was my idea and doing also.

As for the crab, he was real. A "giant land crab" native of around here in Florida. I think it is the largest land crab found in the US. He was guarding my front door one evening, stayed in the planter over night, and guarded my door the next morning until about noon. I have no idea where he came from or went to.

[Karl Foster]

I took my daughter to see B&B at the Superscreen and it was incredible. My daugher hadn't seen B&B in the theatre, so that was even better.

[ken4kne]

I've looked everywhere. Is it still showing in IMAX? I live in Houston and never saw it advertised. The website is down.

[EricG]

There's a list here.

http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Beauty/News/IMAX-list.html

[ken4kne]

Found it thanks. It wasn't at an IMAX here in Houston. It was a new giant screen theater, the next evolution in theaters after theater seating I guess. Anyway, much thanks. Will be there with my girls Saturday morning.