Have you ever dreamt of bringing the IMAX theater experience with you home? Well, now you can get really close to that at home with IMAX Enhanced content and compatible home theater equipment.
IMAX has worked with filmmakers to offer select digitally remastered films as IMAX Enhanced. Offering these films as IMAX Enhanced means brighter, clearer images, that are often less noisy. Many of the films also offer an increased aspect ratio for a more immersive experience – which is an experience more like what you get when you watch a film on an IMAX screen.
We watched a couple of side by side examples of films playing back in “regular” 4K HDR next to an IMAX Enhanced film, and we were blown away by the difference. For starters, the IMAX Enhanced versions were brighter and a lot less noisy. But what was most surprising for us is that the “regular” 4K HDR films seemed pretty impressive on their own – until we compared them to their IMAX Enhanced versions.
In addition to offering an enhanced visual experience, IMAX Enhanced offers a more cinematic audio experience. IMAX has partnered with DTS to deliver the original full dynamic range mix from the original film via IMAX Enhanced content.
IMAX says that an IMAX Enhanced mode will be coming to more and more TVs. The first TV to support the mode is the pricey 77” Sony A1E OLED 4K UHD TV ($7,999+). But to get the complete experience, you’ll need to be watching IMAX Enhanced streaming content or IMAX Enhanced content on a 4K UHD Blu-Ray player.
To date, IMAX has announced only two films that will be released as IMAX Enhanced – IMAX: Journey to the South Pacific and IMAX: A Beautiful Planet. Both will be released on December 11th, and IMAX says that many more IMAX Enhanced films are on their way.