IMAX Corporation started in 1967 and has two headquarters, one in New York City and the other in Toronto, Canada. IMAX Corporation is a leader in entertainment technology like projector equipments, theatre designs, film distribution, film library, 3D, post-production, digital projection and is well known for its cutting edge innovations. It offers products ready for commercial deployments and its complete package designs makes it one of the most coveted companies in the industry. IMAX Corporation is named after the IMAX film format designed by the company. The IMAX system was developed by four Canadians: Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, Robert Kerr and William C. Shaw. IMAX stands for Image Maximum. The IMAX Theatre Network is a chain of affiliated theatres employing the IMAX technology and is fully designed by IMAX Corporation. There are over 280 IMAX theatres in 40 countries, most of them being located in the United States and Canada. About half the theatres are for commercial theatre complexes and the other half is located in institutional venues, such as museums, planetariums, and maritime centers. The IMAX Dome, originally called the OMNIMAX has projectors focusing on tilted dome screens for special 3D effects. IMAX Corporation is a publicly traded company listed on both the Toronto and NASDAQ stock exchanges and holds numerous patents on its products and technologies.
IMAX projectors are considered to be the most advanced, highest-precision and most powerful projectors ever built in the commercial and entertainment industry. The IMAX technology consists of images with unsurpassed size, clarity and impact, enhanced by the six-channel digital sound system and projectors shooting at eight storey high screens. The IMAX projectors are designed specifically for films which are 10 times larger than the conventional 35 mm frame and at least 3 times longer. This film format is specified as 15/70, the name referring to the 15 sprockets per frame of 70 mm stock. This is the key to the astonishing clarity in the movie. Because of this increase in resolution and length, the film needs to be run faster through the projector which causes the film projection to be unstable. IMAX used the unique ‘rolling loop’ film movement technology to overcome this problem and advances the film horizontally in a smooth, wave-like motion. The film is held intact by 4 fixed registration pins and primly pressed to the lens by vacuum. Specially designed cam-controlled arms were added to decelerate each frame in order to eliminate the microscopic shaking as the frame settled on the registration pins. The lamps used in the projector are the largest ones, a 12-18 kW xenon arc lamp with hollow, water-colored electrodes. The shutters open longer than conventional types and give a much brighter picture.
The soundtrack is not embedded on the film so that the image can utilize the full space. Instead a separate 35 mm magnetic tape is used to hold the six-channel digital sound and synchronized with the image properly. The conventional DDP (Digital Disc Playback) system has been replaced in almost all theaters with the newer DTAC (Digital Theater Audio Control) system which utilizes a computer running the IMAX's proprietary DTAC software.
|
