Great article! Thanks for sharing your research into the history of these super interesting theaters and projection systems.
There is something I've wondered about though:
While far from inexpensive, digital projection systems are now able to match the quality of Omnimax projection.
Are they really? The St Louis Science Center Omnimax was switched from the 70mm film system to "laser 4k" digital projection in 2019. I've only been to one show but it didn't seem particularly sharp, with large clearly visible pixels. It was very bright, with high contrast, though.
4k seems like a pretty low resolution for such a large screen?
This is definitely an area for debate. I've seen the physical resolution of a 70/15 film frame estimated at 70MP, which is obviously a lot more than the ~8MP of 4k. The MP comparisons between film and digital are a little iffy though, and digital ought to be sharper within the limitations of that resolution than film. Ultimately it comes down to marketing but, having not had a direct comparison, I would still expect 70mm to look better than a digital projection system.
I think that digital LED domes might beat film because of the excellent light output and color reproduction, but I guess I'll have to shell out for the Sphere to find out as there are very few of that size.
I did some scanning for Universal. Depending on how the image is framed, you can usually just squeeze 4K from 35mm. The 70mm I had I easily pulled 8K from and I'm pretty sure I could have gone to 10K.
Comments
Great article! Thanks for sharing your research into the history of these super interesting theaters and projection systems.
There is something I've wondered about though:
Are they really? The St Louis Science Center Omnimax was switched from the 70mm film system to "laser 4k" digital projection in 2019. I've only been to one show but it didn't seem particularly sharp, with large clearly visible pixels. It was very bright, with high contrast, though.
4k seems like a pretty low resolution for such a large screen?
This is definitely an area for debate. I've seen the physical resolution of a 70/15 film frame estimated at 70MP, which is obviously a lot more than the ~8MP of 4k. The MP comparisons between film and digital are a little iffy though, and digital ought to be sharper within the limitations of that resolution than film. Ultimately it comes down to marketing but, having not had a direct comparison, I would still expect 70mm to look better than a digital projection system.
I think that digital LED domes might beat film because of the excellent light output and color reproduction, but I guess I'll have to shell out for the Sphere to find out as there are very few of that size.
I did some scanning for Universal. Depending on how the image is framed, you can usually just squeeze 4K from 35mm. The 70mm I had I easily pulled 8K from and I'm pretty sure I could have gone to 10K.
I thought it was 8k rather than 4k that was generally considered to be roughly equivalent to IMAX?