"Robots" in IMAX DMR

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Being a lazy bastard today hence the double-topic, lets see if y'all can handle it ;-p



1. "Robots" in IMAX DMR is bloody amazing, you can see every rusty bolt and the textures, and the background animation, just do it. Don't go to a regular cinema or heaven forbid, watch it on DVD if you are a 3D enthusiast. Go watch it on a 5+ storey screen. Resolution holds up pretty damn well, definitely rendered higher res than the regular cineplex 35mm print. If you are a hardcore video compression person, you will notice some very minor pixelation and compression artifacting during fast-motion scenes, but remember overall that this is projected from a very clean and high-res but still 'softened' IMAX film print. Overall, if you watch Robots in IMAX, i think theres actually too much detail to take in all at once.



i think my mind is going to short-circuit after watching star wars episode3, even on a regular cineplex print. too much stuff happenin.



2. I am very impressed by Azureus traffic shaping on the Mac, it seems to be an excellent BitTorrent client, aside from some minor issues you may experience. I also like being able to throttle down the upload on a particular file, because that generally de-prioritises it. But watching the traffic shaping on the Statistics window brings me peace and joy, when i see it blasting at that 40kb/sec* i know i'm getting my broadband money's worth Also the global upload capping is good to keep the uploading traffic about 2/3rds of the global download speed, as is recommended by the BitTorrent gurus.



*not fantastic for some of you speed whores but i'm sharing broadband with my neighbour and i want to leave headroom for my own surfing, isync, mail, etc. (my broadband promised by telco as 1mbpsdown/512kup but real numbers are probably half-ish of that)



peace...! Oh and the storyline is a touching family happy silly one for "Robots". Some minor musical numbers though, ala Shark Tale... a bit of a warning.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    I saw Robots in the IMAX mainly because I just wanted to see something at hte IMAX and it was the only thing playing.



    It was very enjoyable, in retrospect, I think I like it more and more the more I think about it. It had some corny parts, but there were also some really awesome sequences, and the music was pretty killer all the way through.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    Robots is being shown in Digital (DLP) in many places. (It is here in Boston)



    I can't go back to 35mm I can't. I won't.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by johnq

    Robots is being shown in Digital (DLP) in many places. (It is here in Boston)



    I can't go back to 35mm I can't. I won't.




    oohh... the last time i saw something digitally projected was Spirited Away at Sony Metreon (San Francisco) in 2001 or 2002, i can't remember... i was not impressed.



    but i think being 2005, DLP digital projection in cinemas must be pretty kick ass now, if you're writing off 35mm already...



    remember though (gets on soap box) IMAX is projected from FILM that is much higher grade and much much cleaner than your standard 35mm print at the cineplex...



    interestin. i gotta check me out one of them newfangled DLP cinema thingymajigs. currently i am several thousand miles from the USA in one of them axis-of-not-so-evil-but-we've-got-one-eye-on-you countries



    johnQ looking forward to StarWars episode III in DLP ??? hmm ???





    *side note: i won't do this DoubleTopic again. i think i've confused myself jamming Robots and BitTorrent topics in one thread Mods feel free to spank me
  • Reply 4 of 10
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    I find DLP in the normal screen sizes (i.e., not jumbo like IMAX) to be both incredibly bright and clear and satisfying whether the movie is originally film or digital.



    Weird thing though, at first the picture is so SOLID and clean that I blink less because I'm so conscious of how clean the image is (I don't mean "sterile" - if their is nice ambient film grain from the transfer, it's still their).



    Not sure the details of the difference between FPS of film and DLP's refresh rate but I get less tired watching DLP.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    What on earth would compel you to start a thread like this? It makes absolutely no sense at all.



    I'll split them up, but try to put some thought into it next time.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    Hum... I didn't like Robots. Weak film. Didn't carry me anywhere. (and this from someone who LOVES these kind of flix)



    If you are going to do IMAX. Go see Sharks 3D. That is worth it.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    Frankly I didn't really like Robots. Sure Williams was fun, and the city was very interesting but the plot and characters were generally weak.



    Compare that to The Incredibles or Iron Giant or Disney's golden age in the early 90's or any of Pixar's films for that matter.



    Even Shrek 1 and 2 had superior plots, although far too heavily in the pop culture no one will find this funny in 10 years style.



    I think a lot of the box office performance comes from it being a CG film, rather then any other qualities.



    IMAX 3D is however absolutely fantastic and makes up for shortcomings even in really bad films like Polar Express.



    My favorite quote about Polar Express?

    It takes a special man to make an animated film about the corpses of people getting on a train to take a disjointed and creepy ride to the North Pole, only to discover that Santa's Workshop is really a giant industrial complex airlifted in from the Eastern Bloc and the elves are enslaved Hebrews. That man is Satan.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by groverat

    What on earth would compel you to start a thread like this? It makes absolutely no sense at all.



    I'll split them up, but try to put some thought into it next time.




    i think it was excessive lateral thinking on my part \ trying to connect the two... thanks dude, i owe you one...
  • Reply 9 of 10
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by johnq

    I find DLP in the normal screen sizes (i.e., not jumbo like IMAX) to be both incredibly bright and clear and satisfying whether the movie is originally film or digital.



    Weird thing though, at first the picture is so SOLID and clean that I blink less because I'm so conscious of how clean the image is (I don't mean "sterile" - if their is nice ambient film grain from the transfer, it's still their).



    Not sure the details of the difference between FPS of film and DLP's refresh rate but I get less tired watching DLP.




    then definitely it seems my last experience of digital projection in 2001/2002 is a bit antiquated.



    i gotta check it out now. *sigh* maybe Singapore has it (it's 300 miles south of where i am, got some relatives there)



    definitely definitely refresh rates are different. with the film projection, the shutter is *mechanical* and depending on the projector and the tracking, as we get more used to watching moving images on LCD computer screens, for example, i start to notice the 'strobing' effect. this is because the *mechanical* 35mm projector has to open the shutter exactly every 1/24 seconds AND this has to be synced with the full 35mm single frame of the film, and when projected the full frame image has to be as close as possible to the previous single frame....



    take in all these factors, and even if the DLP refresh rate was 24fps (which i doubt* ) you would get a more clean and stable image. all the better that it is at a stage where pixelation and compression artifacts are negligible, and the 'ambient film grain' (nice term dude) is still there...



    *edit: my bad, it is 24fps:



    " The TI DLP Cinema? prototype projector displays at the standard film rate of 24 frames/sec. Since the DMD is not scanned like a CRT but is a virtually continuous display device, the display can be driven at 24 fps with no objectionable flicker"



    ..there is no flicker because there is not a big mechanical 'gate' opening and closing every 1/24th of a second, that 'gating' happens on the micromirror-DLP-array thingy..



    edit2: yeah looks like Singapore is my nearest DLP place. maybe i can take my dad for Star Wars episode 3...!
  • Reply 10 of 10
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    yeah singapore has a big DLP push so at least 20 screens in DLP for a island country of 4 million people



    johnQ you'd be shocked if you saw a 35mm print here in Malaysia, every English movie is subtitled with 3! different languages (Malay, Tamil, Mandarin) burned-in onto the original print... nowadays it might be just 2 languages, Malay and Mandarin, I think, but the print gets somewhat abused when it goes through subtitling... oh and everything is censored to a PG-13 or so level... so that's another level of abuse on the print (censorship happens locally, not from a Hollywood 'family/airplane version')



    at least with IMAX DMR here in Malaysia, the subtitles are overlaid through another projector very discretely on a tiny bottom part of the jumbo screen, so the subtitles totally do not mess with the original IMAX projected film print...



    RESOLUTION:

    "PROJECTOR RESOLUTION



    The DLP Cinema? projector uses three TI Digital Micromirror Devices (DMD), each with an array of 2048x1080 microscopic aluminum mirrors for a total of over 6 million mirrors. For comparison, the imaging mirror array is within 1 mm of the size of a Cinemascope© film print image. The movie is projected through a normal lens for flat aspect ratio movies and an anamorphic projection lens for scope movies."



    Are you shure yu don't notice pixelation? Maybe i'm just a pixel whore... I'd love it when they switch to 4k DLP, instead of the 2k now, but I would have to see 2k DLP in person (probably in Singapore) before I can comment on this with any credibility...
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