Horizontal? I meant vertical, sorry, though I’m not even sure that’s true. My head is turned left and the seat is tilted back as well – the end result is that my vision is tilted sideways to the left.
So how was it. As much as I like 3D stuff I haven’t been sucked in by the commercials for Avatar.
Seems to me that I saw the 48 FPS of an Omnimax film projected on a flat screen many years ago. I could be mis-remembering it but it was a narrated demonstration of the process and they talked about a greater film speed (you could actually track golf balls after they were hit).
If you like 3D then you should go see Avatar just for the 3D. It’ll take your breath away. You might end up liking the movie too, or perhaps you’ll just like Pandora, one of the most awe-inspiring worlds ever created on film. Pandora and the subtle but very effective 3D will be worth your money, and you won’t have to kick yourself in the future while saying “Why didn’t I see this on the big screen???”
Believe me, because I didn’t like the trailers either, but I thought the movie was amazing. No trailer or clip, especially no trailer or clip on television or a computer screen, comes within a fraction of a fraction of doing the look of the film justice.
I’ll just second Equipoise’s post. It felt like a cross between The Abyss and Aliens to me, with stunning worldbuilding thrown in as well. I’ll add further thoughts to the other thread later.
In the early 1990s, Imax Corporation developed a 48 fps system that they called IMAX HD, at about the same time they introduced IMAX 3D. They installed a handful of 48 fps-capable projectors around the world, but only one film was made in the format: Momentum.
If that’s the film you saw, you saw IMAX at 48 fps. If not, you were misinformed or misunderstood.
It was a pretty incredible format, better in many ways than 3D, and almost as good as Showscan, which was 60 fps.
Also, FYI, Omnimax is the old trade name for IMAX theaters with a dome screen. Although some theaters still use the name, the official trademarked term is now IMAX Dome. So an Omnimax film on a flat screen is something of an oxymoron.
This wasn’t a movie, it was a demonstration of large format film. It was an Omnimax recording projected on a flat screen because long objects would be curved on the screen. Omnimax cameras used a fish eye lens and needed a domed screen to look right. It may not have been a 48 fps presentation that I saw but it was definitely a mis-match of screens. I remember them talking about being able to perceive the movement of fast objects (such as a golf ball) that conventional films would not be able to project. Not sure if that was due to faster film speed or larger format.
I’m afraid I find your language confusing. Omnimax is the IMAX film format projected on a dome screen, using, as you rightly say, a fisheye lens. But IMAX (or Omnimax) is both a movie and a large format film. So one typically wouldn’t speak of an Omnimax “recording.”
If you saw a film shot for a dome theater projected on a flat screen, it certainly would have looked distorted, as any fisheye image would. And 48 fps does convey motion more accurately than slower frame rates. The two are not directly related, however.
If you could say which theater this was, when, and the nature of the event, I may be better able to figure out what you saw.
It was a film shot with an Omnimax camera projected on an Imax screen. The Omnimax camera had a fisheye lense as did the projector. If the faster format was developed in the 90’s then I was seeing the standard film speed. I think it was either the Imax at the Air Force museum or something associated with Disney in Florida. Truth be told, I was more impressed with Cinerama.