Apollo 13: IMAX on DVD - What?

Cafe Society
1

Is it a saturn rocket size woosh or what?
Why would the Imaz version be released on DVD? Can anyone explain?
(I wouldn’t mind seeing it on Imax, but unfortunately, my home cinema system isn’t really up to specs.)

2

Professional IMAX journalist here. (Really! I publish the only newsletter that covers the giant-screen film industry.)

There are several differences between the original edition of Apollo 13 and Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience. However, I haven’t seen the IMAX edition DVD, so I don’t know for sure which, if any, of the following things is true of it.

First is that the IMAX edition was shorter. When it was released, IMAX reel systems weren’t capable of handling the full 160 minutes of the original, so Ron Howard cut 20 minutes from the story. (They have since introduced higher-capacity reel systems, so recent releases, like Harry Potter 3 and Spider-Man 2, were uncut.)

Second is that the aspect ratio is different. Standard IMAX has a 3:4 (or 1:1.33) ratio of height to width, like standard TV. Normal theatrical films are wider, with a ratio between 1.87 and 2.35 (AKA “scope”). The original Apollo 13 was released in scope, but as is usually the case, it was actually filmed in full-frame 35mm (also about 1.33), and the top and bottom of the frame were cut off optically for final release.

So for the IMAX edition, they went back to the full-frame neg. This had the advantage of using most of the height of the IMAX frame, and also reducing the amount by which they had to blow up the image, which lowered the demands on their brand-new digital re-mastering system.

So you will see more material at the top and bottom of the frame than in the theatrical version.

The soundtrack was re-mastered for IMAX’s 6-channel sound systems. I assume this has been rendered as 5.1 for the DVD, and it is probably noticeably better than the standard DVD.

Finally, the digital remastering process reduced grain and sharpened the image so it would look better when shown on the giant screens. I doubt this would be extremely obvious when viewed on a TV, even a large TV, but it certainly would be interesting to do an A-B with the DVD of the theatrical version and see if the difference is discernable.

Presumably the IMAX DVD also has features about the remastering process (called DMR), IMAX theaters, etc.

3

Thanks, commasense