IMAX

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IMAX DMR Technology
http//www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/student-
life/images/imax.jpg
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What is IMAX DMR?

• Process that converts 35mm frame into digital
  form
• Transfers into large film format, 15 perforations
  70mm

http//www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/imax/science-07.as
p
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• CHALLENGE Implement a computing architecture to
  process terabytes of image data efficiently and
  cost-effectively
• SOLUTION Intel Pentium III processor-based
  server farm comprising Dell PowerEdge 2550
  servers running the Red Hat Linux operating
  system
• BENEFIT Time and cost savings by digitally
  remastering 7 TB of image data in 10 weeks

http//www.putnam.org/imax/imaxdmr.html
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Process of DMR

• Computation-intensive frame-by-frame processing
  of the images to master a high-resolution release
  of the movie onto IMAX film.
• Individual frames stored into arrays

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File Sizes

• DMR usually results in about 7 Terabytes (7000
  Gigabytes) of data.
• Each frame of the movie takes around 28 Megabytes
  of storage.
• It takes a system with 18 400-GB Hard Drives to
  store all of this data!

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Image Compression

• IMAX DMR employs Geometric analysis of the image
  artifacts to remove them.
• The images are then compressed using a
  proprietary algorithm developed exclusively for
  IMAX.
• The quality is comparable to 16-bit uncompressed
  TIFF images with equal resolutions.

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Why is this necessary?

• If youve ever tried to enlarge a digital
  picture, you know the limitations.
• 35MM film must be enlarged several times to reach
  IMAX dimensions.

http//www.putnam.org/imax/imaxdmr.html
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What does all this mean?

• IMAX DMR takes painstaking measures to assure the
  quality of the image we see onscreen.
• This process can handle about 25,000 frames a
  week.
• Quality is very near what a 7 Megapixel digital
  camera would produce if its images were
  uncompressed.