Expect The Dark Knight's IMAX sequences on Blu-ray

by Richard Lawler posted Jul 17th 2008 at 3:29AM

Enjoying the small clip of IMAX The Dark Knight footage featured on the recent Batman Begins Blu-ray release? Even before the next flick hits theaters, director Christopher Nolan has already revealed plans to convert all the scenes shot for IMAX screens for use on the Blu-ray copy, whenever it hits shelves. Some cropping will be done to make everything fit but we'll still enjoy the extra detail in 1080p.

Filed under: Blu-ray

Tags: batman, blu-ray, christopher nolan, ChristopherNolan, imax, the dark knight, TheDarkKnight

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Highest Ranked

XDragon @ Jul 17th 2008 7:30AM

A must buy on Blu. That's the title to compare Blu vs DVD to and I think we'll see very strong Blu numbers!

Neutral

Byrdman @ Jul 17th 2008 10:59AM

yeah definately. i think that rather than say the "wanted" blu-ray will make people want to buy a player, i would have to say that this movie is a much better candidate to make people take the plunge into blu-ray. cant wait to go see it and eventually get the blu-ray!

Neutral

David S @ Jul 17th 2008 2:12PM

It's prices more than movies. I'm not sure any non-EngadgetHD person would even care about this if the movie itself costs $10 more on Blu than DVD (Not to mention the players cost $300 vs $30).

Neutral

travis.Taylor @ Jul 17th 2008 9:20AM

I am pretty sure I might buy a Blu Ray Player when this movie is released... Is it odd that one movie is going to make my decision to purchase a $400 piece of equipment? (Although it would be great if name brand players were cheaper by then...)

Neutral

Mark @ Jul 17th 2008 10:34AM

If it appears around Christmas you can guarantee you will be able to pick up a brand name blu ray player for less than $400.

Neutral

Mr. E @ Jul 17th 2008 4:01PM

I think that's probably typical. You wait on new technology until that one thing that pushes you over the edge. It was Goodfellas that got me into LaserDisc, and The Matrix that got me into DVD.

Neutral

bull3964 @ Jul 17th 2008 9:32AM

I don't really get what the big deal is. The IMAX footage was used for the 35mm prints as well and 35mm has a higher level of detail than 1080p video.

Really all he's saying is that they are going to go back to the IMAX film sources for the sequences shot in IMAX instead of mastering the blu-ray from a 35mm negative. About the only thing you're going to notice from the blu-ray is that those sequences will a little more free of grain than the rest of the movie and the aspect ratio will change.

They'll probably strike the DVD disc from the same master, it's just that you really won't be able to notice the difference between the scenes as much. Not so much because the lower resolution will hide the detail of the IMAX scenes, but because the lower resolution will obscure the grain in the 35mm filmed portion to the point where you won't be able to really tell much of a difference.

So, really, this news can be summed up to "blu-ray will be higher resolution than DVD and thus show more detail." Stop the presses.

Neutral

Anthony @ Sep 22nd 2008 3:30PM

When the IMAX scenes show up on your TV, your screen will explode with 200% more action per frame.

Highest Ranked

Dubldown @ Jul 17th 2008 12:18PM

The more people reply and respond to his desperate pleas for attention, the more he is going to whine and make posts like above begging for more attention.

Just ignore him and let him post his little rants and when nobody responds to him he won't know what to do with himself.

Neutral

Mr. E @ Jul 17th 2008 4:05PM

My only concern about this is the shifting aspect ratio idea at home. I can see how it would have tremendous impact on an IMAX screen that fills your entire field of vision (in fact I'm going to try and see it at an IMAX theater), but at home, I can't see how jumping between 2.40:1 to 1.85:1 is really going to do much but distract me.

Maybe they'll have the aspect ratio shifting done via seamless branching, so we can opt out if we want to.

Neutral

h0mi @ Jul 17th 2008 12:37PM

Interesting choice in movies.

What you left out is that these were all Warner movies who released these on both HD-DVD & Blu-ray and Warner always used the same encode. So yeah, it's not going to have a blu-ray level of bitrate because otherwise they'd have to have done a seperate encode.

Highly Ranked

Ken @ Jul 17th 2008 12:50PM

That is Hong Kong in the pic, BTW (I know I will get voted down for making this comment, but at least Jesus won't hate me...right!!!???)

Neutral

nick @ Jul 17th 2008 1:00PM

Yeah, I agree I'm not sure what the big deal over this is....

It's not like the source was made 20 years ago. It's a brand new movie, and the source should work equally well for Blu-Ray whether the conversion is from a 35mm print or IMAX print. The film, someone correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't shot for IMAX, it was converted to IMAX.

And if I'm also not mistaken, some feature films converted to IMAX are alterted from their source material with additional edits.

Highly Ranked

Richard Lawler @ Jul 17th 2008 1:01PM

It was shot for IMAX using IMAX cameras.

Highest Ranked

bull3964 @ Jul 17th 2008 1:42PM

Certain scenes (action) were shot on IMAX cameras. It's a mixed shooting process. About 20 minutes of the final move is IMAX footage shot on IMAX cameras.

All that's happening here is they are going back to the source film elements for the blu-ray master instead of making it from a completely 35mm version. Aside from opening the frame for 16:9, this isn't anything that hasn't been done before.

Take the blu-ray and HD-DVD release of Blade Runner. They did the exact same thing. Blade Runner was shot on 35mm and 65mm (for the effects). Instead of doing a restoration of a 35mm print and striking a master from that, they went to the 35mm and 65mm source elements, restored the separately, and made the HD master from those two sources.

Honestly, they are crowing about something that I consider just doing things the right way.

Neutral

DrXym @ Jul 18th 2008 8:09AM

Makes sense to me but I wonder if the aspect will change on the disc. I certainly don't believe the image quality aside from grain will be much better for going to the Imax source since 35mm is still higher than 1080p. But if they have the Imax source they may as well use it I suppose.

Neutral

Camperton @ Jul 19th 2008 4:20AM

I couldn't agree more.

Neutral

THizzle7XU @ Jul 17th 2008 7:58PM

Wow buddy, you work for Toshiba or something?

Who cares? HD-DVD or Blu-ray, it all looks better than DVD. I had HD-DVD and had no qualms switching to Blu-ray, especially since I was getting a PS3 anyways. The movies look great either way. Just watch and enjoy them.

Neutral

Fred @ Jul 17th 2008 9:46PM

I will tell you guys tomorrow, or saturday how it looks in IMAX.

I am just happy...

"Why so serious"

P.S. Truth I am at times on your side with the realism you provide... but you cannot pre-cog how this movie will come out. Their could be a new Blu disc, they could add lots of stuff, it could be on a 100gb disc, who the hell knows, the movie has not even come out to theatres and Blu is being talked about.

Highly Ranked

perdant @ Jul 17th 2008 11:15PM

i just thought that first 6 mins was fu**ing sweet!!

Neutral

DrXym @ Jul 18th 2008 6:37AM

What a surprise, baby is stinking up another thread with yet another tirade about blu ray. Studios will use DL if they want or they will use SL if they want. Its their choice based on what video, audio, soundtracks and features they intend to supply.

Who are you to bawl and whinge that they are wrong? Oh right you're a crybaby extraordinaire who still can't get over your precious format losing. Because baby's precious format was limited to 30Gb, there cannot possibly be any reason for a studio to produce a disk using more than that. Right?

Indeed its clear from some old WB titles that you cherry picked, that they dipped into DL because they were reusing HD DVD encodes and not because they didn't want to use more space. HD DVD was the limiting factor and with that impediment out of the way disks that utilise DL are putting it to good use.

Of course its up to studios whether they want to use 25Gb, 50Gb or not. No one has an issue either way unless the picture, audio or features suffers. It's a pathetic strawman of your own invention. Grow up baby. Six months on and you are still bawling about your precious dead format.

Neutral

DrXym @ Jul 18th 2008 8:05AM

Baby is bawling again. Numerous discs amply demonstrate that studios can and will use 50Gb Blu Ray discs as and when they see fit. Yet some immature monomanical nonentity is so outraged by Blu Ray that they spend their lives engaged in a never-ending hissy fit. Grow up baby your precious format lost. Six months ago.

Neutral

DrXym @ Jul 18th 2008 12:32PM

Baby, I never claimed sales were going to overtake DVD in August. That is just another of your own cretinous strawman arguments. You really are quite the stupid monomanical baby aren't you?

Neutral

DrXym @ Jul 18th 2008 3:20PM

Oooh a spelling flame from baby! You're really on a roll aren't you? Don't you have any more pathetic straw man arguments to lamely toss around?

Neutral

Lauren Glenn @ Aug 7th 2008 7:51AM

The SL and DL argument is like when DVDs first started using dual layers since the mastering plants couldn't do them at first. The only thing they could create were "flippers" with you having to flip the disc over midstream like a LaserDisc (I still have a version of Stargate the Movie like this).

After a while, everyone started to make dual layers and then with T2, people started to make RSDL (Reverse Spin? Dual Layer) which is how they all are now. Previously, they were laid out the same way requiring the laser to move back to the center of the disc for each layer change.

The format just won the war. Give it time to grow up a bit. It's not going to die anytime soon, especially with the move to HDTV. The only thing that may kill it is downloadable video. Portable BluRay players will eventually come out although these may not be feasible since the screen size is too small to notice the higher detail.

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