I just got the best birthday call I've ever got. One of my friends who works closely with Imax has got me setup for the testing of a prototype Imax projection system for the home market. My friend knew about it for the last month but wanted to wait until my birthday to tell me which is today by the way. So onto the specs.
First the screen will be a standard Imax shape screen. It will be a 150" screen. The projector itself will have a native resolution for Imax HD DVD playback only of 3200x2600 with just over 8 million total pixels. It will also support full resolution display of 1080p/i, 720p and 480p/i signals. My system would come with a seperate setup box that would connect with a special connector only to Imax projection systems. This box would simply be an HD DVD player that in my case will support both blueray and HD-DVD formats. The Imax films will be encoded in the H264 format but they will be rolled into a new Imax file format that would require an Imax projector which has a chip on it to allow the player to decode the Imax version. So it has DRM and will only playback over the secure cable connection from the Imax player to the Imax projector. The projector can also playback anything else out today including in the future 1080p. I'm told the device would have three HDMI connectors (one supports 1080p with HDCP while the other two support 1080i with HDCP and 1080p without HDCP). Now the player that comes with it supports HDCP playback over its non HDMI secure connection so besides that player the other three HDMI connections will be for other devices such as for connection to a PC running Windows Vista along with cable/satellite boxes or new gaming consoles. It also has two component connections plus two S-Video and composite connectors. The Imax player also has a multichannel output which can output the 7.1 channel Imax surround sound into a surround sound receiver that supports 7.1 channels via the receivers multichannel analog input. The sound is Dolby Digital and DTS by the way.
I'm also going to get Imax movies such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for example in the Imax format. This means that I'll soon be able to watch Goblet of Fire with a resulution of 3200x2600 with over 8 million pixels on a 150" Imax sized screen in my home along with Dolby Digital 7.1 surround sound. So now you guys and gals have a little clue of what might be coming our way very soon. I'll say this much I love some of the people I know because man you can't get a better birthday present than this.
Again I'm sorry but I can't take any pictures of it when I get it and just be thankfull that I'm able to write this here for you because I haven't yet signed a NDA yet. I was cleared by my friend to say this much but besides this I can't give you anything else. Also keep in mind that this product might not ever make it into retail but it has a very good shot if done right. If they can get a lower resolution version that is still better than current HDTV for less than two grand at some point it would no doubt take off like crazy.
First the screen will be a standard Imax shape screen. It will be a 150" screen. The projector itself will have a native resolution for Imax HD DVD playback only of 3200x2600 with just over 8 million total pixels. It will also support full resolution display of 1080p/i, 720p and 480p/i signals. My system would come with a seperate setup box that would connect with a special connector only to Imax projection systems. This box would simply be an HD DVD player that in my case will support both blueray and HD-DVD formats. The Imax films will be encoded in the H264 format but they will be rolled into a new Imax file format that would require an Imax projector which has a chip on it to allow the player to decode the Imax version. So it has DRM and will only playback over the secure cable connection from the Imax player to the Imax projector. The projector can also playback anything else out today including in the future 1080p. I'm told the device would have three HDMI connectors (one supports 1080p with HDCP while the other two support 1080i with HDCP and 1080p without HDCP). Now the player that comes with it supports HDCP playback over its non HDMI secure connection so besides that player the other three HDMI connections will be for other devices such as for connection to a PC running Windows Vista along with cable/satellite boxes or new gaming consoles. It also has two component connections plus two S-Video and composite connectors. The Imax player also has a multichannel output which can output the 7.1 channel Imax surround sound into a surround sound receiver that supports 7.1 channels via the receivers multichannel analog input. The sound is Dolby Digital and DTS by the way.
I'm also going to get Imax movies such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for example in the Imax format. This means that I'll soon be able to watch Goblet of Fire with a resulution of 3200x2600 with over 8 million pixels on a 150" Imax sized screen in my home along with Dolby Digital 7.1 surround sound. So now you guys and gals have a little clue of what might be coming our way very soon. I'll say this much I love some of the people I know because man you can't get a better birthday present than this.
Again I'm sorry but I can't take any pictures of it when I get it and just be thankfull that I'm able to write this here for you because I haven't yet signed a NDA yet. I was cleared by my friend to say this much but besides this I can't give you anything else. Also keep in mind that this product might not ever make it into retail but it has a very good shot if done right. If they can get a lower resolution version that is still better than current HDTV for less than two grand at some point it would no doubt take off like crazy.
