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Disney+’s next major app update, coming to all devices later this week, continues the service’s latest efforts to please nitpicky A/V obsessors: a new screen ratio format, meant to fill more of your HDTV screen in a way that filmmakers originally intended.
Specifically, “IMAX Digital” is coming to all devices that support Disney+ starting this Friday as part of the service’s “Disney+ Day” promotion. This “17.1:9” format will land exclusively on 13 Marvel Studios films to start, and it coincides with the streaming premiere of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings—a film that skipped Disney’s experiment with simultaneous launches in theaters and on Disney+ earlier this year.
The full list of IMAX Digital-compatible films coming to Disney+ later this week:
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Avengers: Endgame
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Black Panther
- Black Widow
- Captain America: Civil War
- Captain Marvel
- Doctor Strange
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Iron Man
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Thor: Ragnarok
Whenever any of these films switches to an IMAX Digital ratio, the usual black bars that signify a wider-screen 21:9 ratio will be reduced. The result adds approximately 26 percent more image to your HDTV, all framed the way each film’s crew originally intended.
A quick “lie-max” primer
Anyone who appreciates film aspect ratios may immediately raise an eyebrow like a Marvel supervillain upon seeing a celebration about “IMAX Digital,” which is not the same as IMAX’s original 1.43:1 ratio. IMAX’s first format debuted in the 1970s with designs on projecting its 70mm reels on larger, square-ratio screens. The corporation’s stomp toward more average multiplex theaters included a shift in the 2000s to the wider IMAX Digital format, but this landed with a thud, as viewers could see the difference between its 2K digital projections and the original format’s pristine 70mm foundation.
As a result, moviegoers began using the phrase “lie-max” to clarify what kind of “IMAX” experience they were in for—and why they were upset about higher ticket prices for the format. (This sentiment spiked in a 2015 Ars comment section about the IMAX Corporation threatening legal action over its trademark.)
Still, the Marvel Cinematic Universe began supporting IMAX Digital versions with 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. This was primarily thanks to that filmmaking era’s obsession with 3D projection, which IMAX Digital played nicely with—and at first, this only came in select action sequences, as opposed to entire films. Disney has confirmed that many of the supported films only include select 17.1:9 sequences, with the rest of their runtimes sticking with cinematic 21:9 ratios (and thus larger black bars on an average 16:9 TV). The same goes for 2008’s Iron Man, which got an IMAX Digital theatrical re-release despite never being natively filmed for the format. (It’s unclear whether that film’s limited IMAX Digital support was thanks to it being originally filmed in “open matte” format, to be manually cropped by editors before its final theatrical aspect ratio was locked down.)
Up until this week, if you wanted to see those sequences in their intended viewing ratios, or entire films in the case of later MCU entries like the Avengers Infinity War / Endgame duology, you needed a 3D TV and a 3D Blu-ray player. This week’s update changes that limitation, and it will lead to tinier black bars on the top and bottom of their Disney+ versions by default—and, hey, if the films were originally meant to wipe out more of those black bars, then bring the additional visual information on. The app will support picking through a “versions” tab on each film to fix each to their previous 21:9 versions, should you prefer them for any reason.
This week’s news follows Disney+’s decision to update its entire library of Simpsons episodes in May 2020 to support their originally televised 4:3 ratios—and thus restore visual gags that were otherwise cropped by a forced zoom to 16:9 widescreen TVs. If you’re looking for a streaming service that reveres the original 1.43:1 IMAX aspect ratio, your best option as of press time is HBO Max, which presented the Justice League Snyder Cut earlier this year as its director intended.
The post Disney+ will slash your HDTV’s black bars via IMAX Digital update appeared first on Peril Of Africa.
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