Digital IMAX vs Regular 4K

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by BozQ

...From my understanding (I could be wrong) even if a cinema is equipped to project in 4K, but a particular movie is in 2K, it will not be upscaled whatsoever. It will still be projected in 2K.

No big-ee for you’re a good guy and it’s a confusing topic, plus I’ve been referred to much worse posted on the internet e.g. “the infrastructure for delivering 4K DCPs to theaters is not in place yet” < which has been misinformation. The actual DCS spec should make it more clear (underlining and bolding by moi) -

See - 2.1.1.5. of the DCS Version 1.2 ( http://dcimovies.com/specification/D..._2012-1010.pdf ) – “Media Blocks (MB) for 2K projectors are required to be able to extract and display the 2K resolution component from the 2K/4K DCP file(s). Media Blocks for 4K projectors are required to be able to output and display the full 4K DCDM. In the case of a 2K DCDM, the output of the Media Block is a 2K image. It is the responsibility of the 4K projectors to up-sample the image.”

Which means that with a 2K DCP running through a DCI compliant 4K projector system (which is not restricted in any fashion), audiences should get a 4K up-scaled image at their local 4K theater. In a nutshell, everything else being equal, generally 2K content appears better with 4K projection because the distance between the pixels is reduced.