- published: 16 Oct 2013
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IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems. Since 2002, some feature films have been converted (or upgraded) into IMAX format for display in IMAX theatres and some have also been partially shot in IMAX.
IMAX is the most widely used system for special-venue film presentations. As of September 2011[update], there were 583 IMAX theatres in 48 countries.
The desire to increase the visual impact of film has a long history. In 1929, Fox introduced Fox Grandeur, the first 70 mm film format, but it quickly fell from use. In the 1950s CinemaScope (1953) and VistaVision (1954) widened the image from 35 mm film, following multi-projector systems such as Cinerama (1952). While impressive, Cinerama was difficult to install, and the seams between adjacent projected images were difficult to hide.