IMAX Enhanced Delivers a Taller Picture, but Not Always the Best Quality

IMAX Enhanced is a certification for content and hardware devices in the home rather than in cinemas. A movie with the label has gone through a Digital Media Remastering process to improve overall image quality, but its more visible difference is height. Most movies have historically been presented in the wide 2.39:1 aspect ratio, while most TVs use 16:9, or 1.78:1, creating black bars at home. IMAX Enhanced movies appear taller, and on Disney+ they are presented in 1.90:1, so small black bars may remain but viewers see more of the image.

The format also includes high dynamic range, or HDR, which improves color volume, contrast and brightness, although HDR is not unique to IMAX. IMAX Enhanced also claims to offer a theater-quality digital soundtrack, but results vary greatly with a viewer's audio setup, and enabling IMAX Enhanced requires support for DTS:X spatial audio.

Quality is not guaranteed to be the absolute best. Streaming services intentionally limit the bitrate at which content is delivered to prevent buffering, and that applies to IMAX Enhanced streams as well. A 4K or Ultra HD Blu-ray offers the highest bitrate, but not every movie gets the IMAX Enhanced label.

Viewers do not need an IMAX Enhanced-certified TV or sound system to realize the benefits. Many other standards, such as Dolby Vision, require compatible hardware, but IMAX Enhanced playback does not. Most modern TVs with support for HDR10 and HDR10+ can play IMAX Enhanced movies on Disney+ as intended. TVs and speakers certified by IMAX exist from brands including Sony and TCL, and the logo signals that hardware meets IMAX performance standards, but the certification is not required for playback.

Disney+ currently has the largest catalog of IMAX Enhanced films in one place. Some IMAX Enhanced content is also available on the Sony Pictures Core app, but that requires a PS5, an Xperia phone or a Sony smart TV.

On physical media, many 4K Blu-ray releases offer the expanded aspect ratio associated with IMAX. The Dune series, Interstellar and the upcoming physical release of The Odyssey use the 1.78:1 aspect ratio to fill modern TVs without black bars. The back of some 4K Blu-ray cases, such as The Dark Knight, explicitly call out 1.78:1 (IMAX sequences), while others such as Interstellar omit the IMAX mention while still acknowledging the 16:9 aspect ratio.

Disney is one of the few holdouts: its physical releases typically do not get the expanded aspect ratio at all. The 4K Blu-ray copy of Avengers: Endgame lacks the IMAX label and only offers a 2.39:1 image, even though it is otherwise the highest quality version available on the market. That means viewers realistically have to choose between the expanded aspect ratio available exclusively through the IMAX Enhanced stream on Disney+ and the detail offered by a 4K Blu-ray disc.

Engadget's reviewer wrote that few people truly care about the minimal image quality improvement from a high-bitrate 4K internet stream to a 4K Blu-ray, while a family would immediately notice and appreciate the expanded aspect ratio, making the streaming version superior for them.

IMAX has become something of a household name recently because of the virality of 70mm presentations such as The Odyssey and Dune: Part Three, and the company has expanded its footprint beyond giant cinema screens with the at-home designation.