The IMAX Experience

Sci-Port's IMAX Dome Theatre is one of a limited amount of theaters and the only IMAX Dome in the state of Louisiana.  This extraordinary theater houses a 60-foot dome screen and state-of-the-art projection equipment. This Oscar-winning attraction has amazed the entertainment world and leaves its audiences speechless. So whether you become a cheetah on the plains of the Serenghetti, a helicopter pilot flying over the Grand Canyon, or "food" for a sea of man-eating sharks, the IMAX experience is AWESOME!

As nearly 400 million people around the world will testify, seeing a giant-screen IMAX film is a stunning experience. It puts you into the center of the action in a way no ordinary screen presentation can, drawing you in with images that are so real you want to touch them, so powerful that you can feel them. IMAX is, quite simply, the finest motion picture system that exists. Images of unsurpassed size, clarity and impact are seen on giant screens, enhanced by a superb sound system.

The Theater
This Theater has been open since November 26, 1998 and is open to the public 362 days a year.

In the theater each seat has a plaque on the armrest to show who sponsored that seat. The theater has seating for the handicapped and can seat up to 178 individuals. This theater is the only one of its kind in the state of Louisiana. IMAX has a flat screen theater in New Orleans. The design of the theater allows every seat to be "The best seat in the house." The theater is acoustically "dead" so that all sound in the theater is either absorbed by the audience or the theater itself.

The Projector
The IMAX projector is the finest engineered, most advanced, and most powerful motion picture projector system ever built.

The film passes through the projector at 24 frames per second or 330 feet per minute. Our film Search for the Great Sharks is 13,464 feet long. The projection room is temperature, humidity, and dust controlled. The projector is supported by an equipment room that supplies compressed air, coolant water, and power. The equipment room contains over 3,500 pounds of machinery.

The Lamp
NASA uses the same type of lamp at the Kennedy Space Center to illuminate the space shuttle launch pads and landing facility.

The lamphouse in the projector uses one 15,000-watt liquid cooled short arc xenon lamp. The lamp costs more than $6,000 dollars. To prevent the lamp from overheating, it has cooling "jackets" that allow cool water to be pumped around the electrodes at a rate of 8.5 gallons per minute at 150 psi. In addition, an exhaust duct removes 800 cubic feet of air per minute from the lamphouse. The average luminance of one of these lamps is approximately 1.6 billion candles per square yard- about equal to that of the Sun as viewed from the surface of Earth!

The Film
The film is Kodak ESTAR-based motion picture stock and is strong enough to tow a small car.

The 70mm/15-perforation film used in the IMAX system is more than 10 times the size of standard 35mm/4-perforation motion picture film. That is a 300% increase in size. The IMAX Dome Theatre uses four platters simultaneously to project one show while rewinding another.

The Sound
The sub-bass unit produces low frequency (20-80 Hz) sounds so low that they are felt more than they are heard.

This theater features six discrete channels of digital sound developed for IMAX by the Sonics Corporation. The Sonics Corporation strategically positioned each individual speaker in the IMAX Theatre for optimum sound quality. Power, not volume, provides the audience with life-like sound emitting from speaker clusters and one sub-bass unit. Sounds as soft as a breeze can be heard along with crashing waves in this true-to-form surround sound environment. IMAX soundtracks are recorded on three separate digital discs. Each disc contains two channels of the soundtrack. Unlike traditional 35mm film, the sound is not on the film. When played, the discs are synchronized together, and then synchronized with the film. A 6-channel analog tape soundtrack is also used as a backup.

The Screen
IMAX means image maximum so the audience not only sees the picture, they experience it as well.

The screen is three stories tall and sixty feet wide. There are 244 perforated aluminum panels making up the dome. The picture is projected so that it encompasses the peripheral vision, which means that you will see the picture even in the corners of your eyes.

Visit the official IMAX website here. IMAX is a registered trademark of IMAX Corporation.

All films are approximately 45 minutes. No late entries or reentries allowed. 
IMAX showtimes subject to change. Please call ahead to verify at (318) 424-3466.