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Adam Savage’s Tested

How IMAX 70MM Film is Scanned and Printed!

3 min read27 Apr 2026Worth watching

TL;DR

Adam Savage visits IMAX headquarters to tour the film scanning and recording labs, where technician Fred operates the only 65mm film scanner ever built and a fleet of aging CRT-based film recorders. The video reveals the extraordinary precision engineering required to digitize and re-print massive IMAX 70mm frames, including why some processes take over a minute per single frame.

Key points

The original IMAX 65mm film scanner (serial number one, the only one ever built) uses a granite chassis for thermal stability, scans a single vertical line of pixels at a time at 8,424 slices per frame, taking 12.5 seconds per frame.

The new scanner captures IMAX frames in thirds, stitches them on a separate machine, reads Kodak edge key codes for precise frame targeting, and is more than an order of magnitude faster than the legacy machine.

IMAX film recording uses cathode ray tube (CRT) technology run through red, green, and blue filters to expose film — a reversed three-strip process — because CRTs exceed the precision of any currently available alternative.

As CRTs age they dim, slowing recording speeds from historical peaks down to 1 to 2.5 minutes per frame; of roughly 7 machines in the room only about 4 are functional, and replacement CRT stock is nearly exhausted.

Humidity and temperature are tightly controlled in both rooms because IMAX frames are large enough to physically warp from moisture absorption, which can shift focus between scanning sessions.

Key takeaways

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Film and digital are not opposing workflows — virtually every IMAX film passes through both scanning and digital recording at some point in post-production.

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The single biggest bottleneck for filmmakers relying on IMAX film recording is the aging CRT supply chain; late creative decisions about effects can collide with real, immovable physical deadlines.

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Several groups are actively developing CRT replacements for film recording because no current technology matches CRT precision and reliability for frame-by-frame large-format exposure.

Notable quotes

“My joke is I got tired of watching paint dry. Grass grew too quickly for me, so I went into film recording.”

“Currently, we're running somewhere between a minute and 2 and a half minutes per frame. You thought 12 and a half seconds was slow.”

“25 years ago, somebody made this brilliant decision that has saved so many rolls of film.”

Worth watching?

✅

Worth watching the full video?

Watch if you want to actually see the machines in motion and hear Fred demonstrate threading, gate-pinning, and calibration live — the tactile details are genuinely surprising and the visual of a granite-bodied scanner is hard to appreciate from text alone.

Topics

AI & Tech Maker Culture

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