pics

Yeah, I like vinyl too. But digital to analog conversion is always imperfect. I don't see that being too fitting for an IMAX cinema, where the aim is just biggest and best, no niche. Aesthetic imperfections are more fitting for arthouse and such I think.

However, I read into it some more now and it's quite interesting. In the case of Oppenheimer, they actually do manage to avoid the digital conversion for much of the film!

For movies shot on film, all of the film negatives are scanned to digital files so that they can be edited using AVID, and the process continues as before. The finished movie can then be "printed" back on to physical film using a laser scanner, which is how most film prints are made these days. However, some filmmakers like Christopher Nolan refuse to use this method, because it doesn't allow you to take full advantage of the resolution of IMAX film. So in Nolan's case, once the movie is finished, an Edit Decision List (EDL) is created, which contains a text list of all the edit points in the film, and which physical pieces of film negative those correspond to. Then, a person called a Negative Cutter actually physically cuts together and assembles the film negative to create the movie in the analog realm. It's a very specialized profession - there are only one or two people in Hollywood that still do it!