March 25 is going to be a big day for superhero movie buffs. It’s the opening of Batman v. Superman, the first time those characters have ever appeared together in a live-action movie. (It will also be the first feature-movie appearances of Wonder Woman and Aquaman.)

　　对超级英雄电影迷来说，3月25日是非常重要的一天。当天，影片《蝙蝠侠大战超人》将正式上映。这是DC漫画中许多人物首次在真人电影中共同出场(这也是神奇女侠和水行侠登场的第一部故事片)。

　　It’s a big movie, opening on 30,000 screens worldwide, in every format known to box-office humanity: 2D, 3D, 4DX, and IMAX 3D.

　　该片作为一部大制作影片，将在全球约3万个大银幕上映。影片的放映制式包括目前所有已知的制式：2D，3D，4DX和IMAX 3D。

　　You can read about the tech specs of IMAX on Wikipedia, but you know the basics: Filmmakers use a huge camera containing huge spools of film (or huge hard drives for digital video) to capture video that projects onto really huge screens.

　　你能够在维基百科上了解到IMAX的一些技术细节，但至少应了解其基本的内容：电影拍摄者使用含成轴胶卷的摄像机(或用大容量的硬盘存储数码图像)捕捉影像，并将其投放到巨大的屏幕上。

　　In the old days, you’d see 40-minute IMAX nature movies at science museums. These days, IMAX is a way to get people out of their home theaters and into real theaters to see big-budget blockbuster movies on enormous screens with unbelievable resolution.

　　以前，你在科学博物馆看到的长度为40分钟介绍自然知识的电影采用的就是IMAX技术。近年来，由于IMAX的存在，人们放弃了家庭影院，走进电影院，在大屏幕上欣赏那些耗费巨资，清晰得令人难以置信的大片。

　　To celebrate the opening of Batman v. Superman (and to scratch a few curiosity itches of my own), I recently spoke with Brian Bonnick, the chief technology officer of IMAX, to talk about the technology.

　　近日，笔者为了庆祝《蝙蝠侠大战超人》的上映(同时也为满足笔者本人的一点好奇心)，同IMAX的首席技术官布莱恩邦尼克谈论了这项技术。

　　David Pogue: Is IMAX still that gigantic-format film and those gigantic cameras?

　　笔者:“IMAX技术仍然意味着成堆胶卷和巨大的摄像机吗?”

　　Brian Bonnick: Actually, it’s changed like you wouldn’t believe.

　　邦尼克：“实际上，这项技术已发生了令人难以相信的改变。”

　　The film-based projectors haven’t really changed a whole lot. They got better and a little bit cheaper, but in their core design, they didn’t really change.

　　以胶卷为基础的放映机本身并未发生天翻地覆的改变，只是性能更佳，造价更低，其核心设计却并未产生任何变化。

　　But we moved over to digital [in 2008], and that’s gone through multiple iterations. We’re constantly updating the computers powering the systems. They’ve become more and more powerful, which means that we can do more things with it.

　　但是在2008年，我们开始使用数码放映机，并经历了多次的更新换代。我们一直对支持放映机的计算机进行更新，计算机的功能越来越强，能实现的事越来越多。

　　Recently, we launched our laser projection system — a ground-up development of a next-generation system utilizing lasers.

　　我们最近开始使用激光放映系统--这是新时代激光系统一次全新的发展。

　　Most of the other players out there use laser illumination as a way to improve brightness. That’s great. But we were trying to address three key problems that plague digital projectors: lack of brightness, lack of contrast, and lack of sharpness.

　　其他大多数的放映公司使用激光照明技术提高图像的亮度。这非常棒。但是我们一直试着解决困扰数码放映机的三大难题：亮度较低，对比度较差，清晰度不足。

　　This all tied back to the prism. The light bounces into this prism and bounces off of three chips to create the red, blue, and green pixels. But now you’ve got this stray light hitting each of these chips. That degrades the image contrast quite a bit.

　　问题的关键在棱镜身上。光线照射到棱镜上，反射到3个芯片上形成红色，蓝色和绿色像素。如今在数码放映机中，光线会直接照射到各个芯片上，降低了图像的对比度。

　　So we threw away the prism. We incorporated what we call a frame design. Instead of having these chips mounted to a chunk of glass, we mounted them to a frame in the right positions. By removing the glass, we got rid of any cross-reflection, so our contrast took a giant jump upwards.

　　于是我们干脆拿掉了棱镜，引入了我们称之为镜框设计的技术。我们不再将芯片固定在玻璃之上，而是在合适的位置安装镜框。拿掉了玻璃，交叉反射的现象得以避免，图像的对比度有了巨大的飞越。

　　And then, by going with this open frame, we use invar [a nickel-iron alloy], one of the most thermally stable materials on the planet. So while we still have expansion and contraction, all of the components expand and contract at the same rate relative to one another. Combined with changes to the optics of the system and our own custom designed lenses, we are getting unbelievably sharp images on the screen. In my opinion, it now exceeds that of what used to be the world benchmark, which was IMAX 15/70 film.

　　后来我们使用了这个星球上一类热稳定性最高的材料--因瓦合金(一种镍铁合金)制作镜框。于是哪怕仍存在热胀冷缩的现象，所有的部件发生这一现象的比率都是相同的。再加上光学系统和特制透镜的改变，清晰度的提高令人难以置信。我认为，如今的图像质量甚至超过了当年全世界的行业基准--IMAX 15/70。

　　We use dual projectors. One of the artifacts that all digital projectors have is the “screen-door effect,” which is where you see the little black lines between the pixels. The dual-projector system immediately cuts that down 50%.

　　我们现在采用复式放映机来放映电影。所有数码放映机都会产生一样人工瑕疵--“纱门效应”，这一效应会导致像素间产生细小的黑线。复式放映系统一经问世便减少了一半这样的瑕疵。

（编辑：何莹莹）