IMAX has become a household name thanks to viral 70mm presentations like The Odyssey and Dune: Part Three. But the company has expanded beyond cinemas with a designation for at-home viewing. On Disney+, a growing number of movies carry the IMAX Enhanced label. Confusingly, IMAX Enhanced doesn't necessarily mean the best image or sound quality. Streaming services limit bitrate to prevent buffering, and this applies to IMAX Enhanced streams too. 4K or Ultra HD Blu-ray offers the highest bitrate, but not every movie gets the IMAX Enhanced label.

IMAX Enhanced is a certification for content and hardware devices in your home that promises a more premium media-watching experience. A movie with the label has gone through a Digital Media Remastering process to improve image quality. More importantly, IMAX Enhanced movies appear taller than regular counterparts. Most movies are presented in the wide 2.39:1 aspect ratio, but TVs almost universally have a 16:9 or 1.78:1 aspect ratio, often resulting in black bars. Films shot for IMAX typically have a taller aspect ratio. An IMAX Enhanced movie will therefore appear taller. On Disney+, IMAX Enhanced movies are presented in 1.90:1, so you'll still see more of the image.

The other major image-quality component is high dynamic range, or HDR, although some movies may also receive additional remastering from IMAX. HDR significantly improves color volume, contrast and brightness, but it's not unique to IMAX. IMAX Enhanced also claims to offer a "theater-quality" digital soundtrack. In practical terms, this will greatly vary depending on your audio setup. Turning on IMAX Enhanced requires your setup to support DTS: X spatial audio.

Many movies released in 4K Blu-ray disc form offer the expanded aspect ratio we've come to associate 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 any black bars. Disney is one of the few holdouts, though, where its physical releases typically don't get the expanded aspect ratio at all. For example, the 4K Blu-ray copy of Avengers: Endgame lacks the IMAX label and only offers a 2:39:1 image, even though it's otherwise the highest quality version available on the market. This means you realistically have to choose between the expanded aspect ratio that's available exclusively through the IMAX Enhanced stream on Disney+ versus the excellent detail that a 4K Blu-ray disc offers.