Founded at Ontario’s University of Waterloo, SSIMWAVE’s technology has improved the viewer experience of more than 150 million subscribers over billions of viewing hours to date. Its technology is protected with 50 patents and patents pending globally. SSIMWAVE has won a Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award (2020) and a Primetime Emmy® Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering (2015). SSIMWAVE was also honored as a Best New Streaming Technology winner in the NAB Show Product of the Year Awards in both 2022 and 2021.
“SSIMWAVE boasts a brilliant team of engineers, technologists, and academics obsessed with image quality and on the leading edge of Ontario’s thriving tech community; the similarities between this company and IMAX when we acquired it nearly 30 years ago are uncanny,” continued Gelfond. “We look forward to scaling SSIMWAVE’s business and taking it in never-before-imagined directions around the world just as we did with IMAX’s game-changing projection technology.”
The acquisition builds on IMAX’s cross-platform expansion with IMAX Enhanced, which brings The IMAX Experience(R) to streaming entertainment with IMAX-exclusive expanded aspect ratio, digitally remastered content, and signature sound. More than 200 IMAX Enhanced titles are available across streaming platforms worldwide, including Disney+, and more than 10 million IMAX Enhanced certified devices are in the market today.
Under the terms of agreement, IMAX acquired SSIMWAVE for $18.5 million in cash and $2.5 million in stock with additional earnout consideration of $4 million, subject to achieving certain operating performance and financial objectives.
For more information, please visit the IMAX Investor Relations website.
About SSIMWAVE
SSIMWAVE’s Video Experience Automation Platform brings the power of the human eye to entire video delivery chains to help streaming services assess video quality at scale, minimize quality drop-offs, and reduce distribution expenses and video assurance costs. Its SSIMPLUS® suite of products – Live Monitor, VOD Monitor and Video Quality (VQ) Dial – have also helped the streaming industry address hard-to-solve problems such as banding, A/V sync issues, HDR content distribution, and low-quality sources. SSIMWAVE technology has earned multiple Emmy® Awards as well as an NAB Product of the Year Award.
About IMAX Corporation
IMAX, an innovator in entertainment technology, combines proprietary software, architecture, and equipment to create experiences that take you beyond the edge of your seat to a world you’ve never imagined. Top filmmakers and studios are utilizing IMAX theaters to connect with audiences in extraordinary ways, and, as such, IMAX’s network is among the most important and successful theatrical distribution platforms for major event films around the globe.
IMAX is headquartered in New York, Toronto, and Los Angeles, with additional offices in London, Dublin, Tokyo, and Shanghai. As of June 30, 2022, there were 1,694 IMAX theater systems (1,610 commercial multiplexes, 12 commercial destinations, 72 institutional) operating in 87 countries and territories. Shares of IMAX China Holding, Inc., a subsidiary of IMAX Corporation, trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code “1970.”
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