Guide29 July 2026

What is IMAG, and when do you actually need it?

IMAG stands for image magnification. It means putting live cameras on a big screen so the people at the back of the room can see what is happening at the front. It is not the same as live streaming, though the two are often delivered together and often confused in briefs.

The difference in one line

A live stream is for people who are not there. IMAG is for people who are.

That distinction changes the whole production. A stream can carry a few seconds of latency and nobody notices. IMAG cannot, because the audience can see the stage and the screen at the same time and any delay between them is immediately obvious and deeply irritating.

When you need it

The rough rule is distance. Past about fifteen to twenty metres from the stage, a face stops being readable. Anything with an audience deeper than that benefits from screens.

More specifically:

• ·Any outdoor event with a crowd. Sightlines outdoors are worse than people expect and crowds are wider than they are deep.
• ·Conferences over about three hundred people. At that size the back third of the room is watching a distant figure.
• ·Anything where detail matters. Awards, where you want the reaction. Demonstrations, where you want the hands. Music, where you want the performance rather than a silhouette.
• ·Anything with a presentation. Slides need to be legible from the back row, and that usually means screens.

What it involves

Cameras, a vision mixer with a director cutting live, and screens with a processor driving them. If you are also streaming, the same camera feeds can serve both, but the outputs are different and the cut is sometimes different too.

Screens themselves are either LED panels or projection. LED works in daylight, projection does not. That single fact decides most outdoor jobs.

More on IMAG production and what IMAG costs.