Masking... Just Do it!

[Jellyman]

Man, I got to pass this on to my fellow Avs'ers. I've spent over a year now with my 99% completed Theater room and very happy I must say. So I finally got around to some of the things I had neglected to do during initial construction. Last Friday I placed curtains around the screen and added a Masking system. Wow! I was amazed at the improvement and focus it gave to my 2:35 ratio movies. $7.00 dollars worth of material made several hundreds of dollars worth of improvement.

Just do it!

[CMRA]

Man, I got to pass this on to my fellow Avs'ers. I've spent over a year now with my 99% completed Theater room and very happy I must say. So I finally got around to some of the things I had neglected to do during initial construction. Last Friday I placed curtains around the screen and added a Masking system. Wow! I was amazed at the improvement and focus it gave to my 2:35 ratio movies. $7.00 dollars worth of material made several hundreds of dollars worth of improvement.

Just do it!

Amen, to that. Best yet is to build/install 2.35 screens and mask from the sides. Real theaters don't have pesky gray/black bars above and below the image, why should yours?

[BoomerBrian]

jelly, Post some pictures of the masking system please. :)

[steve68]

I'm all for installing a 16:9 screen. My screen is mounted on a wall that is only a few inches larger than 9 feet. My screen is almost 103 inches diagonal. That gives me a screen height of approximately 50 inches. If I had installed a 2.35 screen my max width would be same as my 16:9 screen (almost 90 inches), but my height would only be 38 inches. If I then masked that for 16:9 my diagonal would be only 77 inches. That's almost 26 inches less! or 24% less viewable area. Although the side curtains are easier I would rather have a larger overall screen. Granted my screen is probably too big for the wall that it is mounted.

Steve

[bud16415]

I'm all for installing a 16:9 screen. My screen is mounted on a wall that is only a few inches larger than 9 feet. My screen is almost 103 inches diagonal. That gives me a screen height of approximately 50 inches. If I had installed a 2.35 screen my max width would be same as my 16:9 screen (almost 90 inches), but my height would only be 38 inches. If I then masked that for 16:9 my diagonal would be only 77 inches. That's almost 26 inches less! or 24% less viewable area. Although the side curtains are easier I would rather have a larger overall screen. Granted my screen is probably too big for the wall that it is mounted.

Steve

Steve

You are the classic example (as I am) of a room that was width challenged. I didn’t stop where you did though I made a native 4:3 native constant width set up. 72x96 120 incher.

My logic was if I can view a huge 4:3 and not be bothered by SDE what difference would I see when cutting a 16:9 out of it.

People with wide rooms view the problem in a totally different light.

[steve68]

I completely agree with you. The funny thing is that when I first got my projector and put an image on the wall my wife says "can you make the screen bigger?" So I cranked it up and she said "that's better." So I was stuck with the huge image after that. Not only is my room width challenged, but it's probably an accoustic disaster. One edge of the ceiling is sloped, there is a huge vent box that runs from ceiling to floor at the back of one wall, and the ceiling at the rear of the room has a horrible gable thing that has at least 6 different facets of sheet rock. The wall that the screen is on has the door opening to the left that goes from the floor to the 10 foot ceiling. There is no door mind you just an opening. I plan on hanging a 10 foot tall curtain to block light from the room. Hopefully my sub wont have to work with the volume of the house on the other side of that curtain though. But with the screen justified towards one wall the front right speaker is forced to against that wall as well which is a complete no no. Oh well I don't plan on listening to music in the room.

Steve

[davidahn]

Hehe... classic debate ever since 16:9 TVs came out! I feel for the width challenged... If I had a room limiting my scope format to <120", I'd probably go with a 16:9 (or 1.85:1) screen, mask 4:3 material (ick; who wants to see THAT huge?), and zoom 2.35:1 to fill the height of 16:9 or 1.85:1, cutting the sides off. As much as I love scope format, I love huge screens, too. :)

But since I have all the width I need, I have to put my vote in for the other column. I'd prefer that the image get larger, not smaller, as I play better material. So for me, 2.35:1 CIH. Crappy 4:3 at 100", 16:9 at 120", 2.35:1 at 150". So... diff'rent strokes. :)

David

[Jeradin]

I am in the same boat with the 16:9 screen pref over 235:1.... so trying to design a good way to mask to 235:1 and 4:3.

Creating the masking...


Flash Masking (http://www.geetdesign.com/screen/)

My main frame without masking bars is going to be 2.5” all the way around, which will give me 16:9 screen 108”. My frame is going to be 58.5” high by 97.5 wide. With the HD1000 (vertical offset to the bottom of main frame), I have 13.5” of black bar at the top of the screen in 235:1 mode and 11” of black bars on each side in 4:3 mode.

I am thinking a few different ideas for masking to 4:3 and 235:1… I really like the magnets idea, but I don’t want to store the masking bars in my house, no place for them, so I want something that is already attached to the frame I am going to build.

One idea I am thinking would be to use a very light metal, aluminum maybe?… my thought would be for the top masking (to create 235:1) I would need five 2.5” x 97.5” and one 1” x 97.5” strips. I would make my velvet area have pockets for those strips to slide in, and sow them up. Then they could fold up to the main bar frame (2.5” size) and clip to the top some how.

So untie the top and the 6 folds would unfold to make the mask, maybe use magnets on the bottom strip to keep it close to the frame. Then the sides would be a similar setup, four 2.5” x 58.5” and one 1” x 97.5” strips on each side to cover the 11” needed covered.

I think this might be a nice clean look, depending how thick it makes the top and side bars… that is 6 folds of metal + double sided velvet, guessing it will be about .5 to 1” thick.

Any ideas on this way of masking?


Thanks!


Dale

[Clarence]

Here's my basic concept:

http://crtforum.com/img/screenmask.gif

The yellow bars in the illustration are iron/steel plates covered by black Fidelio (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8044804&&#post8044804) velvet, as are the moving and stationary panels.

The green dots are strong magnets (search ebay for "neodymium magnets").

Or get rid of the magnets and do a very simple counter-balanced pulley...

http://crtforum.com/img/screenmask4.gif

When you pull the top mask down, the bottom mask is automatically pulled up by an equal amount.

The second design would work well for me because I have speaker columns on the sides of my screen that the pulleys would be hidden by.

[Rudy81]

Well, I am happy to say I just finished my masking system which finally concludes the HT project. I put curtains up as well as acoustic absorbers last year. I have been thinking about the masking system for quite some time. My problem, I wanted to keep the price reasonable, the system simple to implement and something that would be relatively easy to put into place once you were ready to watch a movie.

I hit on the idea of a roller shade type of setup for the top mask and found a huge 10' roller shade at Lowe's. I used all the parts, cut the shade to the 9' I needed, 120" screen, and replaced the outdoor materal that came standard with velvet type cloth that matched my DIY frame covering. The top came out great! Easy to lower from the side of the screen and totally adjustable.

For the bottom, I used the bottom aluminum bar of the roller shade, and just wrapped the black velvet around the tube. Then, hang the tube to the sides of the screen at the required height. I just put it up when needed.

My plan was to keep it simple and low cost. The roller shade was $70. They do sell 8' shades as well.

[bdphoto]

How do you stop the top and bottom from moving once you have your mask size in place ? Do you use lite sticks. How close is the velvet to the screen. Do you have the velvet on the outside or the inside of the stick.

Bill

[causeofhim]

What things (examples) are in 16:9 format and what are in 2.35:1?

[Clarence]

What things (examples) are in 16:9 format and what are in 2.35:1?Most HDTV is in 16:9 (1.78:1).

Sometimes we get lucky and the HD movie channels show films in OAR without cropping the movie to 16:9.

Examples:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama2.html

Most DVDs are 1.85:1
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/DVDs/AspectRatios/

List of Movies in 2.35:1 (http://us.imdb.com/Sections/DVDs/AspectRatios/2.35_:_1/A)

[Chadci]

What is the best / only? method of masking a high power pull down screen? I wanted to go permwall but "due to budgetary cutbacks" had to do the pull down. I guess I can just raise and lower the screen?

[cubesys]

are there any DIY electric masking projects that anyone has seen. I am looking to mask vertically, from 16:9 to 2.35

thanks
Itai

[Andy0217]

Hi Cubesys,

Yes I have, check out my electric 1.85 - 2.35 masking system.

Cheers AJ

http://gallery.avsforum.com/showphoto.php/photo/24518/cat/506