I Made DIY 2.40:1 Masking for My 1.85:1 Screen - Page 4

Here is something I found -I will have to try and take a pic of mine out in the light against something black.

I just finished up my velvet covered panels (made exactly as docprego did except I used spray adhesive - what a messy job that was).

All I can say is WOW! What a difference.

Such a dramatic improvement for so little investment.

I just finished my masks using blue Styrofoam from Lowes, 3M spray adhesive (safe for Styrofoam), SYFabrics black triple velvet, and self-adhesive velcro strips for attaching to the frame.

Result, picture taken during the day in my bonus room:



Here is the before picture. You can see the shadow on the lower right of the screen from the speaker. There is a decent amount of light leakage around my slightly too small 12' wide drape into the room right now. On my to-do list is to widen the drape another 1' on each of two panels.



Here is a picture of the full panel, from the back. I just sprayed on some adhesive, and folded the velvet over. I am going to touch up the adhesive in a couple places to tighten it up a bit, but it works well as is. You can see the light leaking around the edges of the drape. It is much worse in the center near the top, ala the shadow from the rear speaker on the right hand side.



And a detail of the velcro on the back. I just cut off a section, peeled the plastic backing off, and stuck to the back of the mask in the correct spot.

Riblet,

Is your velcro sticking to the outside of your frame then?

Masking system just sits inside the frame or does it go to the outer side?

Can we get a picture of the masking system in place with the lights on. and a close up.

I have a purchased screen, where the screen material is bordered by a sewn-on faux leather, a couple millimeter's thick. I cut a piece of the fuzzy part of the velcro and stuck it straight onto the faux leather frame. The mask panel sticks on the outside of the frame, with the end going well past the ends of the screen and border. It sticks out about 6" on each end. But that is the magic of Black Velvet. I can not see it, and I tried a few photo's, but you cant see the mask at all. It just disappears.

Here is a screen shot without the frame attached, hope it shows what you were looking for:

Yes it does as I am debating on my masking to just fit the inside of the screen or do like you did though your screen is flush with your border. My border sticks out a little compared to my screen. I will have to try a few things to see what I like.

Thanks!

Ok so I was playing with a masking system and noticed that when 16:9 my screen fills the screen equally but with my masking system if I just do inside of the screen the top is 4" and the bottom piece is roughly 5 1/4" any good reasoning on this?

Can anyone answer my quesiton above?

Maybe people aren't understanding the question. Are you saying your 2.40 source is not centering the image?

That could be it - basically my 16:9 source fills the screen. But when a 2.35 to 1 is showing the top black bar is a tad smaller than the bottom bar. I tested some DIY panels and the top one I had to cut down to 4" while the bottom one is 5 1/4" in height. I would think both would be the same - Does this make sense?

When I made my panel I measured a lot of movies and found there to be only 1/4" difference between the top and bottom bars on any given movie.

Could your 16:9 images actually be spilling over the edge of your screen so you dont see that the image is not dead center?

Not that I am aware of because if I shift the image up or down then you see the gray bar vs black area where it is no longer part of the image.

Well I finally did mine - not as clean as everyone elses but it works. The outer dimensions of my screen is 87" across so I just cut a 6" wide bord that length for the top/bottom piece and hung by nails. Like I said not the cleanest but with the lights out it works fine.
Watched my 1st 2:35 movie last weekend and thought it looked great.

I am planning to do mine soon, I have a Dalite Dasnap screen like Riblet above, so I'll have to do the velcro flush thing also. Thing is, I have a 147in HP screen, which is 10 and a half ft wide. If the foam only comes in 9ft lenghts, I'll have to splice it. Think maybe thin wood(yard stick thin... probably yard sticks lol) duct taped to the two pieces would hold it well enough? Asthetics won't matter as they'll be covered in velvet anyway. Storing them will be easy, I have black material all along the screen wall and ceiling, they'll blend right into the background standing against the wall.

I'll be going to Lowes tomorrow to see what they have in any case.

I like this idea... been thinking about doing this slightly different though, by doing this:

FLAPS!

Ah the wonders of the creative minds. I will try todo something this weekend, in preparation for Iron Man.

I use a sim2 ht380 and 141" 1.78 screen. When I didn't have my walls painted black, you couldn't notice any "black bars" as it all looked the same. Now 2.35 content definitely has gray bars...

Time to get rid of those somehow.

-ELmO

Elmo, take pics and let us know what you come up with!

I would like to do flaps but my top of my screen touches the ceiling so not quite as easy but possible.

I've also considered flaps of some sort. But the problem with that, is that some movies are 2.35:1, other 2.40:1 and a few other oddballs, not to mention HD content over the satalite usually has smaller black bars, etc, too many variables for only one set position.

Just made my 2.40 panels and must say what a huge difference, even the wife said so. I used the 1" rigid styrofoam which I cut same size as screen sprayed it with 3m adhesive and wrapped it in black felt, all for under $20 bucks. I also made two U shaped brackets for when not use I just slide em in there.

pics please?

I'm in the same situation, as the top of my screen is nly 2 inches away from the ceiling (!). Anyhow, you can just have the top flap rotate 90 degrees flat against the ceiling. No big deal...

I never thought about this, but I noticed several 2:40 movies place the captions (text) on the lower black 'bar'. So, if you mask, you won't see the text. how do people deal with this? !

That's the only real drawback... some people don't do it for that reason, others don't mind as much.

Not sure there is enough room with what I already use.

My screen is over 9 feet wide so I'm going to have to glue 2 of these boards together?

If they are covered in black velvet I doubt you'll notice them in a pitch black room. I can't with mine even when it's light out

My thoughts were, to glue 2 of the styrofoam boards together to get my correct width. At that point, the velvet would cover ita ll up.

Funny about the guy's yardstick post, i was considering it - but I don't actually use a screen - I use a white wall (surroudned by black paint). I don't want anything messing up my wall accidentally (since it's used as my screen too) - the velvet is probably soft enough. Any other ideas other than super gluing/duct taping the boards together then wrapping velvet around?







Here's how 2.35 content appeared BEFORE I painted the room black - you couldn't see any "black bars" because the wall was white!:


Pretty nifty side effect, but we're definitely losing the POP and ANSI.

I also don't have a ton of room (maybe only an inch) between the top of my screen - and ceiling - but no matter with this velcro option...

I'll see what I can rig up today if I have some time.

-ELmO