CIA: Constant Image Area - Page 8

Maybe maybe not. A movie marathon starts at about 10PM and runs through to 5am, so many bring pillows and have a sleep in the middle somewhere meaning that they ususlaly miss the intermissuion. If they do go, they usually send a group to the candy bar and leave someone (or a few) to mind their seats - IE they don't want to change their seats


Yes they do. These events are held in 3 to 4 differen multi plexes around my city. A ticket cost around $30 and that is for 3 (and sometimes 4) films. All 35mm with varing Aspect ratios. The last film of the night is usually something that is or has just come out on video. And out of the 15 or so cinemas in this city (all have between 8 to 16 screens), just 1 complex (8 screens) is CIW, one screen of another complex is CIW, the rest are all CIH.

Jeff, do you have four-way or two-way masking? And is the masking motorised or manual? I'm interested in hearing about the factors you considered.

Jeff,
How are you doing your masks?

Scott

Mark,

My apologies. I was not trying to quote you literally, and certainly did not intend any offense. No, you did not actually state your position as I wrote it. (I wrote it as I perceived the message CIH proponents were sending.)

I was attempting (unsuccessfully it seems) to present a hypothetical, humorous "skit" to indicate what I thought the whole thread boils down to----not all people share the same likes, dislikes, or opinions; and proponents on both sides of the debate can be adamant about their positions. I will edit my post to make it clear that it is satire.

Again, my apology for giving anyone the mistaken impression I was quoting you directly.

Ron

*2nd note to self----better do more work/prep on humor delivery!*

I've kept an eye on this debate. Stayed out of it on purpose. But FWIW, although maybe not completely on target, I thought your summary was pretty humorous (took it as some fun-poking anyway). .

Cheers,
Scott

Ron, I agree about this being funny...your post made it clear that we sound like school children. I had to back off and not let emotion make me say sarcastic stuff (like I tend to so, sorry).

It really is amusing that we would get this upset about who tries what, when most of us have never met and will never see the others HT...at least we lack nothing in passion (that's the forum for you).

OK...the masking:

This would take lots more typing than I want to do now, but I'll start by saying it's real easy if your screen isn't torus, still not bad with a single curve...but harder.

I would never be able to do auto masking. Way too much money and would take up much more space and equipment. All my suggestions are DIY.

Think about the side masks, they're easy. All you need is a straight edge on the inner or image side. Once you go farther out than that, you can have wrinkles, etc. and they won't show. Black velvet (JoAnn Fabric) either loose hanging like a curtain or spray glued to a solid back would work fine. Remember, the masks aren't that wide. My biggest issue was what to do with them when they are open. I went the curtain route, with a 1" piece of Lowe's steel as the inner straight edge. This is the only place it is glued. I used steel because my side masks need to hold a slight vertical curve (torus). On my 10.5' wide screen, there is less than 1' mask on either side, so I just fix the material to the outer side of my frame (back around the corner where it can't be seen in front.) When closed for TV, the material is pulled tight, it needs no support at the top as it doesn't sag over 10-11". When open, the straight edge is simply moved to the edge of the frame, becoming the border of the WS, and 10" of velvet falls loosely to the sides. I don't try to hide it any more than that, and it looks very nice.

The top and bottom masks are way harder with the curve, but remember, even with a 10.5x5' screen, these masks are 10.5' long, but only have to cover 3" each at the top and bottom. My prob is the curve, and my old solution involved bending steel conduit and covering with velvet. I may still do that, but I needed much bigger masks on the 16x9 screen 'cause I had to cover more area top and bottom when I put a movie in than I will now...I'm looking for something more elegant, and here am open to suggestions.

For no curve, any material that won't sag over the width of your screen will do, just cover with velvet. Remember, only the image side needs to be straight...and the height is very minimal. But to be elegant they need to look good in both positions. If my screen was flat, I would just manually move the 4 corners up or down 3" (my old setup used velcro but use whatever works best and shows least). So the same edge is the border top and bottom for any screen size, whether it is 10.5' by 3-4" of loose material or 10.5' by 3-4" of solid velvet covered something.

This may sound like a lot of work, but my old setup took all of 15-20 seconds to move, and think how much extra space any sort of mechanism to auto-move it would take. The auto masking is only "more professional looking" to the audience if it is important to you to have the audience watch the masking move. But to just see the HT screen with the masks already in either position, the manual way can be made much more attractive. Look at any commercial 4 way masking and you'll see what I mean...its very bulky. Auto side-only is much easier (but still money I wouldn't spend, I don't want my guests to see the movie setup, just the movie).

OK, here I'm making this up as I go, thinking out loud. I may still use conduit. It holds its line better over length and can be curved, although I'm considering cutting a curve from wood. Somewhere there is a member that made a curved screen this way and I thought I could adapt his idea with a solid 4" masonite, plastic, luan plywood, quality cardboard, etc covered with velvet.

I'm still working in it, but the point is, with CIA (Oh God, there's that term again) the top and bottom masks are very thin...just long...but easy to move.

If it takes me more than 90 seconds at a relaxed pace to change everything (stretch on PJ, move lens, move masks) I'll be amazed. If I factor in the money saved on auto masking, that's a lot I earn with each manual switch.

...its a work in progress. I don't have time to type this much each time, but over the next week or 2, I should have it done and will try to post some pics.

You yourself had made a comment about "where ever they could get a seat", so yes, once they have their ideal seats, they're not going to just give them up.




Australia is about the same size as the US and I am not sure how much traveling you have done around your country, but I have traveled from coast to coast of mine and therefore seen cinemas from various cities. The only CIWs I have seen as in Brisbane and Townsville. All of the other cites that have BCC, Hoyts, Greater Union and Pacific are ALL CIH which includes Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Darwin and a heap of smaller complexes in bewteen.

Interestingly enough, whilst the majority of cinemas are CIH with a few that are CIW, there are NONE that are CIA.

I don't have anything but CIH theaters around here (with the exception of the old theaters like the Michigan in Ann Arbor).

Art

All I have to say is this [see attachment].

Where would the fun be for everyone posting it back on page 1?

Did I say some place that it did ?

Art

In the quote above you acted like my comment had no validity since it didn't compromise more theaters.

My staff right now is calling every commercial theater in southern Michigan and northern Indiana (they've been at it since Monday) We have a talley at this point and it is nothing like the THX and I'm not sure why. So far 297 screens only eight are not constant height.Of course we still have a long way to go but it would be odd to see this proportion change much.

Art

In the more modern multiplexes near me, they have 8 to 10 screens each, and it seems that only one or two of the screens within them are CIH and they're used for the newly released movies. After that they go into one of the CIW screens to make way for another new release in the main screen. Although in these cases the ratio of CIH to CIW may be in favour of CIW, they seem to want to show the newest movies on their best screen(s) which also have the most seats. More screens overall means more movies and more revenue.

Something I've found is that the people who seem to want 16:9 CIW or CIA to be the 'best' way to show movies are generally those that cannot go wider in their set ups so are limited by their rooms to a 16:9 set up. They'll tell you how bad it is for various reasons and supply you with links that don't actually say what they want them to say, and many of them have never seen or tried a scope set up so generally are in no position to comment either way. They also tend to ignore the fact that people are actually doing it and are sitting at 1 x sw or in some cases closer (they tell them they're doing it wrong or sitting too close because THX recommends 40 degrees for HDTV in the home for example). If it was as bad as they want it to be, people wouldn't be doing it.

The guy with the blog is room limited to 16:9 by the way.

It doesn't really matter if not all cinemas are CIH, the fact is scope was designed to be wider than 16:9. If it wasn't why go to all the added expense of building them? Just because they're not all CIH doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't replicate the original intent of scope in our homes if we can, and there's absolutely no reason, technical or otherwise that we shouldn't if we're able and want to.

I guess these people with little or no experience know better than people like Dennis Erskine who installs them, or Art who has gone from one of the best systems on the planet to a scope one.

Just what are you guys thinking??

Gary

Because Blu-ray only supports square pixels and doesn't support the requisite 2560x1080 for square pixel 2.35:1.


DVD had exactly the same relative resolution between 16x9 and 2.35:1 as Blu-ray.

8 in 297 is 2.7%... this sounds about right Art. I have spoken with a few collegues around the world about this and whilst there are a 'few' CIA screens out there... and let's underline 'a few' a couple of hundred times, it's nothing like that kid is making out.

I've seen more CIW cinemas, and the amount of those do not even register against all the CIH screens I've seen.

228 posts? Lilgaytor needs to get off his front porch from time to time and experience 'other cinemas'

That doesn't apply to me, fwiw. I'm neither width limited nor unfamiliar with CIH set ups (having experienced several from Epson/JVC RS20/Panamorph set ups to Marantz flagship/ISCO III CIH set ups).

Sometimes I love being immersed in the image, but I always find there is some level of trade-off, image quality-wise, so other times I'll go for a somewhat smaller image.

I've experienced other cinemas and still find there are good reasons behind why someone may wish to go with a CIA, or other approach, over CIH.
(Not that there is anything wrong with CIH, which is great in it's own way too).

If one is not dogmatic, these points might be acknowledged, as some CIH devotees already have done.

So why was CinemaScope introduced if not to provide a W I D E R image that could be stored on the same 35mm print stock?

Regardless, the clue is in your own reply.

Directors only care that it's seen in it's original format, and that's not necessarily wider than flat, but scope was originally designed to be wider and unlike some modern theaters I don't have to worry about getting more bums on seats by compromising the presentation so I'll ensure it's done how it should be.

Sit where you like, and watch what you like how you like, but as this is a home theater forum I thought the idea was to try and emulate a commercial theater where possible. For me personally that isn't making my 16:9 HDTV bigger, it's replicating the cinemascope presentation. It's what I had in my last theater and it'll be what I'll have in my next. Why go back when you can go forward? Who has a 4:3 tv these days?


You're the one who seems to be dictating and telling us how things are or are not meant to be seen.


I don't care what you or anyone else wants to do, but after having tried scope I can't go back to 16:9 again.

BTW, if you're 16:9 image is too small, you're sitting too far away. And what are you doing in the 2.35:1 forum if you think it's such a poor choice? Or are you telling us your method is better? better for you maybe, but not necessarily better for anyone else, and certainly not better for me.

Gary

I have 12 posts because I work hard running my company. I own a screen manufacturing company in Australia, but what would I know hey : ) I know who's lacking, I know who maxed out his 1.78 screen image in his tiny room, and it ain't me!

Myself, I quite like my 135 inch scope screen which gives me a 107 inch 16:9 image at 3.5-5.5 metres.

I do understand what you're trying to acheive, I really do. I just think there's a right way to do things, and there are some odd and different ways to do things such as CIA... It doesn't make you wrong, it's just 'not right' in my professional opinion. You don't like my opinion because I don't agree with you. You can dig up all the posts you want, that cameraman is way off the mark.

However, some cinemas do show their (few) 16:9 films in smaller theatres, simply because they reserve the 'blockbuster movies' for the larger CIH theatres where $30,000 A lenses are in place. What we have here are called Senstadium cinemas. Most blockbuster movies are in cinemascope format - which is why we actually go to the movies to begin with, right?
I don't go to the movies knowing in advance the film will be 235 CIH, I go because I want to see the film, it just happens, like I said, that most decent 'cinema worthy' films are in scope.

Regardless though of what cinema is showing what movie, I have seen about two 1.78 movies in the past 12 months out of perhaps 20+ movies, the rest, you guess it were in scope and the cinemas were all indeed CIH.

Don't get upset when people in the industry and abroad don't agree with you ok.

Let me ask you this then, if there were no scope films out there, how big is 'big enough' for your 16:9 screen? And what if scope came along later and gave you a 33% wider image again, would you then be unhappy with your 16:9 image? The very image that you had been viewing all those years?

The simple fact remains, scope is MEANT TO BE WIDER. One can still have an immersive 16:9 image if it's done right. Your room, by the sound of it is restricted by width. No?

I wish all films were in scope.. but I have my 16:9 image perfect and like 99% of us, we're happy with what the pros have given us and we choose not to tamper with it.

Mark, it should be obvious by now that is a very narrow view of the issue, for the reasons often presented in these discussions.

If you really want to go back to original intentions of the format, it came with expectations also of how movies were going to be shot for Cinemascope: the inventors intended there be little camera movement and fewer edits, as one rational was that all the camera movement had only been necessary in narrower ARs. The CinemaScope frame allowed for a more live-theater-like experience where the actors would inhabit the frame more like a stage and, more like real life, your eye would do the scanning between them (instead of camera moves or cutting) and be directed via the dramatic interest, lighting etc.

However, as happens with most technologies, the original rational does not rule what is done with the technology as more people use it. Most CinemaScope movies are not shot as envisioned by the makers of CinemaScope. Yet I presume you don't have any problem, or guilt, enjoying all those CinemaScope movies which diverge from that original intent.

Likewise, CinemaScope images were intended for projection on VASTLY larger screens than the (relatively) teeny one you use at home. This was just as crucial to the original rational of the CinemaScope experience as simply being wider than the standard academy format. Yet this disparity with the original rational for CinemaScope does not seem to stop you from thinking you are reproducing the original intent of CinemaScope. (And if you wish to retort that CinemaScope is based only on a viewing angle relationship vs narrower ARs - "as long as I'm sitting so I get the intended viewing angle I'm experiencing the original intent" - then you end up necessarily implying that someone with their face stuck close to a scope movie playing on their 20 inch monitor is experiencing CinemaScope as it's makers intended....which would be silly of course).

If you choose to focus on only one aspect of image presentation - "wider" - then you are going to miss relevant points to this discussion.

We both want to re-create an element of cinema-going. You want to re-create the operation of a CIH theater, in how scope films are presented; I want to re-create the choice of immersion I've always experienced in going to the movies, be it choosing the cinema with the bigger screen, or sitting closer or farther depending on the film I'm viewing. I acknowledge the legitimacy of your choice; I don't know why you seem to have problem acknowledging the legitimacy of mine.

I'm a scope-format lover myself, but at least I like to keep some perspective.


That strikes me as a phenomenally narrow view of cinema you have there. There is a vast library of "cinema-worthy" film not shot in scope. And there is a large crap-to-good ratio of movies shot on scope these days.


That sounds lovely. I could have a screen up to 154" of viewable screen width. So if you are happy I doubt you'd consider me width limited.

The reason I'm going with a variable image size set up with 4 way masking is not based on inadequacy, so that route of taunting won't work with everyone.


Speaking of "right and wrong" you don't seem aware that, from the THX recommended standards of home cinema presentation, your current set up is "wrong." THX recommends a maximum viewing angle of 40 degrees, based on the limitations of Blu Ray high-def resolution. Your quoted screen size/viewing distance is much closer than THX spec recommended.

I'm not going to call your set up "wrong," because I'm sure it looks great and you enjoy it. But you invite these issues when you toss around the word "right and wrong" in judging other people's rational.


That is simply to ignore the issues brought up in the forum quite a number of times: what I've described as The Comparison Effect. Many attempt to follow the advice of basing their CIH set up on a "satisfying" 16:9 size/height, the received wisdom being that in doing so, going CIH is all gravy because you'll simply get an even more impressive scope image. But this advice is to ignore the comparison effect, where once you set up a larger image (scope) to constantly compare to your 16:9 image, it's going to make the 16:9 feel relatively less impactful than it otherwise would. Some claim to be immune to this issue, but it crops up all the time on this forum. As I've pointed out, Art is hardly screen-size-challenged and has a 16:9 image far bigger than most of us. And yet he started a thread to exclaim how, once he'd introduced a larger scope image his 16:9 image size didn't seem satisfying anymore.

I found this to be the case too, in my own experiments with CIH in my home (using zoom method). A retort of "well, I'm happy" does not erase the fact of this issue for other people. Sure most are still happy with CIH over CIW (every set up involves a compromise of some sort), but others like me want to ensure a sense of immersion, impact and satisfaction (not dictated by the AR) no matter what movie we choose to watch.

I'm varying the image size, just like choosing a bigger theater to see a movie in, or sitting further or closer in the theater, as I've been able to do my entire movie-going life. If someone is still going to say "that is wrong" he is being very narrow minded (and not a tenable position to argue, either: it amounts to saying you should not be able to choose which theater you attend or which seat you feel most comfortable in).