Tease, new cylindrical lens.

Yes, we'll be happy with the design, we just won't be happy with the price. We are in the UNDER $3000 projector forum, after all. But maybe some of the technology will trickle down to us eventually.

Jim

Hope to see more info.

Alan, for you to be posting this in 'this' forum I would image you are thinking the available pricing will be appropriate to those budgets of buyers in this forum. The challenge is now on you, sir.

These kind of lenses were developed for people who wanted to show a widescreen image but had a lot invested in equipment designed for the aspect ratio of 35mm film. So if you owned a chain of suburban or rural movie theaters you could convert them all to widescreen with just three things: wide screens, these lenses, and a movie industry that made movies with complementary distorting lenses on the cameras.

I don't know about you but I don't own a chain of movie theaters. Given the state of the economy and the movie industry - that's a good thing.

The whole country moved to 1.78 widescreen and digital TV just last year. This kludgy lens distortion solution is obsolete and embarrassing. It's the sort of thing that some people still do in Hi Fi: tube amplifiers and moving coil cartridges playing vinyl LPs through folded horn speakers.

It's a matter of taste I suppose. I used to watch carpentry shows on TV. There was Norm Abrams who showed you how to make a chair worth dozens of dollars using equipment that cost thousands. Or you could watch Roy Underhill who made a chair by first going into the woods and finding a good tree. Then he would work on it with his 19th century hand tools.

It's matter of taste to be sure but here the quaint old fashion technology is also the ridiculously expensive technology.

This is fantastic news. The second best thing I did to capture the feel of the theater at home (first was a projector) was to add an anamorphic lens for scope movies.

+1.

It's good to see more lenses becoming available, and especially a cylindrical at this price point. Well done Prismasonic!

Looking forward to the reviews.

Gary

I don't get the anamorphic stuff with 1080p projectors.

They say one of the main advantages is the "extra resolution"... but the film is on the blu-ray disc at 816 pixels tall... what the heck do you get by scaling that 816 pixels into 1080?

With a lens, you use all 1080 lines of vertical resolution by scaling up the 810 source lines and removing the black bars from the 2.35 image. Then the lens corrects the geometry. If you sit close enough to your (2.35) screen, at similar distances to those in a commercial theatre, you can see pixels. The lens removes the visibility and allows closer seating distances and a more immersive viewing experience.

Unfortunately, you need to do the comparison to see the benefit of a lens, and with the pricing of lenses, not many get the chance to do that.

Gary

the chip in the projector is a 16x9 chip, when use 2.35 material, the top and bottom portion of the chip in not being used. When you stretch the image and you use lens, you use 100% of the chip and that is why you get the full resolution

if this hit the market with price avg. 500-700$ nothing can beat it in a pack with Epson 8350...

Native Cinemascope projector vs. anamorphic adapter

While we await projectors with Cinemascope aspect ratio, we receive news of an adapter that looks good. Just as native 2.40 projectors get set to beat the drums for the next band-wagon, we get a photo of an anamorphic adapter. The thing looks mature and it's under $3,000.

Projectors with native 2.40 aspect ratio will occupy high-end of price scale, and plenty of projectors can use an adapter, if you have vertical stretch and the price is right.

Gosh, what to do. What to do. Get rid of prisms and buy new adapter, or save up to buy a projector with native 2.40 aspect ratio.

But you are just upscaling, what is the point. There is no added resolution.

Sometimes you just can't get enough. Skies the limit with this stuff. Reading is believing. :-)

How about adding brightness? If portions of the panel are left unused in the form of black bars then the area isn't available for producing light on the screen.

Amongst other things, it allows closer seating distances in a Constant Image Height set up (2.40:1 screen).

Gary

Buy a brighter projector.

Mask your screen, run a htpc, use a projector with good black levels. Boom, 2.35 for 1/10th the lens.

In theory, but it doesn't shrink the horizontal size of the pixels so I don't see how.

The field of view is huge at my local cinema and they are using 1080p projectors. No SDE for me.

It's not theory. Those who sit close enough and do the comparison with a lens choose the lens if they can afford it. SDE and pixel visibility are two different things.

If you sit as close as you do in a commercial theatre (the geometric center of the seating area gives you something like a 50 degree viewing angle for scope) then you will be sitting at around 2.4 x the image height. That gives you a 40 degree viewing angle for 16:9. It's what people like THX recommend for optimal viewing angle:

http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-ent...r/hdtv-set-up/




If you're sitting at 40 degrees and then zoom the image for scope so you're at around 52 degrees (CIH), the pixels become 33% larger and more visible. With LCoS it's less of a problem than with LCD or DLP, but if you use an A lens with scaling rather than zooming, you reduce pixel visibility and increase pixel density. It's the main reason people go the lens route - some people sit even closer than that and then SDE does become a problem.

There are pros and cons for both lens and zooming, you just have to pick what works for you and what your pocket can afford.

HTH

Gary

Did you mean pixel size.


I see what you are saying. But considering these lenses cost more than almost all the projectors discussed in this forum, I don't see the benefit.

8500ub and a lens(and video processor maybe)

Or a higher end jvc for the same price. I know what I'm choosing. I will just mask the screen.

If you watch SD material and zoom on a 1080 display you'll see what I mean by pixel visibility - if you zoom it bigger, it becomes more visible, how visible and how much that becomes an 'image artefact' depends on the seating distance and projector technology being used. It's still an issue with HD and zooming (if you sit close enough), but it all depends on seating distance.

Not many people (especially those new to projectors and home theatre) realise how close they sit in a commercial theatre, and quite often sit a lot further back with their home set ups. THX consider a 36 degree viewing angle to be the back row (3.7 x the image height distance), yet many people sit further back than that. They're happy because the image is much larger than their tv, but they're still a long way back from the screen compared to the cinema.

In this forum I can see why some people would be against going for a lens (it can definitely a case of diminishing returns, especially if it costs more than the pj), but they don't have to be expensive if you're patient and look around on the second hand market. You can find some good lenses at good prices - I picked up an ISCO II for $800 in the classifieds here, and found one even cheaper on another forum in the UK. People tend to keep the lens and upgrade the projector if they have a good one (some lenses are better than others).

If you have a set up that you're happy with then that's great, but not everybody sits in the same place and/or has the same preferences. One mans meat is another mans poison.




After going 2.35:1 I couldn't go back to 16:9, and after using a lens, I couldn't go back to zooming. Sometimes though ignorance is bliss - so if a lens is not on your list of priorities (and you don't sit so close that it's necessary), don't demo one, just in case you see the improvements and want one. I know a few people that's happened to..

Gary

I might be mistaken on this but if the chip is 1920x1080 and you are using only portion of the chip, then you arent getting the full resolution possible. I dont understand know what you mean by upscaling in this case. We arent upscaling a BR image. If the image from BR is coming in at 1920x1080p but you arent using 1920x1080 from the chip, you arent displaying 1920x1080. Its only when you use the full capacity of the 1920x1080 chip that you are seeing 1920x1080. In any case, check out the 2.35 forum and ask them, those guys are the experts. I have gone through this since craziness since we were using these lenses to convert 4x3 projectors into 16x9 and at this point, i think I confused myself

Hi Dan,

When a Blu Ray has a scope movie on it, the 16:9 image encodes around 810 lines for the movie, and the rest are black bars. If you have a scope screen, you have to either zoom the image larger to fill the screen, or vertically stretch the image (scaling) to remove the black bars, and then use a lens to horizontally stretch the image wider to restore the geometry.

I first went 'scope' around 2004, and have both zoomed and used lenses since (first lens in 2005 IIRC since zooming wasn't ideal with 720 back then).

Gary

I just think it's a case of diminishing returns especially in the cheapo forum. I don't see why the purists would want to scale their image at all. 816p is 816p, no matter what you scale it to. Insure they are cool to have, but we are broke up in here.

Perhaps he intentionally made his post in the <$3k section because he already has an idea of pricing. Do you think all the "purists" were watching DVDs on 100+" screens at 480p and not scaling them to higher resolutions before BD? It's naive to dismiss equipment that can aid the HT experience simply because it may not fit in your budget.