Why CIH??--Why not CIW??

there are a few threads regarding the merits of scope and what not, and most here seem to agree that scope was the biggest cinematic experience. me personally, i prefer CIW with masking. to each their own but there are positives and negatives for both.

Here are a couple of threads with a similar CIH vs CIW discussion:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1261657

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1287699


My stock answer: The reason to go with CIH, even if you can fit a larger 1.85 screen in your room, is to make scope movies bigger compared to 1.85 movies. For the most part, directors intend scope to be bigger/wider than 1.85 (IMAX is a notable exception). If you have the largest scope screen that can fit in your room and 1.85 still looks too small, move your seating closer until 1.85 looks big. At that point, scope will look really big. That's the intended impact of CIH. A lot of people have been conditioned to watch in CIW. Once they see a CIH setup, a lot of them will be shocked in a good way. Of course, some will still prefer CIW, but hopefully the reasoning behind CIH makes sense.

So forget all this talk about what's the natural shape of your field of view and which aspect ratio approximates it best, and the shape of your room. The real questions to answer are: do you think scope should be bigger than 1.85? Do you have the budget to do CIH*? If you answer no to either, then CIW is probably your best bet.


* If you're happy with LCD, LCOS, then you can get into the CIH game for no additional cost beyond the projector and screen, so budget really shouldn't be a factor in this case. Things start add up if you need to get an anamorphic lens, separate video processor, screen masking; those things may greatly enhance CIH (that has also been energetically debated here), but they aren't required for CIH.

I think you're confusing theaters that play movies on IMAX screens with those very few movies actually shot in IMAX format. Although many Hollywood movies are played in IMAX theaters these days, almost all of them continue to be shot on 35mm film (or digital) at the same choice of aspect ratio as any other movie: either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. These movies play on the IMAX screens in their original aspect ratios.

In recent years, only two Hollywood features have incorporated actual IMAX photography: The Dark Knight and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. In the latter, the grand total of IMAX footage came to 9 minutes (in a 154-minute movie). Both of these movies were photographed for 2.35:1 widescreen, with selected scenes that expanded to IMAX 1.44:1.

While Tron Legacy was not photographed in IMAX format, it had selected scenes that expanded from 2.35:1 to 16:9. In addition (and most notably), James Cameron released separate 2.35:1 and 1.85:1 theatrical prints for Avatar. Which aspect ratio you saw would depend on the venue. (The Blu-ray is opened up to 16:9.)

This makes a total of 4 movies that have aspect ratio issues complicated by IMAX. And really, you can factor out Avatar if you simply consider it a 1.85:1 movie. The rest of the hundreds of thousands of other movies ever made fall into the usual categories.

If you look at theatrical release over the past year, I think you'll find that there continues to be an approximately 50/50 split between usage of 1.85:1 and 2.35:1, the same as it's been for decades. There is no great trend toward 1.85:1. Neither HDTV nor IMAX has had much of any impact on the way filmmakers decide on which aspect ratios they want to shoot their movies.

But then that would mean 16:9/ 1:85:1 AR content would be more immersive and "impressive" than widescreen CinemaScope by comparison. The rational for CIH is that CinemaScope images ought to be more immersive and impressive.

So the reasons for CIH don't have to do simply with fitting a bigger screen per se: they have to do with the size relationship between CinemaScope and narrower AR content. If you go CIW you necessarily emphasize 16:9/1:85:1 as the most immersive experience. If you go CIH, you necessarily emphasize CinemaScope as the most immersive. Pick your poison. CIH devotees feel Cinemascope should be wider and more immersive.

As for IMAX movies, they are so minuscule in number compared to the percentage of available scope movies that it seems hard to justify using an IMAX-shaped screen, and forgoing the rational for CIH, for so few movies.

That said, I'm one of the few who actually DID go for an extra large screen on my wall with 4 way masking. So I do open it up taller for IMAX movies and some other content. But I appreciate that not many people would find the motivation for such a system.

I think the reason to go with CIH is the effect with human vision, from what I think.

Since most of our vision focuses horizontally, we are more sensitive to vertical changes. When you watch a scope (2.35:1) film on a flat screen (1.85:1) your field of vision suggest there is a change in size of the image is more dramatic. This role may play with 4:3 content on a flat or scope screen, but you perceive it as not much of a change in size, if at all, because you are not sensitive to horizontal changes as much. Vertical changes are key with CIH, which plays on our perception of size with narrower screens, and we don't focus on the size as much due to this insensitivity to horizontal changes. As CIH, it's to keep a constant height to the image.

CIH FTW.

Why not cater for all? 1.78:1, 2.35:1 being wider than 1.78 and 1.78iMax types being as wide but taller than 2.35:1

As this guy does here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Ncvn_Qtdg

I don't agree with that at all. And I've been watching allot of 1.85:1 films of late.

IMAX is 1.44:1, not 1.85:1. Lets look at all these films with dual AR: TDK, TF2, HP6, TL. Out the 4 I've listed, only the first 2 were actually shot for IMAX, the other 2 are IMAX wannabes.

Then there is AVATAR that was originally composed for Scope and made into 16:9 in post because they has captured the the frame in 16:9.


Because it is awesome to be able to present every film the way it was seen in the cinema including the two IMAX shot films which were both presented in Scope anyway in most cinemas.

Apart from the Runco display, how many times have you experienced CIH?

Right - whatever is bigger will be more impressive.

Ignoring room constraints, which do you think should be bigger: scope or 1.85?

Harry Potter 6 didn't have an alternating aspect ratio, to my knowledge.

The only thing better than CIH is MIS (maximum image size -- whatever the aspect)....essentially what you get with a 4-way masking system like Stewart's Director's Choice.

Not sure how to phrase this, but isn't our natural field of vision closer to 2.35:1 than 1.85:1? In other words, if you were designing a theater from scratch to fill your entire field of vision, I think 2.35:1 would do a better job. Is there any scientific study on what a human's filed of vision is? (it is probably more oval than rectangular, but I don't think we'll see any oval screen sizes anytime soon).

Actually it is closer to 1.61:1, and the greek building Euclidean was a reference to human vision's shape.

The reason to use scope is to take advantage of the human's field of vision of horizontal viewing.

This claim that the CinemaScope AR is a better fit for our field of vision comes up a lot, but it's somewhat misleading.

Here is a chart of the human field of vision:




Here are some film Aspect Ratios:












I held up paper to the field of vision chart and drew a box around it. The box was essentially a 4:3 Aspect Ratio!

So this claim about CinemaScope better fitting our vision doesn't seem to hold up.

Further, our actual area of acuity in our vision is much more narrower, in the center of our vision. So if we are talking about actual detail we can take in while looking straight forward, the area of acuity is even narrower.

But of course human vision doesn't work by being fixed. We taken in detail through constant scanning of our eyes, which moves the tiny field of detail acuity around a scene to gather information.

Whether we are watching a wide screen or 4:3 image, we are going to be scanning the image. But the 4:3 would actually take LESS scanning and hence if anything this would be a more "comfortable" fit for our visual system.

I find this quite true in practice. When I go widescreen in my system I find myself doing a lot more ping-pong scanning, which makes sense. And it's a double-whammy too: Not only in a CIH system is the movie image physically much wider, necessitating more scanning, but directors/cinematographers tend to compose in a L/R manner for film. As any first year film school student learns, you use eye-line axis to determine spatial relationships between actors. Typically you frame one actor's face to the right side of the frame, and the other more to the left when switching talking-head shots. So you end up with the areas of interest popping up left/right, left/right. The wider your image, the more eye-scanning this incurs.

Further, films actually composed for CinemaScope tend to exploit it's width, so you get some extreme placement and separation of areas of interest, some way over to the left side, and some over to the right. Again, necessitating significantly more eye-scanning to try to take it in.

I find taller/narrower ARs easier to take in vs wider ARs for such reasons.

So this "Scope is a more natural shape for human vision" thing just doesn't wash.

But that's only one part of the equation. The other part is aesthetic taste: Which ARs do you like better, aesthetically? Personally I love the CinemaScope AR. Perhaps it's because I associate it so strongly with many of my classic cinema-going experiences. And that it is so obviously different in shape than "regular TV" and hence to me says "Cinema." The other thing is that the very fact I have to do more scanning to take it in can make it feel a bit more realistic in a way - the way I might scan a landscape. (But then again, I get a similar effect when I make my screen both wider and much taller). Finally, I simply love the image compositions in scope!

Rich, although I cannot dispute your data above, I can safely say that cinemascope was a byproduct of increasing the realism for artillery training during WWII. Humans by nature look wider horizontally than vertically unless you are pilot. When I take a picture outside in my back yard the limited horizontal field of view of the camera destroys the beauty of the valley below me in the print. For my wife and me cinemascope brings an increased enjoyment to our home theater. Once I added the A lens I can’t keep her from asking every night after dinner, “Do we have a movie tonight”. The next sentence invariably is, "is it in scope”?

To answer the original question of WHY CIH and whynot CIW...
What would you rather watch,
.......................THIS................................. .....................OR..................................... ........................THIS................................ ..?

Because the image on the left is smaller than the evening news.
Home theatre is (at least it should be) about recreating the cinema experience in the home.

Well done Mark. I think once someone experiences a CIH setup in there own space, it becomes impossible to back to CIW. There is something magical about it, hard to explain.

-Sean

The other thing with Human vision, is that if the image is too tall we can find prolonged viewing tiresome - it's recommended that the vertical viewing angle be no more than 15 degrees, and 35 degrees is the absolute maximum otherwise discomfort will occur. It's possibly due to putting more physical strain on the eyes and/or neck when looking up when compared to the same degree of movement horizontally.

The digram doesn't show an 'all at once' field of view so the 4:3 conclusion isn't entirely accurate. It shows a top vertical maximum view of around 50 to 60 degrees, and bottom max of almost 80 degrees but you can't see both extremes simultaneously. Horizontal binocular vision relies on 60 degrees per eye, so 120 degrees at one time, whereas the vertical vision doesn't appear to be able to take in both vertical top and bottom imaging at the same time (you look down at 75 degrees and you can no longer see the top 50+ degrees). That's probably why the HVS is said to be more horizontally biased.

Try placing your hands horizontally in front of your face and move one up and the other down at the same time. You'll find they quickly go out of view. If you try to keep them both in view you will find they are not very far apart. Do the same with the hands placed vertically and move them outwards and you will find they stay in view for far longer and remain within the peripheral vision.

To get a better feel of what we can actually see simultaneously, move your head closer to you monitor and close one eye - use the open eye to look across your nose to find where the opposite edge of the screen is and move close enough so that it's on the edge of that eyes vision (just as your nose ridge blocks the view). Without moving, do the same with the other eye. Make sure the other eye is seeing the opposite side of the screen so that your head is perfectly centred. If you measure the distance to width and calculate the viewing angle you should get around 120 degrees. With both eyes open you can see much wider, and see both extremes of the screen without moving your eyes from the centre position (best focus and colour is around 5 degrees (fovea), and peripheral vision starts around 35 degrees, with static eyes and no scanning). You will also find from that angle you can just about see both the top and bottom of the screen (assuming 16:9), so our vision is more horizontal and better suited to wider viewing than taller.

HTH

Gary

Going by a NASA summary of the human visual system. http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/personnel...4vision/17.htm

If I am reading their figures and illustration correctly then for a 2 degree target with a luminance of 10 mL viewer head fixed, eyes fixed central position. Horizontal FOV about 190 degrees, binocular about 120 degrees (Vertical field of view about 113 degrees, up 46 / down 67 degrees)
The field of view at which you see color is different for each color and the point at which the field of view becomes color rather than achromatic increases if the color target size or luminance is increased. For a 3 degree color target to appear to have color rather than be achromatic, horizontal FOV about 80 degrees, binocular about 60 Degrees (Vertical full color FOV about 30 degrees)

So I guess sitting centerline to the screen with eyes level to the center of the image, chair tilted back 10.5 degrees, would put the center of the image at the center of the field of view.
Screen occupying
60 degrees horizontal 30 degrees vertical would be binocular full color field of view covered, 2:1 aspect ratio.
80 degrees horizontal, 30 degrees vertical would be full color field of view covered 2.67:1 aspect ratio.
190 degree horizontal 113 degree vertical would be entire field of view covered 4:2.4 aspect ratio.

Psychophysical analysis of the 'sensation of reality' induced by a visual wide-field display SMPTE, 89, p. 560-9, 1980
http://www.vrsj.org/ic-at/papers/91117.pdf
If I am reading this paper correctly then for the tilt orientation experiment. Less than 20-30 degrees field of view, very little effect. Then increasing effect up to saturation, at about 80 degrees, with further increase in the field of view having less additional effect. So that is most effect out to the figure for full color horizontal field of view about 80 degrees

Interestingly for a common type of stationary picture the effect increased most up to 50 degrees field of view, then increases were smaller as it approached saturation.

Maybe it is partly due to the size of saccades, involuntary rapid eye movement keeping track of intresting objects in the field of view, and the tolerance of panum`s area the fusing of binocular images to saccades. Saccades typically cause errors of about 20 minutes of arc but can cause errors of upto 1-3 minutes for a 30 degree horizontal saccade. Panum`s area remains fused up to 2 degrees of mismatch. Saccades are typically up to +/-20 degrees horizontal without head movement. So at 40 degrees field of view the image would be covering the normal span of fixation points, unless the eyes were alerted by movement wider in the field of view to direct their attention elsewhere.

The sensation of reality experiment results were I think. Increases with field of view until saturation at over 60 degrees. So that is most effect out to the figure for binocular full color field of view about 60 degrees.

For the same field of view, increasing the viewer distance and screen size created more sensation of reality.

We have waxed on at length about size of included angles and so on.

So why if you walk out the door in Montana, Colorado, Katmandu or wherever and you are greeted by a panoramic view do we not run back inside. Actually we take a big sigh and linger. All of nature or even Times Square is way larger than 2.35:1.

This fixation with the shape of our field of view, while interesting, is really irrelevant.

Just because something fills our field of view completely doesn't mean it must be bigger, or vice versa.

I think it needs to be big to create the illusion of reality because to fill our field of view it either needs to be bigger or closer.
Closer results in the eye lens depth of focus being less and binocular disparity being greater, both giving strong cues that the image is flat.

2.35:1 at normal viewing distances is nowhere near to filling the horizontal field of view of an audience member. The only system that came close to that was Cinerama with that giant wrap around screen, and even then it was only acheived if you sat in a particular area. So the idea that we are getting total immersion in a 2.35 home theater is nonsense. The experience may be 'more immersive' than a 4:3 film, but again that depends on the realtive projected size of the formats. Obviously a 4:3 film will be more immersive than a 2.35 film in a constant width situation. 2.35 will however be more immersive than 4:3 in a CIH situation, but even then we are not even approaching a total immesrive experience like Cinerama, so let's not kid ourselves.

I've often wondered why so many associate a medium that is completly dependent on artifice be construed as "real". Didn't the cinema of Georges Méliès which ran counter to the documentary nature of the Lumiere brothers prove that at the very beginning?

Cinema has its roots in industrial art and as such is first and foremost a commercial one. Wider ratios were invented to offset the threat of Television and put bums in the seats and coins in the coffers.

N.B. not singling anyone out dovercat, I've often enjoyed the nature of your contributions.

tt

People must have preferred the wider aspect ratios, greater field of view, to be willing to leave the TV set at home and go to the cinema. Some even paying a premium for the likes of Cinerama and Imax. Cinerama was apparently jaw dropping, such a vast improvement over 4:3 that it scared the Hollywood studios into going widescreen.


A decent plot and acting can draw me in regardless of picture quality and a witty script can be entertaining. So to a great extent psychological factors like attention, engagement or identification and empathy determine how engrossing and emotionally involving the experience is.

However a image which has a startlingly convincing illusion of depth - reality I find intrinsically better and more involving than a somewhat flat looking image, it just takes it to the next level for me. Having seen how good a front projector setup with a high gain screen in a dedicated black room can look I can not see myself choosing to ever going back to normal TVs.

The image usually needs enough brightness, contrast, and color accuracy along with no visible screen surface texture, to fool the eye its looking at a real scene. I think it also helps to have a large screen at a decent distance from the viewer. Mimicking reality is often more difficult to do in practice than people would hope, but once seen some people chase that plasticity, image depth, 3D effect, looking into a real scene rather than at a moving picture, as it is so engaging.


Increasing field of view has been proven to alter balance and heart rate variability, as well as subjective feelings of viewer involvement even just going to 40+ degrees. These increases in physiological immersion have also been shown to reach points of diminishing return at 60 or 80 degrees which is still pretty small compared to the full field of view 190 degrees.
I would expect this physiological immersion helps with the psychological immerson of a film, and with films lacking much psychological involvement but with lots of special effects and stunts.

Increasing field of view has also been proven to change critical flicker fusion frequency, blinking rate per minute, pupil accommodation, as well as subjective feelings of viewer fatigue. So I think it becomes a matter of viewer preference.

Moving my chair a few inches forward/backward I seem to prefer a horizontal field of view of 48.7degrees. Maybe it is down to image brightness, as that is apparently a factor in preferred viewing distance. Maybe it is down to actual viewing - focus distance, as it is 106" the same as the UK BBC TV viewing distance survey result and only 2" shy of Bernard Lechner RCA USA survey result. Perhaps it is down to perspective cues, I assume like still photography there is an ideal view location for the perspective cues to be most correct.

I agree modern films are usually viewer as watching bystander. Films designed to make the audience duck things flying off the scree or jump in fright seem to be viewed as more low brow, than those relying on a intriguing plot or good character actors. In Korea they showed Avatar in 4D, complete with moving seats, sprays of water, smells, wind blowers and lasers. Personally I expect I would find that going too far, what next attaching electrodes and receiving electric shocks when the hero gets shot like some computer gamers. Film as theme park ride, rather than storytelling, and relying increasingly on picture quality and gimmicks like 3D to engage the viewer rather than plot and acting.

CinemaScope can be jaw dropping and why so many major big budget choose that AR. It is also what "most" don't have at home, so like in the 1950's, is being used once again as a draw card (along with 3D) for getting people into cinemas.

I agree 100%. Even 1.33:1 can be entertaining if it contains the qualities above.


Like everything, when done right, 3D is not a gimmick. It allows you to be "looking into a real scene rather than at a moving picture".

As long as source detail can support it, bigger is always more immersive be it 16:9or 2.35:1.

I agree, don't get hooked on that one AR should be bigger than another, just make each AR as immersive as possible.....size should be only limited by image quality.

Attachment 210345

My point exactly...better stated and better illustrated.

Re: visual field of view and the various AR's...

The chart posted is our "all at once" field of view. The boundaries define our peripheral field of view... objects at those extremes are perceptible but without detail. We pick up motion and light here, not so much color or resolution of detail.

And yes, that field of view matches a 4:3 AR screen well. Ever wonder why that AR was chosen so many years ago?

So why then was there ever a move away from 4:3 towards wider AR's, and why do many find them more immersive than the "best fit" 4:3 screen?

Because we don't view the world by staring at a single fixed point. We scan our eyes... all the time. And we tend to scan horizontally (probably because the horizon happens to be horizontal, and thus we evolved horizontal binocular vision, not vertical binocular vision). Scanning horizontally is much more comfortable for us than scanning vertically. Another poster mentioned the recommended and maximum vertical angles for comfortable viewing... this isn't based on fitting the picture into our peripheral vision but rather the biggest size that we can take in that minimizes both our need to scan vertically as well as the angle we need to scan when we do.

So we scan not only to fit the entire picture within our peripheral vision, but also to discern detail in more peripheral areas of the screen. And this is why 4:3 isn't "as good" as wider AR's for the best experience. Just what the "best" AR is isn't quite as easy to determine as simple knowing that "wider than our field of view" AR is better. And thus decades of debates over and use of multiple AR's in both cinema and home.

And why does IMAX go back the other direction towards our field of view? I'm not really sure. So long as you sit really close, it certainly gives the screen shape that fills our field of view and thus the biggest "wow" factor when you first sit down. It may be tiring, but then how often do we watch IMAX movies? I don't see that AR at the seating distance used in an IMAX theater ever being acceptable for long periods of home viewing.

That leaves us then with the tired argument of which widescreen AR is the best. Who knows? I personally tend to think 2.35:1 is more impressive than 16:9 when (and this is important) the 16:9 image is at the limit of vertical height for comfort. I'm not sure of the purpose of posting a bizarre CIW Avatar example... who would mask down the screen in a CIW setup from 16:9 to 2.35:1 and then display a letterboxed 16:9 image??? The big 16:9 image is what you would see in home with a CIH setup. Any taller than that would be uncomfortable. You then have extra screen space to the sides to expand the horizontal FOV to 2.35:1.