CIH or not? Pros and cons... - Page 2

My friends think I'm special because I have a 2.35 screen. No, seriously, they do. They come over all the time to watch movies. This aspect ratio screen just looks and feels way cooler than 16:9 (of course, this is my opinion which happens to be shared by all of my friends). You can sit closer with a 2.35 screen, and it's totally immersive - you actually have to move your eyes (gasp) to see all of the stuff going on the screen.

I play games and often keep that aspect ratio and fill up the whole screen. On some games you don't really need the top and bottom bits of the screen. Gears 3 is a beast in that ratio.

Every time I think of 2.35 I take a pause when a 16:9-like movie goes through my player.

i.e., I just got Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Blues Brothers on Blu ray and they are both 1.85:1 format movies, practically 16:9.

I just wouldn't be so hot about seeing the Blue Bro's HUGE car chases/pile up's reduced to a smaller square in the middle of a 2.35 screen.

I guess there's always gonna be some trade-offs no matter which way you go.

Thoughts?

I've had many of the same thoughts and came up with a plan to deal with that.

I've decided to order a 16x9 screen but do horizontal masking for CIH which I would use 90% of the time. The odd time I want to unveil the full 120" screen would be for watching a big game (ex. superbowl) or a movie I want to showcase bigger. This way I will get use to the scope screen & CIH and then only show the full size when there is good reason to. It'll also feel fresh and even larger to me when I do that.

I'm with you 100% on anamorphic/scope gaming. I tend to use my anamorphic lens when gaming so I don't loose anything by cropping or zooming and it's pretty awesome.

I haven't invested much time into using applications like power strip to configure custom resolutions. However, I recently built a new HTPC/Gaming machine. So, I might invest some time to try this out so I can can to the vertical strectch + lens to preserve the asptect ratio. But, a little bit of horizontal strectch doesn't bother me.

But that isn't CIH then, right?

You have a 16:9 screen and you mask it for 2.35?

That's my intention yes. I want my screen wall to be presented for scope and will use that setup for 90% of all content including any HDTV (I have the panny 4000 for the zoom method). I plan to hold the horizontal masks within the frame with magnets inside the borders & mask panels. A semi-permanent mask basically that I can easily remove whenever I feel the need to. I just don't like limitations.

But it's not smaller. It's the same size (relatively at least) as it would be with a 16:9 screen, but your Matrix, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings type movies are 78% bigger than they would be otherwise.

The Blue Bro's car chase/piles would be relatively smaller than the Matrix, SW's, etc.

Though I do understand what you're trying to say.

The other 'gotcha' is the variable format flicks like The Dark Knight, and 16:9 flicks like Avatar, etc.

I think for myself I wish there was more of an in-between. Yeah I want scope flicks to be big (which means WIDE), but I also don't want a 16:9 flick to be double that size (in height), yet having a 16:9 flick at the same CIH just seems too small on a flick like Avatar.

I also wonder about the future of aspect ratios being used. That fact that every home that has a widescreen tv is 16:9 and how the studios might cater to that aspect more and more. Not that I think scope will go to the wayside, but that it's probably not going to be MORE prevalent in the future.

Due to all of these scenario's, I still stick to 16:9 on the screen size and just deal with the scope not being as wide as I like, knowing that when I pop in TDK, Avatar or the Blues Bro's, it's all good

But I will still ponder CIH, one day, just maybe....

Well that's the point


Not really IMO, TDK, you just watch and it's just like I saw it (scope) in the theater, never see the AR change. Avatar, it's just one movie, and I watched it cropped which was pretty close to what I saw in the theater too.


If it were more than one movie, I'd care (Avatar is really the only IMAX movie, ie 1.78:1 movie meant to be taller).


If history is any indication there are two things:
1) 16:9 vs scope has been about 50/50 for years with no signs of changing.
2) If anything, history shows that Hollywood migrates to formats that are different from what's common at home to differentiate the theater experience.


IMO there aren't nearly enough IMAX films to worry about them not being as tall as they should be in a CIH setup, while there are hundreds of scope films that just shouldn't be reduced to the width of run of the mill HDTV.

All good points.

Again, it's a matter of what trade-offs one is willing to make.

Another thought is 'how' you would do CIH. I have a Mits HC3800, so I can do CIH and toggle back/forth to 16:9, but of course doing this means less resolution for 16:9, though since the image is smaller, guess it doesn't matter really.

Doing the anamorphic lens thing adds costs/complexity, but makes the best use of CIH.

I don't go to the theater anymore, so I guess it doesn't concern me as much that TDK was in forced scope all the time. I guess what is cool is that my 16:9 screen is full/big when switching to the IMAX format. I agree, it isn't a big deal either way.

Yeah, but with TDK the IMAX scenes are very short and, if you have a 2.35 screen, you don't even notice the change (yes, the IMAX scenes may be clipped a bit on the top and bottom but is it really that big of a deal?). TBH, the AR switching would annoy me and disrupt the flow of the movie.

I don't think it's a big deal, but then it hasn't been a big enough deal for me to go CIH yet either

Ironically, unless you point it out to guests, they wouldn't even notice the format switch. Of course I notice it, but I'm looking for it

For now I have the compounded issue of having more height space than wide space avail. My screen is already on the small side, and I can't really go much wider (few inches maybe), so I think my current situation wouldn't really take advantage of a scope screen as much as it should. But I will look into this again when/if I move to a place where I have more flexibility.

[quote=fleaman;21110745]I don't think it's a big deal, but then it hasn't been a big enough deal for me to go CIH yet either

Ironically, unless you point it out to guests, they wouldn't even notice the format switch. Of course I notice it, but I'm looking for it

For now I have the compounded issue of having more height space than wide space avail. My screen is already on the small side, and I can't really go much wider (few inches maybe), so I think my current situation wouldn't really take advantage of a scope screen as much as it should. But I will look into this again when/if I move to a place where I have more flexibility.[/

The decision to go CIH can be a difficult one in width challenged rooms. I've been there and still chose to go CIH despite what some would consider a compromise to 16x9 material. Now that I moved to a room that's twice as wide I have a bigger 16x9 viewing area on my 2.35 screen than I had with the my original rooms 16x9 screen. I still preferred going CIH despite the smaller 16x9 as the majority of my content is 2.35/2.40. You may have struck a good balance if it's that big a deal though. No matter the size a CIH is superior if 2.35 takes priority

That goes w/o saying.

How can you say this! A quick search yielded this list of 1.78 sources:

Avatar
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
The Hurt Locker
The Godfather
The Godfather II
The Shining
Blade Runner (1.66)
Finding Nemo
Toy Story
Up
Beauty and the Beast
The Little Mermaid
The Shining
A Clockwork Orange
Charlie and the Choc. Factory
The Pelican Brief
Planet Earth (documentary)
Michael Jackson's This is It

And this list of 1.85 sources

Saving Private Ryan
Scent of a Woman
Good Will Hunting
Rain Man
The Big Lebowski
Fargo
The Silence of the Lambs
Jurassic Park
Edward Scissorhands
Back to the Future
Shrek and Shrek 2
Dead Poets Society
Risky Business
My Cousin Vinny
The Verdict
Sleepless in Seattle
Pretty Woman
Sideways
Rising Sun
Ice Age
Sherlock Holmes
The Bucket List
As Good As It Gets
Lost in Translation
P.S. I Love You
The Wedding Singer
Monsters Inc.
District 9
Sex and the City
Goodfellas
The Exorcist
The Blind Side
The Shawshank Redemption
Rocky
Raging Bull
The French Connection
North by Northwest
Psycho
Vertigo
Chicago
A Beautiful Mind
Serpico
Good Morning Vietnam
The Dirty Dozen

I feel I understand the advantages of going to a CIH setup, but I am having a tough time thinking about sacrificing so much screen space.

In my scenario, I could buy a 96 inch wide 16x9 screen which would diplay 110 inches of 16x9 and 104 inches of 2.35 content. Going CIH, the 2.35 would show at 104 inches but the 16x9 drops to 82 inches. I kinda want to be in your club but I don't know how you guys get past this. Masking seems like the only real solution as Fleaman and Harkness have done.

He's talking about Camerons comments about how he wanted Avatar to be seen, not 16:9 in general.


Unless you're seating is restricted, the usual way to set up a CIH system is to set your seating so that 16:9 is as big as you'd like it. Then scope is the same height, only wider, so we get the biggest 16:9 we want, and scope is wider, as designed.

Seating distance is key, Get it wrong and CIH doesn't work well for 16:9.

If you can't sit close enough due to seating or room constraints, then 16:9, or better still CIA, may be the best option for you.

Gary

As has been said many times, the ratio of scope (say >2.00:1) to "flat" (say 1.78:1-2.00:1) is about 50/50. What you're missing is that scope was created, intended to be wider than flat. See the link in my signature, there's a great video of one of the original "advertisements" for cinemascope from Fox, back when it was brand new. It states very clearly it was intended to be larger/wider than flat.

Now Avatar is a member of a very small group of films that I'm going to (probably incorrectly) label "large format". Avatar, and small portions of The Dark Knight and Transformers 2 were shot in IMAX, with the intent that those IMAX-shot scenes be larger, potentially much larger than either scope or flat presentations.

Right now, Avatar is the only current/recent full-length movie shot entirely in IMAX, (as I said, TDK and TF2 had small portions). Now the thing is, a "normal" constant width 16:9 setup is not the right way to show these films either. What you need for these three films is essentially a 16:9 screen who's full height is only used for IMAX titles. The rest of the time it should be masked down to scope height and run CIH. I call that approach CIH+IMAX.

If you're talking about these three films in particular, then I agree, you are sacrificing something with a scope screen. But like I said, IMO those three films (only one of which, TF2, I actually saw in IMAX at the theater, the rest I saw scope) are far, far too few to justify a CIH+IMAX setup.

The rest of content you cite was shot with the knowledge/intent that it be shown at the same height as scope films, but narrower. Look at it this way, essentially from the first films to today, cinema has gotten wider and wider, but the height has remained constant, with a few exceptions like the IMAX format (which is actually 1.44:1)


You have to stop thinking in terms of "inches" and look at your theater as an entire system/experience. More inches is not better or worse, you have to take the whole system into account.

What I find is that for most content, on a 16:9 screen, if I were to place my seating for optimal 16:9 content viewing, it would result in scope being far, far too small. Likewise if I setup my seating for optimal scope viewing, (most) 16:9 is far to big.

Conversely, with a scope screen, I find that pretty much everything is a pleasing size, essentially that it's the height that most determines how "big" an image feels.

So what you do is find that relative screen height which you like, and set up your system for that, and use a scope screen. You may end up liking 3 screen heights, for your 16:9 screen that would be a seating distance of about 13.5 feet. If you were to go scope, that would change to about 12 feet. So a 1.5 foot difference in your seating would give you essentially the same 16:9 experience you'd get on the larger screen, but your scope films would appear 78% larger.

CIH over a standard 16:9 screen for the win.

(Well...most of the time, depending on individual criteria. Film-lovers I think will almost always be happy they went CIH).

BTW, although I certainly don't recommend it for everyone, I remain ecstatically happy in having gone with the variable image size route.
The ability to dial in the size for maximum size/picture quality ratio, depending on source quality, has been particularly gratifying. I'm at about 10' viewing distance and my screen can go to 125" wide. But to my surprise I've chosen to watch a lot of content, Blu-Ray included, at smaller image sizes. Certainly the larger the image the more immersive and cinematic. But there is an amazing increase in density, clarity and tangible quality that occurs when the image is zoomed smaller. With most projectors in most rooms, you also tend to get a more dynamic looking image the smaller you make it. At certain sizes, at least for me, there is a fantastic combination of image size that feels big, but that maintains a real "wow" factor in terms of sheer image dynamics and image clarity. Sometimes this can "click in" when changing the image width only several inches.

I understand why people are happy to get along with a set-and-forget CIH set up, for sure. I guess my approach appeals to the PQ fanatic/tweaker in me.

That makes the most sense to me.

I can't go wide enough due to the room, so that's probably the biggest reason I haven't gone CIH.

That and I have to get over chopping off pixels I paid for but don't use.

Like I said, you have to stop thinking about your "screen" and think of your whole theater as a system. When you do that you realize it's possible to adjust your seating to give you the same 16:9 experience you currently do, but with a scope screen allowing the proper relative presentation of scope material.


I don't follow.

I can't adjust my seating and I can only go 70" wide at this point (due to room), so you can see that reducing 16:9 to even less would be quite a hit.


16:9 is scaled down to less pixels and less resolution. So less resolution from PJ and source and no 1:1 pixel mapping.

I would be interested to see what the outcome. I wanted to do the mask bars but don't know what to use to hold these two bars.

If you only have 70" in width I'd forget about CIH especially if you can't adjust seating either.

Art

At that size, I'd think seriously about not even doing FP.


But it's not scaled down, or doesn't have to be. The two "most prominent" methods of CIH (lens and zoom) don't require sacrificing any resolution for 16:9.

Well, glad you're not me

I sit 8-9 ft away. Have a 32" LED LCD for tv duties and my 80" screen drops down in front. Everyone is blown away by it, as the usual case for FP, so nothing lost there. Even if the flick is 2.35, they're blown away.



Anamorphic lenses are expensive, especially the Good ones. What's the cheapest lens you'd use, price wise?

And as for 'zoom', I don't understand? Please explain?

Never mind. I think you're talking about zooming in with 16:9 content. Yeah, not really gonna get on a ladder and zoom and refocus my PJ

None of Avatar was shot on IMAX film stock. The movie was a 2k digital production.

Well yeah, but it was shot "for" IMAX.

If I set up a scope screen and intend to use the projectors memory zoom (sony 95es, or jvc rs45, or epson 61000) to fill the screen do I have to worry about the black bars spilling light on other surfaces? For example, the ceiling or cabinet below the screen.

Although I know it seems to be the preferred method, I'm trying to avoid dumping a ton of money in a complex lens setup.

Basically I'm looking for a 16x9 image height around 48" (roughly 98" diag) and then maintain that height when zooming to scope content.

Also, what seating distance calculation should I be using? 3.68xIH, 2.89xIH, 1.9x diag? If I place the seating according to 16x9 calculations, isn't the scope image going to be way too big?


thanks for your help

I have the panny 4000, it will shoot black bars above & below the screen when you zoom in viewing the 2.35:1 content. It's basically just sends the 16x9 image and you're zooming it in so the black overspills off the screen. If you decide for whatever reason to view a full 16x9 HD content on the full scope screen (losing pixels off the screen) you can mask the top and bottom so it only sends out the black bars and not the light from the HD content.

Example: Watching a hockey game can look pretty good on scope screen with the crowed removed from the game and all you get the ice surface. It's different and kind of cool.