CIH or not? Pros and cons... - Page 3

Do you see any of the black bars outside the image area?
My concern is that the black bars aren't truly "black" and the little bit of light they contain will light up the front of the soffit I have above my screen when I zoom in.

I would be watching 16x9 content zoomed out with the non image area masked off, but a 2.35 hockey game does sound awesome.

How can it be (way too big)!!?

Provided you are seated at the ideal distance for 16.9 material than you will get the effect of scope the way it is intended (whether zoomed or using a lens) and that is a wider image than 16.9.

That's the whole point of a CIH system.

Yes they are black but of course can be slightly visible if projected on a light coloured surface. I have a soffit above where my screen will be too, what I did was calculate how many inches above the scope screen the black bars project (in my case 7 inches) and lower my screen accordingly. I've ordered black velvet for my entire screen wall above and below it.

I have done that masking with my panny 7000 and I can't see the black bars at all anymore. Before the masking they were slightly visible on my beige walls.

Yes, the Panasonic 7000 actually masks off the black bars all together, the 4000 still projects them but can hide any content outside of the scope dimensions to make it appear 2.35:1.

Any 'masking' by the PJ for scope is the same on the 7000 or 4000, the PJ turns 'off' the black bar area, but how black that would be depends on the native contrast and is also affected by DI's too. So both PJ's still 'project them', the 7000 can't 'actually masks off the black bars all together', but the better contrast of the 7000 may make them more black and appear that might be happening compared to the 4000..

I guess I totally misread that somewhere then. Sorry about that, thanks for correcting me. Maybe it's just the better contrast that confused someone when I read it (and me too!)

You (anyone) can do a simple test, just put your hand between the PJ and the black bar area, you would still see the shadow of your hand. If there was some sort of internal mechanical masking (like a iris, but for masking), then you wouldn't see any shadow (hand puppets). Though I've never heard of such thing, it would be a great idea if possible

Some years ago I built an external one that went about a foot in front of the projector. It had about a 2" x 5" opening and was painted flat black. Not perfect, but wiped out noticable light back in the day of poor CD.

I have a max 120" width for scope so approx. 51x120. For 16x9 image would be 67x120. Would use horizontal masking panels for scope. I have a lens for use with a new JVC projector when available. In this configuration is using the a-lens for scope and zooming for the large 16x9 image a good idea or go with CIH with 51x90 for 16x9?

I'm a bit confused about what you actually want to do??

You would only use the lens if you were to use a scope screen with it.

If you are using a 16.9 screen (which is how your post above reads) then you just set everything up for that format and whenever scope material is viewed you would just mask the bars top and bottom.

If you are width limited then you are better off with the largest size 16.9 screen you could fit. All your proposal of going CIH seems to be doing is keeping your scope material the same as now (120 inch) but making your 16.9 material smaller and introducing a lens to the equation also.

I am confident that if you were to go ahead and configure your setup the way you asked (using a lens for scope and zooming for 16.9) you would be the only person in the world doing so. (I'm guessing you are confusing whether to use a lens or the zoom method for scope, or just a typo maybe).

The idea of CIH is to have the screen large enough so that when you are seated 16.9 material is at its maximum size and then when you put on your scope material the image widens as intended by the director.

if you have a HE lens, I'd go for CIH because that screen image is still going to be be about 10 feet wide which is pretty decent. If you had a VC lens you could do a CIH + IMAX set up or you could just not use the lens and go CIW.

What your talking about was more common in the early days of A lenses when VC 's were used, as CAVX mentioned. Back in the day, before I bought my first CIH screen, I would use my lens in a CIW setup to use all pixels and almost eliminate the need for masking. It's considered a CIW not a CIH. You can't have both. I would just mask for scope in your case as the benefits of a lens wouldn't offset the cost. Pixel density and light improvements aren't really needed as your not enlargening the picture with a CIW system.

I do not have a screen yet. Was looking at 51x120 scope screen originally but the smaller 16x9 image keeps nagging at me. Have a Panamorph DC-1 lens for use with JVC projector. Seat distance will be about 11-13 ft. back. I may have mistakenly assumed since 120in. is my practical limit why not use a larger 16x9 screen and use lens to get benefits like a full anamorphic setup but also could go larger for 16x9 by moving lens out and then zooming to fill 67x120 size. Thanks for the responses.

You can have something in between. CIA(Constant Image Area) With a 2:1 screen you get a compromise between the 16:9 and 2.35:1. Both get about the same amount of screen surface. But 2.35:1 movies will still be wider then anything else.

I would go for a 51 x 120 scope screen and move the seats closer - say something like 9 to 10 feet. That way 16:9 stays visually quite large and scope is just wider. Otherwise you'll lose the extra visual impact scope movies are supposed to have.

Gary

Use 16x9, and cut the hell out 2.35:1 crap at the sides from movies that can't keep up with times (VLC->Video->crop to 16:9). People opinions differ widely (no pun intended), but for me, movie experience is about virtual reality. And an image which is crippled in height easily destroys it.

For those who are not convinced, do me a favor, and perform little visual experiment. Cut off you eyeball (you may want to keep another one) and measure its dimensions. What is the height to width ratio? Therefore, unless you have three eyes, what in the world make you insist that aspect ratio greater than 2 is somehow the best?

An image crippled in height is usually because you're sitting too far back.

Having two eyeballs side by side doesn't increase your ability to see height. It might have an impact on your ability to see horizontally however. 35 degrees vertical field of view is the max recommended before discomfort sets in, and 15 degrees is what's recommended for comfort. Horizontal field of view is around 120 degrees for two eyes, and around 60 for one. Either way, we can comfortably view a wider image than we can a taller one. YMMV

Gary

With proliferation of portable video devices we can safely assume that movie producers have no control whatsoever over viewing distance. What aspect ratio would you recommend for those devices? Multiple aspect ratios create confusion and unnecessary complexity, window boxing, image distortion due to stretching, etc.

I don't buy your 35 degree viewing angle argument (let alone 15 one). In amateur astronomy the latest and greatest gadgets are wide-angle eyepieces. 82 degree eyepieces were introduced couple decades ago; today vendors push 100 and even 120 degrees. "Wide angle" includes height as well -- how silly it would be to, say, have binoculars with field of view masked to some artificial narrow square!

Who is this tegrishi joker? Honestly? Can we all just agree to ignore anything he posts in this sub forum? It may not me the latest way to say it but it still applies "Don't feed the troll!"

Pretty sure its a preteen just being annoying. Clearly he doesn't know what he's talking about and he's completely incoherent.

Most of us have two eyes, placed side by side. Cyclops' aren't really into home theater last time I checked.

I don't think he understands the whole "Constant Image Height" concept. Scope on a CIH systems is the SAME height as 16:9, so no need to "crop the hell of Scope" (or words to that effect)

Ahh - preteen troll makes sense!

Added to my ignore list.

Gary

While not faithful to the standard rubrics of our hobby I think Nenashi is merely saying that his eyes when standing atop a mountain do not present a picture in a scope frame. Mine don't either.

I use a scope setup and I enjoy it. But no one descended from a mountain carrying scope tablets.

When watching a movie for extended periods, certain viewing angles will present discomfort, hence the standards. If you're standing on a mountain looking down, you'll be able to look down for longer periods than if you were at the bottom looking up for example.

Gary

I agree Gary...being a short a*** I often find myself looking up and it gets very tiring.

Last night I watched a 2.40:1 film on my scope screen...it really was terrible, I was tempted to bring the old 4:3 CRT down from the spare room to watch the rest of it on a nicely width limited display.

Interesting, that's the opposite of what I've found when I've been on top of mountains/bluffs/etc. I find you get a massively open horizontal perspective, the kind of wide perspective you really don't get in a lot of other situations.

When I went west last spring, I really didn't find a lot of cases where portrait orientation was the best choice, a lot of the time even in normal landscape orientation, the 1.5:1 ratio of the camera resulted in "excessive" vertical space, which I just crop off when I "develop".

I find portrait works best for "closed in" sort of framing, like in canyons or crevices.

Oh great, just what we need: An arguement about aspect ratios for top of the mountain photgraphs.

No I think what Nenashi is actually complaining about is that most websites are designed around a 16:10 AR and uses the full width. So even on a 16:9 display, the user is now required to drag the scroll bar to see stuff that is now cut off the bottom. In Nenashi's mind, this would only be worse for a "Scope" monitor. The reality is, that in CIH, we always use the full height and not always the full width of the display. He has not seen that, there does not understand that.