Anyone make clip on black borders for 1.78:1 screen when watching 2.35:1 movie?  

I just built exactly what you described this past weekend. I used .25" thick plywood and upholstered black velvet to the wood panels. I then used velcro as my attaching method. The results are nothing short of spectacular, and I highly recommend using black velvet as the velvet material offers a high light absorption factor.

Here are some pics of my DIY masking panels...

This is a picture of the bottom left of the screen. You can see the velcro attachment on the side of the screen's aluminum frame as well as the bottom masking panel sitting on top of my speaker.
http://www.mindspring.com/~daalcorn/Screen1.jpg

This pic illustrates the how the masking panel is attached to the screen.
http://www.mindspring.com/~daalcorn/Screen2.jpg

Another pic of the masking panel laying across the speakers.
http://www.mindspring.com/~daalcorn/Screen3.jpg

The masking panel attached to the screen awaiting a 2.35 showing!
http://www.mindspring.com/~daalcorn/Screen4.jpg



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DMan
The Academy Home Theater

Virtually any fabric store will carry black velvet fabric. It is usually on a roll and can be purchased in any length (per yards) just like most other fabrics.



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DMan
The Academy Home Theater

Hi Wayne-

I have heard of people using strong magnets to hold velvet-covered stiff paperboard masks to their screens. Easy on when you need them and off when you need to roll it up. Worth a try.

-Mike

When shoppping for BV recently, I noticed that some black velvets absorb more light than others. Be sure to compare.

BTW, I got a coupon from a Joann fabrics flyer for 50% off. I think I'll cover the whole screen wall with there $20/yd stuff.

Jeff

I have since built a permanent screen for my viewing, but this worked for me.

I had an ugly white housing covering my electric screen that I wanted to cover up. I purchased a roll of double sided tape and the black velvet previously mentioned. On the back side of the frame I attached the velvet and tape length-wise to the top of the frame leaving space for the mounting points. Then I wrapped the excess velvet around to the front side where I also put a strip of tape along the inside front edge of the housing and attached the velvet to it.

My housing was now covered in black velvet, no more bright white. In the process of being excited, yet not finished, I powered up the projector to bask in the blackness, when I noticed that my excess velvet left from the front taping job had fallen in front of the screen and as it rolled down, I had invented a great cheap mask.

Using the start/stop of the electric screen, I positioned the bottom of the screen with the bottom of the 2.35 image. This extra material fell only about 2 inches from the bottom of the housing, so I let it hang permanently. My origional 100" 4x3 was now masked to any screen size by simply moving it up or down. My projector on the other hand, had to be tweaked, up,down, zoom......

PS, you might want to finish off the edge of the velvet by sewing up a channel that you could put a dowl or something of weight in, especially if you have a ceiling fan in the room.

I you have a metal frame and would like cheap or free maginets, see if you can dig up some old hard-drives from the IS department. They should have some 540's, 850's etc. laying around. Take them apart and you will find a magnet used to move the aramature back and forth across the platter. These puppies stick like glue and they are predrilled!

Or you can use a piece of metal on the back of a roll up screen to attach the magnet/material/backerboard too. Just make sure that the magnet is inside the velvet wrap so that it dosen't mar your screen. You might want to wrap the metal on the back of the screen in the same way.

Hope this helps.

Scott

[This message has been edited by sstieferman (edited 11-08-2000).]