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Cih++

5K views 38 replies 6 participants last post by  flyers10 
#1 · (Edited)
Sparked by some of the discussion about how to handle IMAX in a CIH world, I've been pondering what an idealized, cost-is-no-object screen would look like. I am coming at this very much from a CIH angle, and I firmly believe that CIH is the correct approach easily 90% of the time. But there are outliers - IMAX, especially in its modern-day, variable AR incarnation, is one. Another is Ultra Panavision titles, which, being wider than 'Scope, wind up being letterboxed on Scope screens. There are only a handful of Ultra Panavision releases, but, on the other hand, there are only a handful of true IMAX titles best delivered at 1.89.

A very small thing to address as well is the fact that Super Panavision titles are not as wide as 'Scope, despite having much higher resolution in the original images - arguably Super Panavision should be displayed with a larger image area than anamorphic 35mm.

Here's what I came up with - building around a CIH paradigm, with a viewing distance of 2.0x screen height, almost all content can be viewed at CIH by adjusting the side masking. 1.78, 1.85, 2.00, 2.39, 2.55, 2.76 - all accommodated comfortably in the CIH area.

Then, on the day you pop in Lawrence of Arabia, you keep the same width as Scope but adjust the height to get you to the 2.20 AR of Super Panavision. And likewise, when you decide to watch some Christopher Nolan you keep that same width but keep opening the top & bottom masking all the way, resulting in an AR of 1.89 and a viewing distance for full frame imagery of around 1.6x.

Because the number of titles that *need* this additional screen area is so small, I think this exercise does show how valuable a CIH approach is - there's a lot of expense involved in accommodating 30 or 40 movies that need to be wider or taller than a ~2.39 screen CIH cinema can handle. But it's also an interesting thought experiment on how to build a screen that follows CIH guidelines while also accommodating some of cinema's most remarkable films, should you be lucky enough to be building a cost-no-object home theatre.

 

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#2 ·
This sounds essentially like CIH+IMAX. Buy a 16:9 screen but use masking to semi-permanently mask it down to 2.35:1. Adjust or remove the masking for the rare occasion when a movie merits a taller image, such as IMAX variable ratio films.

It seems like you want to limit the image height to 1.89:1 to emulate digital IMAX theaters, even though the home video versions are opened up to 16:9. If I'm reading you right, you also want the CIH portion to be 2.76:1?
 
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#4 ·
Yes, effectively CIH+IMAX, but with a screen that can go wider than Scope to accommodate Ultra Panavision. CIH portion will be 2.76:1 (at its widest).

You make a good point about the home video versions of IMAX releases being 16:9 rather than 1.89:1. I'm gonna have to ponder that, and perhaps adjust my scheme a bit.
 
#3 · (Edited)
The question of what to do with 65mm films like Patton or 2001 is complicated. I can understand the argument that they should be the same width but slightly taller than scope. However, historically they were typically projected onto 2.35:1 screens, either zoomed down a little to fit the same height with pillarboxing, or often simply cropped to 2.35:1. I guess this comes down to whether you're looking to prioritize the historical precedent or the presumed intent.

Most people around here know that I'm a big advocate for 2.35:1 CIH and have gotten into more than a few arguments over the topic. However, I'm not so dogmatic about it that I think there's only one way to handle outlier movies like IMAX, or 65mm, or Ultra Panavision. Personally, I project everything onto a 2.35:1 screen, cropping IMAX VAR movies (which are composed to be safe for cropping). I live with a little letterboxing on the rare few Ultra Panavision titles in my collection. Everything else (2.0:1, 2.20:1) is zoomed to fit the height with pillarboxing. I have no problem with the concept of CIH+IMAX. It's just not what I choose to do.

What I don't like are the people who come into this forum to declare that they think CIH is stupid and 16:9 is the one and only proper screen size for home theater. "Becuz Avatar and Game of Thrones, bruh!" I find those people insufferable.
 
#5 ·
Most people around here know that I'm a big advocate for 2.35:1 CIH and have gotten into more than a few arguments over the topic. However, I'm not so dogmatic about it that I think there's only one way to handle outlier movies like IMAX, or 65mm, or Ultra Panavision. Personally, I project everything onto a 2.35:1 screen, cropping IMAX VAR movies (which are composed to be safe for cropping). I live with a little letterboxing on the rare few Ultra Panavision titles in my collection. Everything else (2.0:1, 2.20:1) is zoomed to fit the height with pillarboxing. I have no problem with the concept of CIH+IMAX. It's just not what I choose to do.
On this we are in agreement. What sparked my line of thinking was that there is lots of discussion about CIH+IMAX, to accommodate Nolan-style IMAX pictures, but very little discussion about how to handle Ultra Panavision and other wider-than-2.39 formats, even though there are just as many wider-than-Scope movies to be accommodated as there are IMAX-type pictures.
 
#6 ·
The conversation always comes down to what you chose to view in your theater. If you are 100% motion pictures that were made for commercial venues and never watch any nondescript prestige TV or sports broadcasts etc. then it is a bit easier.

We are bombarded with thousands of what some would call premium content that were never intended for movie theaters and as such are kind of open IMO to how to best present them.

Just yesterday I read here in one of the forums where a member was ecstatic about a new streaming service that was providing both live and recorded plays. Some originating at the Royal Albert Hall. I haven’t watched them but have attended some simulcast to commercial theaters. Who knows what level of immersion someone might feel is correct for something like this, and having seen them I wouldn’t put sizing them like IMAX and having them 83% larger or maybe some other percentage larger an IMAX screen would allow for.

But getting back to actual cinema releases to not make this discussion “insufferable” and knowing there are just 40 titles that might dictate increased screen height. I will once again bring up Academy AR motion pictures where there are likely as many titles as there are scope titles out there. These movies were largely made before there was such a thing as CIH or such a thing as scope AR. They were mostly shown in movie palaces of the 20s,30s,40s some seating thousands of people and with immense Academy AR screens. Sure once scope and CIH was invented any that went into CIH theaters were played as CIH, but they were leftovers from an era before scope.

I have had conversations with Rob Hahn here who is a cinematographer and has one of the nicer HT showcased on AVS. He opted for a taller than scope presentation method more like CIA and one of the reasons he gave for doing that was the great Academy movies without a care in the world about IMAX. I remember reading him saying Wizard of Oz needed more vertical immersion than CIH would give it. Now we have these old titles being 4k re-mastered to a better quality than the day they premiered and movie historians all agree these re-masters only make these great movies even greater. If quality factors into presentation as it does for me then maybe that’s even another factor into this.

Of course Academy is just another personal choice as to presentation and the rebuttal will be framing used in one movie or another showing someone’s torso height in a scope movie and an academy movie. Then I can point out seating distances and screen heights in academy movie palaces that indeed will show IMAX+++ immersion could have been had in the 1930s all over the country.

IMAX now in theaters is 1.89 and at home 1.77 not to be confused with the 1.43 IMAX venues that shouldn’t come into the conversation here. But if you just take your average Scope theater and IMAX 1.89 theater and comparing seating distances to screen size you will find there is overlap. You can get the same immersion level in both places. The difference is and what makes IMAX immersion so awful in a regular theater is upward viewing angle. The OP mentioned 1.6 or what I like 1.5 screen height in a scope theater you are looking mostly straight up at the screen and that is a totally different experience, and one that is not normally talked about.

I’m doing it at home and my At-Any-Cost scenario is ridiculously low, because I employ a stealth screen wall that is 50% gray and just do self-masking out of the projector. It might not be for everyone, but it shows it can be done on a budget. Or you can buy a $100k fully automatic 4way masking system.
@dschulz thanks for bringing the subject up I know it is one everyone likes to talk about. ;)
 
#9 ·
But getting back to actual cinema releases to not make this discussion “insufferable” and knowing there are just 40 titles that might dictate increased screen height. I will once again bring up Academy AR motion pictures where there are likely as many titles as there are scope titles out there. These movies were largely made before there was such a thing as CIH or such a thing as scope AR. They were mostly shown in movie palaces of the 20s,30s,40s some seating thousands of people and with immense Academy AR screens. Sure once scope and CIH was invented any that went into CIH theaters were played as CIH, but they were leftovers from an era before scope.

I have had conversations with Rob Hahn here who is a cinematographer and has one of the nicer HT showcased on AVS. He opted for a taller than scope presentation method more like CIA and one of the reasons he gave for doing that was the great Academy movies without a care in the world about IMAX. I remember reading him saying Wizard of Oz needed more vertical immersion than CIH would give it.
With apologies to Rob Hahn, who certainly has forgotten more about filmmaking than I'll never know, but I think if you get your sightlines correct then Academy works perfectly well in a CIH environment. At 2.0x screen height viewing distance, Academy films won't seem small. Of course, if one invested in 4-way masking then there's nothing stopping you from making an Academy film larger than it would be than if you constrained it to the height of the rest of your CIH programming, but I feel that in my thought experiment in the end you would not really want to do that - the screen is sized so that every format feels comfortable as-is.

 

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#10 · (Edited)
However, historically they were typically projected onto 2.35:1 screens, either zoomed down a little to fit the same height with pillarboxing, or often simply cropped to 2.35:1.
In my experience as a professional projectionist, I don't believe I have seen a 70MM PRINT ever projected cropped to 2.35.

70MM projection used a totally different lens. No zooming would be possible. 70mm equipped theatres had adjustable masking to handle 2.20:1 and a few even had screens with adjustable screen frames to modify the chord (depth of the screen curve) for 70mm.

Now, if you saw that same film in 35mm, then, with one exception, it was either projected at 2.35:1 or 2.55:1. Any cropping would have been done in the creation of the 35mm print.

The exception was "Around The World In 80 Days" which had special 35mm roadshow prints made with a custom anamorphic squeeze that resulted in a roughly 2.20:1 projected aspect ratio. http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingto9.htm .

I agree that academy films look fine on CIH screens. Actually, screen height for the majority of Cinemascope installations was kept pretty consistent in relation to the previous 1.33 screen height. Some theatres has a proscenium arch that was too narrow, so the screen was installed covering the proscenium arch.



Vern
 
#15 · (Edited)
In my experience as a professional projectionist, I don't believe I have seen a 70MM PRINT ever projected cropped to 2.35.

70MM projection used a totally different lens. No zooming would be possible. 70mm equipped theatres had adjustable masking to handle 2.20:1 and a few even had screens with adjustable screen frames to modify the chord (depth of the screen curve) for 70mm.

Now, if you saw that same film in 35mm, then, with one exception, it was either projected at 2.35:1 or 2.55:1. Any cropping would have been done in the creation of the 35mm print.
I stand corrected. I was confusing the cropping that happened with the 35mm reduction prints with what happened in 70mm projection. Thanks for the clarification, Vern.

Was that adjustable masking to make the screen taller, or to mask off the sides?
 
#22 ·
Clues follow:

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/csb2-page00.htm

See page 20


Another factor that affects perception of size:
In the 1.33:1 days, many of the theatres had stages and the screen was relegated to the back of the stage. The front row of seats might well have been 50 feet or more away from the screen.

The attached photos describe a typical conversion.
Vern
 

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#23 ·
Thanks for the information. As far as I can determine our Warner Theater never had the screen against the back wall or anyplace other than just inside the proscenium. I don’t really know the amount of the opening that was filled with image though. My guess is the front row was about 25’ from the screen at most. The theater is located down town and with urban sprawl of the post war years people were leaving the city and moving to the suburbs. The old Warner did show scope movies and underwent some changes but nothing as structural as you show and movies were still shown into the late 70s early 80s perhaps.

Although all the buzz were the new theaters built outside the city limits closer to the people and anchored large strip malls. These went up in the early 60s. The old palaces were replaced with these atomic looking jet age scope theaters with no balconies but wide deep seating. In a way they looked bigger but only held 1000 or so people. By the 90s they were all broken up into Cineplex multi movie places. That was the end of anything really special in theaters here.

Fortunately The Warner was never changed and underwent a restoration 25 or so years ago and is going thru another right now. We are hoping not much of that 20s charm is lost.

Your information sure shows a desire by the studios to maintain height and increase width even though that never happened here in the dozens of Academy theaters big and small that were here. Only 2 remain and both are only now used for live shows. Going full circle.

Thanks again for the info.
:)
 
#24 · (Edited)
Yep, the only sure thing back then was that each conversion was unique, tailored to the architectural constraints of each venue.

I was 10 years old back in '53, and had the advantage of a Dad who was a theatre manager, so I watched first hand as a number of theatres were converted. I saw all kinds of conversions, but only one where the height of the Cinemascope screen was less than the screen it replaced. I think the attached photo speaks for itself as to the reason. (It was a 1300 seat theatre)



http://cinematreasures.org/blog/2005/4/27/hawaiis-waikiki-theatre-demolished
Vern
 

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#25 ·
Sad story for sure. We had about a dozen smaller Academy theaters around town and almost all of them found a similar fate. A few hung on as adult movie houses until VHS came along and ended even that. The Warner was a rare exception and it came very close a few times. I’m not a fan of what they are doing to the exterior now with this latest renovation. Taking out the old on street box office and the walk under marquee. Giving it a modern facelift rather than rebuilding and repairing it as it was. :confused:

If you had to take a guess at the immersion level of the Waikiki Theater first row and back row in terms of screen height to seating distance what would you guess? From the photo the back row looks to be about 5-6X screen height.
 
#37 ·
Bumping this month old thread. Thank you Vern for fascinating cinematic exhibition history.

And Bud you catch a lot of crap here for continuing to question 2.35 CIH dogma in a forum specially set aside for its promotion, but mixed in with all the (really predictable, by this point) stating and restating of various arguments by the usual participants, there's enough new info supplied that I actually learn a lot by continuing to follow along.

So I say keep at it folks: nobody's getting hurt, and the only collateral damage is to ignorance and narrow mindedness. Better home theater experiences will result. Nothing bad about that.
 
#38 ·
Thanks for getting the point of it all.

The odd part is I’m a fan of CIH motion picture presentation. It is IMO 100 times more satisfying than CIW and modern projectors allow for more than just size they allow for this method of presentation.

The film industry was pretty static for 50 years regarding working within a CIH framework with just a few films going off the beaten path. My assertion is over the last few years media is coming at us from all different directions and transforming from film to digital opens it up even more. Films have even been entirely shot with an iPhone. There is no longer the need for filmmakers to shoot with A-lens and theaters then correct with other A-lens. Filmmakers now don’t have to abruptly splice movies together and there is a mixture of real and green screen work so seamless no one knows what is real. Anything is possible and I’m just suggesting everyone takes some time to think about presentation of all this new stuff and still respect the old.

Some people seem to think if it doesn’t have IMAX stamped on the movie it can’t expand away from scope or flat. Da 5 Bloods was a recent attempt at wowing us with AR play and parts of the movie were scope and then got taller, I don’t know what it was, I just know it never got outside the 16:9 canister.

It might sound like I’m catching crap here but deep down I know we are all like Da 5 Bloods. :D
 
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