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Handling Mixed Format 2:35 / Imax films

6K views 37 replies 14 participants last post by  bud16415 
#1 ·
How are you guys handling watching mixed aspect ratio films with 2:35 and Imax 16:9 content? I find these to be terribly annoying. They seem to be much more of a gimmick/distraction than a benefit. Is there any computer software out there to crop away the 16:9 content so that you can keep the projector zoomed to fill the 2:35 screen without over spilling the IMAX image off the screen?
 
#3 ·
Don't know what projector you have, but I've created two masking presets in my PJ, one for 2.35 and one for 2.20:1 to tackle the mixed ratio madness.

That way I can set the screen masks for either 2.35 or 2.20 and the software masks in the PJ kill any light spill.
 
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#8 ·
As long as you have your projector hooked up to a computer, you just need to set the resolution to a 21:9 resolution like 1920x822 and it will always crop 16:9 and 4:3 content with black bars on the sides. Does this help?
 
#9 ·
I took the opposite approach and instead of damming the variable AR IMAX movies or the full IMAX movies such as the IMAX enhanced program is producing, I embraced it and sized my screen area to work as an IMAX at home theater. Basically you need a screen area as wide as your scope screen and taller to make it 16:9. It could be argued true IMAX immersion is wider and taller but for me a comfortable IMAX immersion is CIW between IMAX & Scope.

Some people then use a top and bottom masking that is removable for CIH viewing between Scope & Flat. I have a dark gray screen and between the projectors black and the attenuation of the gray screen over spill in the AR changer movies is never an issue for me or my guests.

Just recently we watched (The Aeronauts) Amazon Prime. With friends and after the movie I asked if anyone was distracted by the many AR changes? No one even knew what I was talking about or even noticed. The distraction factor seems to be a learned skill by us amateur projectionists. I quickly unlearned it when I embraced the IMAX format as being here to stay. Watching say Avatar or Dunkirk or The Aeronauts with cropping away the IMAX expanded area IMO changes the movie dramatically. It doesn’t ruin the movie as most were released into scope theaters as scope cropped version, but IMO the premiere experience is the IMAX framing. In fact in the case of Dunkirk I wish we could have got the 1.43:1 version option for home viewing.

This AR/immersion is coming at us from many directions now. Here is Amazon embracing IMAX even. Game of Thrones was even shown in IMAX venues and was widely liked by fans of the show. Again it is only my opinion and not widely liked by most here on the CIH forum but I’m finding some TV that even plays well at increased immersion. Maybe not full IMAX but my guests like most sports more like CIA sized. :)
 
#10 ·
Thank you for the replies. Yes, the blanking feature ended up working well. The only caveat is that it is not stored as a lens position memory so you do have to play around with it in between films sometimes.

As far as screen size, I'm already running a 158" screen. I'm pretty much limited by ceiling height at this point since I have 8.5 foot ceilings.

As far as other viewers, I agree, most people don't seem to notice. We watched Dunkirk and out of the 4 total people watching it, I was the only one who noticed the aspect shifting.
 
#13 ·
This should work as long as all variable AR movies always respect the "safe" region set for 2.35. See this pic I took at CES yesterday of an IMAX camera with the safe framing region in white in the viewfinder screen, at the IMAX Enhanced booth.
 

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#14 ·
Of course all the new IMAX movies are framed with a safe zone because they are all intended to be shown in the lesser immersive CIH theaters. Safe is not to say the rest of the image is or should be wasted. There is much impact in what you are cropping and the premier presentation should include it. Why would the director take the time to jump back and forth and include some parts as IMAX if he didn’t intend them to be seen. He would just shoot the movie as scope and be done wit it. You can do it just as others would hit the expand/zoom button on their TV and make a scope movie better fill the 16:9 TV. For me both methods reduce the impact of the shot. I have watched almost all of the expanding movies both ways and there is much less impact when cropped to scope. :)
 
#16 ·
Digital masking is just as effective at cropping IMAX as an A lens. In fact for films that alternate between 2.20:1 and 1.78:1 it's arguably more effective as you can at least crop to 2.20:1 and not lose any information on the sequences shot in that AR.

Whether you want to crop or not is a larger question. I generally don't on the handful of Nolan films that aren't scope safe. For films like the last Mission Impossible where it's entirely scope safe and just one sequence, I crop it to 2.35:1. As far immersion if you aren't watching at IMAX viewing distances (most aren't) and your 16:9 picture is sized to comfortably fill your vertical field of view you won't lose immersion cropping to scope (it will actually be more immersive), though you will still lose picture information. Thankfully there aren't many of these out there and not many being released.
 
#17 ·
True there are a limited number of movies showed in IMAX venues and then released for the home market in their 1.89 or 1.77 AR. The number is made larger if you include the 3D home version if that is your thing. The vast majority of these movies also could have been viewed in commercial 2.4 scope venues as cropped and there is a legitimate case to be made for showing them scope safe at home if you have a 2.4 scope setup in your home most likely it would be front projection.

The IMAX height version is normally considered the directors choice of presentation if they provided it that way to the home market. Even without publicly saying so it can be logically implied they made a movie in IMAX and then had it put on disc as IMAX that they most likely prefer the IMAX framing and if it has changing ARs it is that they wanted it to have changing ARs.

The number of these movies should only be important to the degree we as viewers want to see them. If you are a big fan of modern action, super hero movies and also a fan of 3D versions of those movies it is pretty logical you wouldn’t want to crop them.

There is nothing about an IMAX sized screen that takes away from a scope movie in any way. The scope movie fits in there just perfectly given you have tall enough ceilings to accommodate the IMAX movie, and if masking is important to you then you provide upper and lower masking. Removing the lower only masking solves a big problem when streaming a scope movie with subtitles down there, as there is a place to show them.

These movies started coming out and provided a problem for people that had established scope theaters at home. The simple solution was to hate them, say the extra content wasn’t important and then crop them. There really isn’t anything wrong with that approach actually. It was the simplest solution to a difficult problem.

But what about the blank slate people planning a home theater? IMAX movies are not a problem they haven’t started yet and they can do anything they want. Why would they not want to include these abilities if they want to? The projector they will buy is 16:9 and I don’t hear a lot of clamor demanding 2.4 projectors. The A-lens solution in essences converting a 16:9 projector into a 2.4 projector is an expensive one and most are not taking.

IMAX sizing a screen is just an option and not for everyone, but it really isn’t a big deal to do if building a new home theater and if done properly will have zero negative effect on any non IMAX movie scope included.

It boils down to immersion and some say go as tall as you would ever want and then go wide as scope requires. For me going as tall as I would ever want is what IMAX is and there is a relationship to scope based on that, and scope would be both too tall and too wide if I did that.

There is no other way to explain it except to find a blank white wall and test immersion and watch IMAX and scope and see what relationship works for you. Turn on the masking feature and watch any of the IMAX AR changing movies with and without it and see what you think. :)
 
#20 ·
True there are a limited number of movies showed in IMAX venues and then released for the home market in their 1.89 or 1.77 AR. The number is made larger if you include the 3D home version if that is your thing. The vast majority of these movies also could have been viewed in commercial 2.4 scope venues as cropped and there is a legitimate case to be made for showing them scope safe at home if you have a 2.4 scope setup in your home most likely it would be front projection.

The IMAX height version is normally considered the directors choice of presentation if they provided it that way to the home market. Even without publicly saying so it can be logically implied they made a movie in IMAX and then had it put on disc as IMAX that they most likely prefer the IMAX framing and if it has changing ARs it is that they wanted it to have changing ARs.

The number of these movies should only be important to the degree we as viewers want to see them. If you are a big fan of modern action, super hero movies and also a fan of 3D versions of those movies it is pretty logical you wouldn’t want to crop them.

There is nothing about an IMAX sized screen that takes away from a scope movie in any way. The scope movie fits in there just perfectly given you have tall enough ceilings to accommodate the IMAX movie, and if masking is important to you then you provide upper and lower masking. Removing the lower only masking solves a big problem when streaming a scope movie with subtitles down there, as there is a place to show them.


These movies started coming out and provided a problem for people that had established scope theaters at home. The simple solution was to hate them, say the extra content wasn’t important and then crop them. There really isn’t anything wrong with that approach actually. It was the simplest solution to a difficult problem.

But what about the blank slate people planning a home theater? IMAX movies are not a problem they haven’t started yet and they can do anything they want. Why would they not want to include these abilities if they want to? The projector they will buy is 16:9 and I don’t hear a lot of clamor demanding 2.4 projectors. The A-lens solution in essences converting a 16:9 projector into a 2.4 projector is an expensive one and most are not taking.

IMAX sizing a screen is just an option and not for everyone, but it really isn’t a big deal to do if building a new home theater and if done properly will have zero negative effect on any non IMAX movie scope included.

It boils down to immersion and some say go as tall as you would ever want and then go wide as scope requires. For me going as tall as I would ever want is what IMAX is and there is a relationship to scope based on that, and scope would be both too tall and too wide if I did that.

There is no other way to explain it except to find a blank white wall and test immersion and watch IMAX and scope and see what relationship works for you. Turn on the masking feature and watch any of the IMAX AR changing movies with and without it and see what you think. :)
While I don't disagree that IMAX doesn't have to have a negative impact on non-IMAX content, the person needs to architect their screen size and viewing relationship properly. As well as consider how the content is meant to be displayed in relation to each other. It is a fairly big deal to understand this and implement it correctly.

Most aren't going to do this and will watch IMAX the same as any other 1.78:1 content and very likely from a non-IMAX immersion level. Which essentially means it's just a CIW setup, which does negatively impact a lot of content.

The reality of masking scope safe IMAX is I no longer have the ugly changing picture effect with nothing important lost (IMAX not shot scope safe is of course another matter). It's a shame that we can't just get content in the IMAX AR that stays in that AR. I'd gladly watch it that way.

You don't hear a lot of clamor for a 2.40:1 projector because lens memory has made it largely irrelevant. And more projectors are featuring this, not less.
 
#19 ·
I actually agree and likewise a 2.4:1 home theater screen is not a 40’ tall theater CinemaScope theater experience no matter how much you think it is, Josh.

We need to invent some new words I guess for this forum maybe we should use IMAX-lite and Scope-lite to describe our home theaters.

Just to not confuse anyone out there reading who care at all. If I go to a six-story IMAX theater and sit a distance equal to the height of the screen away and that happens to be what I want to call a true IMAX experience and then I come home and watch the same movie on a one-story high screen and sit a distance equal to the height of that screen That is an IMAX-lite experience. That is not to say I can keep reducing the screen size to where I have a 12” high monitor and sit 12” away and deem that IMAX of any kind. Likewise going to a scope theater with a four-story screen and sitting twice the height of the screen away and duplicating that at home on a 5’ high screen scope screen is not going to be a motion picture experience the same.

None of us not even the AVS Home Theater of the Decade can equal the same experience no matter how much money or how good the equipment or how hard we try. Size is size in both cases.

It is a question of “good enough” or “better than nothing”. I’m not trying to fool JoshZ I’m just trying to give friends and family an approximation of an IMAX experience just a little better than anything they are used to. As long as their jaws drop and they scream and feel they are being pulled from their seats when the floor is pulled out from under them, then I’m happy with the non-IMAX results.

It is simply something you can’t do with a scope screen chopping off 26% of the image. :eek:
 
#22 · (Edited)
I've reauthored all the Blu-ray's I own that contain shifting aspect ratios creating versions with fixed aspect ratios. Before reauthoring a given film I first determine the predominate aspect ratio used which in turn tells me the height of the black bars above and below the image area for most of the film. I then run an AviSynth script when reauthoring that crops away the black bars of each frame which in turn removes the expanded image area. I'm then adding the black bars back which is required for Blu-ray compliance. End result, a fixed aspect ratio from start to finish. I also update any subtitle tracks ensuring each are positioned fully within the visible frame. I do this for all scope films actually.
 
#23 ·
That sounds interesting...
I have the same problem with all Christopher Nolan movies on blu-ray.
When I watched Dunkirk, I went totally mad with the constant switching of AR. I don't own a Panamorph lens, so I watch my movies with black masking bars on the screen. But for this movie and all other AR switching movies, this doesn't work well. I see parts of the movie in the black bars, so It's really annoying.

So... if I understand you correctly, you take the black bars away from the movie, but aren't you cutting movie parts away from the IMAX movie scenes as well? Or are you cutting only black bars scene by scene??
I would really like to know how to do this, because I'm noob at this :D Or if anybody else has a suggestion, please let me know.

For now, I was planing on buying a blu-ray player for my pc, then rip my own blu-ray from Dunkirk and cut the black bars for the entire movie. After that I would reburn the movie to an empyt blu-ray.
If anyone has any suggestions how to do this, or has a better solution, please let me know :)
 
#25 ·
Many projectors today have a blanking feature that can mask off parts of the image and turn it into letterbox bars without having to rip or re-author a Blu-ray. On my JVC DLA-NX7, I've saved a 2.35:1 preset that does this with one button push.

Movies with IMAX variable ratio (The Dark Knight, Interstellar, etc.) are composed to be safe for cropping to 2.35:1, because that's how they play in all non-IMAX theaters. The IMAX footage has no critical picture info, just extra headroom and footroom for ambiance. Some directors of these movies prefer a constant 2.35:1 presentation on home video and instruct their movies to be transferred that way. See the "Movies that Played in IMAX Theaters with a Variable Aspect Ratio but Are Only Constant Height 2.35:1 on Blu-ray or Ultra HD," "Movies that Played in IMAX Theaters with a Variable Aspect Ratio but Have Constant Height 2.35:1 Options Available on Blu-ray or Ultra HD," and "Movies that Played in IMAX Theaters with an Open-Matte 1.90:1 Aspect Ratio (Entire Length of Movie) but Are Only Constant Height 2.35:1 on Blu-ray or Ultra HD" lists in this thread:

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/117-...ist-variable-aspect-ratio-movies-blu-ray.html
 
#27 · (Edited)
This is always a fun topic :).

In my 14 years on AVS I've learned a lot from the CIH aficionados, and also picked up great points from CIA and/or PIA fans like @Craig Peer, @R Harkness, and @bud16415. The first 10 years of home projection I was CIW, then switched to CIH with a 2.35 screen a few years back, so I know the pros and cons of each according to my own preferences and both methods left me disappointed and frustrated. I researched a lot on the topic and considered how others had solved this like Craig with his dual screen/dual aspect ratio system, and Rich and Bud with their open palette that allows them to project whatever size they enjoy most depending on the content and audience (no different than having three rows in your home theater and choosing where you want to sit each night based on content and mood).

So when I updated my theater recently I sized my screen width for the maximum immersion I like with scope (140" inches wide and 140" viewing distance, 53 degrees), then bought a 1.78 screen with that width, and I project Constant Image Area most of the time so my scope films retain plenty of glory as they are viewed significantly wider than most of my 1.85/1.78 content, and I reserve the entire screen height for special viewings of epic changing aspect ratio films such as Dunkirk or movies that work superbly with a challenging level of vertical immersion such as Avatar, and also some of the big action films on 3D that are 1.90/1.85/1.78. Recently my wife and I watched The Aeronauts with its changing aspect ratio and it was simply awe-inspiring.

Ross
 
#28 ·
This is always a fun topic :).

In my 14 years on AVS I've learned a lot from the CIH aficionados, and also picked up great points from CIA and/or PIA fans like @Craig Peer , @R Harkness , and @bud16415 . In my first 10 years of home projection I was CIW, then switched to CIH with a 2.35 screen a few years back, so I know the pros and cons of each according to my own preferences and both methods left me disappointed and frustrated. I researched a lot on the topic and considered how others had solved this like Craig with his dual screen/dual aspect ratio system, and Rich and Bud with their open palette that allows them to project whatever size they enjoy most depending on the content and audience (no different than having three rows in your home theater and choosing where you want to sit each night based on content and mood).

So when I updated my theater recently I sized my screen width for the maximum immersion I like with scope (140" inches wide and 140" viewing distance, 53 degrees), then bought a 1.78 screen with that width, and I project Constant Image Area most of the time so my scope films retain plenty of glory as they are viewed significantly wider than most of my 1.85/1.78 content, and I reserve the entire screen height for special viewings of epic changing aspect ratio films such as Dunkirk or movies that work superbly with a challenging level of vertical immersion such as Avatar, and also some of the big action films on 3D that are 1.90/1.85/1.78. Recently my wife and I watched The Aeronauts with its changing aspect ratio and it was simply awe-inspiring.

Ross

Fun stuff, huh?


I still find having a variable image size system to be awe-inspiring to use.
 
#31 ·
To each his own naturally. I personally don't care for changing aspect ratios. They've never blown my skirt up. My preference is to watch a film from start to finish where the projector screen is physically masked down to the main aspect ratio on all sides. I do this with black velvet masking. The impact is significant and best of all, it lasts for the entire length of the film, from the first frame to the last. Projecting black bars on a white screen for 99% of a given film just for the few moments when the aspect ratio changes is not worth the tradeoff for me. Again though, to each his own.
 
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