[Stephen Hopkins]

Different tastes and priorities I guess... I see a notable drop in perceived contrast without proper masking/border. I've had plans for 16:9 masking panels, but like you, I find myself switching to often to see myself actually using them safe for occasional "special" content that is also 16:9 (which is relatively rare for me, to be totally honest).

My dream would be a video processor with aspect ratio sensing that would scale 16:9 content (mainly streaming UIs) to fit within the 2.35:1 height so I could stop using lens zoom/shift memory all together... But those are well out of my budget grasp for the foreseeable future.

 

[Sam Ash]

I know preference plays a part but what is the closest that one can sit to a 16:9 projection screen and still watch comfortably assuming 16:9 content. What I am trying to do is use 16:9 for scope too with 2 rows of seats. The back row will be the ideal/sweet row and the front row will then be a bit of a compromise but I want the compromised row to be enjoyable too. The from row will definitely be more immersive but it should not end up being uncomfortable. With scope format I know it will work, I'm more concerned about 16:9 from the front row.

 

[bud16415]

I know preference plays a part but what is the closest that one can sit to a 16:9 projection screen and still watch comfortably assuming 16:9 content. What I am trying to do is use 16:9 for scope too with 2 rows of seats. The back row will be the ideal/sweet row and the front row will then be a bit of a compromise but I want the compromised row to be enjoyable too. The from row will definitely be more immersive but it should not end up being uncomfortable. With scope format I know it will work, I'm more concerned about 16:9 from the front row.

What you are asking for is imposable if you respect the idea that AR and immersion have a relationship that make them all perfect.

For TV it kind of works because most people even with 80” TV sets watch them under immersive and some content a little more under immersive than others. There is nothing wrong with under immersive I do it all the time in our living room watching a 50” TV from about 12’ away. The TV shows are still entertaining and both the image and sound are way under immersive than if it were cinema-like.

Over immersive is where there is problems for most people. Too big is just not that much fun to watch. If you want your front row to be just perfect for scope and have a 16:9 screen it will also be just perfect for IMAX but 16:9 TV IMO is going to be uncomfortably large. It wont be unbearably large but it will seem to a lot of people like they would rather be in your second row.

It can be worked around as many people have 16:9 screens and do CIW presentation. A lot of time those people like sports and streaming TV content and are ok sizing to that and then taking what they get with scope. It will still be a much larger and immersive than 99.9% of people with TVs would enjoy it at.

The idea of CIH or CIH+IMAX or other variable method isn’t like it is 100 times better than CIW. It is just that little bit of fine tuning better that people go for.
If you mainly watch 16:9 TV and have a projector then weigh your solution in the 16:9 direction if you mainly watch blockbusters in scope and IMAX then tilt in that direction. If you want the best of all worlds for all people and all media then look at variable presentation or a way to move your seating easily.

 

[bud16415]

Different tastes and priorities I guess... I see a notable drop in perceived contrast without proper masking/border. I've had plans for 16:9 masking panels, but like you, I find myself switching to often to see myself actually using them safe for occasional "special" content that is also 16:9 (which is relatively rare for me, to be totally honest).

My dream would be a video processor with aspect ratio sensing that would scale 16:9 content (mainly streaming UIs) to fit within the 2.35:1 height so I could stop using lens zoom/shift memory all together... But those are well out of my budget grasp for the foreseeable future.

First off the debate of boarders or no boarders will go on forever and it has a function in a few things, one how dark your room is, two how non reflective your room is, three how dark your screen is, four how good your projector is at doing black, and five how low the APL level is in the media you are watching. The last one is what evokes perception more than anything other and it does it by adjusting your eyes.

IMO the idea of boarders is more important maybe the less immersive we watch and that was largely based around the resolution we watched. With 4k I’m finding people watching with CIH or CIH+IMAX are taking the screen height to their full or comfortable vertical FOV and that puts the width fully at their horizontal FOV. In the case of CIH with zooming the black bars on the sides when showing flat are not projected black bars and the reason many feel they are fine unmasked. If masking is more important for projected black bars then CIH is perfect because everything fits but the few 2.55, 2.76:1 movies out there. If variable is your goal or CIH+IMAX then you ether need top / bottom masking or not and if variable is your goal you need 4way masking or not.

I don’t know how having masking would effect your perception of CR at all or for stuff outside your FOV. People put bias lighting around their screens actually in an attempt of invoking perception of CR.

For me I found myself looking over at the boarder during the movie and thinking that’s a true black and then looking back to a low APL image on the screen and thinking that’s a brighter black and almost mentally resetting my idea of where my black floor was. Without the boarder I look outside the image and think that’s black and looking back and thinking that’s black also. After all the best black we will ever see is what the screen looks like with whatever light there is in the room and there is always going to be light in the room if you can look over and see the person sitting next to you during a movie there is light in the room.
My goal was to convince myself to watch the movie and enjoy it the same way my guests were and stop studying the presentation. So for me it took a short time and now I don’t look at my boarders because I don’t have any to look at. also having a .5gain gray stealth screen wall helped a lot. I tell people that this might be a better solution in a media room than a classic home theater room also as in a HT you want to feel you have a defined screen size and shape and maybe even a stage below the screen. People are going after a look along with the image quite often.

 

[Sam Ash]

What you are asking for is imposable if you respect the idea that AR and immersion have a relationship that make them all perfect.

For TV it kind of works because most people even with 80” TV sets watch them under immersive and some content a little more under immersive than others. There is nothing wrong with under immersive I do it all the time in our living room watching a 50” TV from about 12’ away. The TV shows are still entertaining and both the image and sound are way under immersive than if it were cinema-like.

Over immersive is where there is problems for most people. Too big is just not that much fun to watch. If you want your front row to be just perfect for scope and have a 16:9 screen it will also be just perfect for IMAX but 16:9 TV IMO is going to be uncomfortably large. It wont be unbearably large but it will seem to a lot of people like they would rather be in your second row.

It can be worked around as many people have 16:9 screens and do CIW presentation. A lot of time those people like sports and streaming TV content and are ok sizing to that and then taking what they get with scope. It will still be a much larger and immersive than 99.9% of people with TVs would enjoy it at.

The idea of CIH or CIH+IMAX or other variable method isn’t like it is 100 times better than CIW. It is just that little bit of fine tuning better that people go for.
If you mainly watch 16:9 TV and have a projector then weigh your solution in the 16:9 direction if you mainly watch blockbusters in scope and IMAX then tilt in that direction. If you want the best of all worlds for all people and all media then look at variable presentation or a way to move your seating easily.

Thanks for the elaborate answer Bud. I think I’m beginning to appreciate the concept of CIH and a scope screen because 90% of the time I’d be watching movies and the remaining 10% constitutes documentaries which are mostly 16:9. This will give me bars to the left and right of a 16:9 image but I could live with that. Not keen on moving seats. What’s the maximum comfortable but immersive subtended view angle? I don’t think I’d want to go over 70 degrees.

 

[Stephen Hopkins]

Sam, that was the calculus I did for CIH... most of the content I watch critically ends up being scope, and what isn't usually doesn't require that immersion factor anyway. What multi-aspect IMAX I come across, I can live with it either being spillover or possibly noticing/remembering to zoom-out and back. If I didn't have a pitched ceiling above my screen (and probably more importantly, speakers behind it), I might look into a painted screen wall and motorized 4-way masking, but I'd probably read and plan for a few months and never actually build/implement it.

 

[bud16415]

Thanks for the elaborate answer Bud. I think I’m beginning to appreciate the concept of CIH and a scope screen because 90% of the time I’d be watching movies and the remaining 10% constitutes documentaries which are mostly 16:9. This will give me bars to the left and right of a 16:9 image but I could live with that. Not keen on moving seats. What’s the maximum comfortable but immersive subtended view angle? I don’t think I’d want to go over 70 degrees.

The general consensus is pick the biggest 16:9 screen size would like to have and then keep that height and go wider for scope. The idea is you don’t lose on your 16:9 you gain on your scope.
That’s why I don’t worry about the angles and go by a function of screen heights. I personally like my CIH screen height to be ½ my seating distance. Or simply put 2X screen height = seating distance.

 

[Sam Ash]

The general consensus is pick the biggest 16:9 screen size would like to have and then keep that height and go wider for scope. The idea is you don’t lose on your 16:9 you gain on your scope.
That’s why I don’t worry about the angles and go by a function of screen heights. I personally like my CIH screen height to be ½ my seating distance. Or simply put 2X screen height = seating distance.

Thanks Bud, you are right indeed, I've been looking at various scope size options and their associated 16:9 adaptations by keeping height constant.

 

[Sam Ash]

Sam, that was the calculus I did for CIH... most of the content I watch critically ends up being scope, and what isn't usually doesn't require that immersion factor anyway. What multi-aspect IMAX I come across, I can live with it either being spillover or possibly noticing/remembering to zoom-out and back. If I didn't have a pitched ceiling above my screen (and probably more importantly, speakers behind it), I might look into a painted screen wall and motorized 4-way masking, but I'd probably read and plan for a few months and never actually build/implement it.

I agree with you Stephen and I've had the same experience, most of what I watch is scope so 16:9 AR would not make sense. Like Bud said, you can create a nice balance by working out the 16:9 size for the occasional 16:9 material. I love animal and nature documentaries and watch then once in a while. I'm considering a JVC projector and I notice that it has zoom/focus/position memories. Hence, for scope content, one can zoom-in to fill the scope screen and save that as a setting. Same applies to 16:9 content. Is there an automatic way to do that based on content metadata?