[finklses]

I bought the Infocus X1 about a month ago, and I am pretty happy with the product. It came with a nice carrying case, and very high quality looking cables, and just seemed very professional. The picture quality is very good. I am no videophile, but it certainly looks as good as the rptv's being sold at bestbuy and costs a heck of a lot less. It is a little less user friendly than your standard idiot proof tv's (any front projector), but the effort is worthwhile. It's true that it's not a bright projector (need light control), and there is a rainbow effect (I see it rarely and only on a couple movies I've seen), but other than those drawbacks, it's pretty awesome.


I have a couple questions hopefully someone can answer regarding masking for watching 16/9 movies in the native 4/3 format. Instead of placing a black material below and above the white screen that absorbs light, can I block the light coming out of the projector with pieces of paper (or somethign like that) right in front of the lens? I'm sure someone else has thought of that; I haven't seen any threads about using that approach. Are there drawbacks?


BTW, i also bought a piece of parkland plastic at home depot and it works well but not noticeably better than my white wall. recommended but not necessary if you have a nice white wall.

 

[Mr Mago]

On blocking the frame at the projector. There was some talk earlier, I think if you block it that close to the lens some light will be reflected into your intended image. I do remember others saying it is a no go.

 

[Mr_Belowski]

The bits of paper or whatever blocking the light will be out of focus, so the shadows they cast will not have sharp edges. You'll get a 'penumbra' shadow (to use the solar eclipse terminology), which means that only part of the shadow cast is full shadow. The other part (the size of which depends on how close to the screen your bits of paper are) will be only partial shadow.


If you sketch out a simple ray diagram you'll see what i mean straight away

 

[cupofjoe]

I am in the same situation as you. I cut out a 16 x 9 ratio out of a piece of heavy paper (photo mount mat paper). I placed in about a ~12 inches in front of the lense and it makes the picture look a ton better IMO. I placed the paper where I was going to mount it, traced the 16 x 9 image (or 4x3 whatever you want), cut out the box in the paper, mounted and it looks great. I use the native res. for 4x3 and the 4x3 res for 16x9 dvds. The important cut dimensions are the top and bottom, I didn't restrict the image passing through on the sides. Try it, see what you think.


Hope this helps


Don


ps I will eventually make a hush box with this light window to kill two birds with one stone.

 

[cupofjoe]

by the way, I am not using the paper to create a sharp border. I will mount black border to my screen to block the remaining 2-3 inches of light spill. I just didn't want a border to be 12 -14 thick. It makes a big improvement and I still haven't mounted the border yet.


Believe it or not I get a good image off a painted med dark blue gray wall (similiar to the tokyo direct blue but a shade or two lighter). I will be making a screen shortly .