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What do we widescreen TV owners do with movies shot in a wider aspect ratio than our 16:9 shaped displays? Let's take movies shot in 2:35:1 aspect ratio as our general example. We get the black bars on top and bottom, right? Personally, I've never been allergic to the black bars at all. They are fine with me. For me, there are only two ways in which they may intrude upon the viewing experience. 1. They can to a degree add to the "visual clutter" beyond the actual image information. Especially if, 2. the black bars are not terribly black. Which, especially in digital displays, tends to flag the fact your black levels aren't really black. You can see the glow in those big swatches of black bars, even on the best displays. (Projectors included: light spill from the image into the black bars lowers the contrast of the black bars, so the image appears projected onto a flat gray background, rather than being a window into the movie scene, surrounded by black space).
In the AV industry it's common wisdom that, if you can swing it, masking for 2:35:1 films (or any non-16:9 films) can improve the viewing experience and even the perceived picture quality. By masking here I'm referring to physically applying a black border around the 2:35:1 wide-screen movie image, so you only see the image and not the unused black bar area on your display. (There are also electronic versions of masking, wherein image processing applies black masks on the image itself surrounding the film image, but I'm not talking about those. And besides, they don't solve the problems inherent in many displays anyway).
The more high-falutin' front projector systems may employ electronic masking. If you are watching a 2:35:1 widescreen movie and your projector screen is only 16:9, a flick of a button electronically draws a black curtain from the top and the bottom of the screen, to effectively make your screen a perfect 2:35:1 shape. It therefore blocks out extraneous black bars, as well as light spill from the movie image onto the rest of the screen, leaving you only with the image itself floating in space, without any distractions.
This physical masking also provides deeper black, and hence deeper contrast around the movie image - much deeper than is provided by the letter-boxed black bar part of the image. The purported benefit of this is the image "pops" more, and it is said to also improve perceived contrast. Physical masking has been used not only in the front projection world, but also by finicky owners of RPTVs and even direct views, in their quest to improve the viewing experience of extra-wide movies.
So I gave it a whirl. Using some black cardboard attached to a few L-brackets, I cut two masks perfectly to size. When put on my plasma the entire plasma becomes black, except the 2:35:1 movie image showing through the middle of the masking. It was a fast prototype and not particularly pretty, but with the lights down the masking and the plasma disappear, leaving a 2:35:1 movie floating in pitch blackness.
Results: Pretty neat. It sort of purifies the viewing experience, and hence the image itself. The contrast between the image and off-image area is obviously richer, deeper and more dramatic. The image somehow seems brighter, even to the point that I would notch down the contrast/brightness more than without the masking. But bright, vibrant and pure are the adjectives that spring to mind watching 2:35:1 films this way. Nothing but the image itself on display.
At first I found myself conscious of the masking, aware that I was looking through masking to the image. This made me perceive the image as receding just a tad behind the black image border. That's the double-edged sword of the fact the image borders are going to remain blacker and more solid looking than anything on screen. The immediate effect reminded me of viewing real images through the viewfinder of a 35mm movie camera. And since the black masking removed any dimensional information
near the movie image (no grayish black letter-boxed bars, no visible modulations of plasma bezel etc), it seemed that dimensional cues were left all to the movie image itself. Distance cues seemed more convincing. Peering at landscapes was more like looking into a real scene, actors seemed a tad more separated in dimensional space. Neato. Also, There was something about camera movement that brought out this dimensionality aspect. With the lights down, the borderless image supplied most of the visual cues for orientation, and swooping camera moves in something like The Return Of The King were almost like riding the camera dolly itself, or peering out a swerving helicopter over a scene. Depending on what turns your crank, the effect is either thrillingly dimensional or almost nausea-producing. I thought it was cool.
Downsides? Perhaps one. The black levels ot the plasma image could sometimes appear a bit lighter, given that large image areas of black are now contrasted against absolute black borders. I occasionally found myself concerned with this, but strangely the significance seemed to change per film. While occasionally Alien seemed to have slightly dustier blacks than I'm used to without the masking, Attack Of The Clones and the Hobbit flicks were taken to another level of vividness and dimensionality.
I'm going to keep experimenting. But that's my experience so far. Thought I'd report for any other try-anything-for-the-best-image types out there.
In the AV industry it's common wisdom that, if you can swing it, masking for 2:35:1 films (or any non-16:9 films) can improve the viewing experience and even the perceived picture quality. By masking here I'm referring to physically applying a black border around the 2:35:1 wide-screen movie image, so you only see the image and not the unused black bar area on your display. (There are also electronic versions of masking, wherein image processing applies black masks on the image itself surrounding the film image, but I'm not talking about those. And besides, they don't solve the problems inherent in many displays anyway).
The more high-falutin' front projector systems may employ electronic masking. If you are watching a 2:35:1 widescreen movie and your projector screen is only 16:9, a flick of a button electronically draws a black curtain from the top and the bottom of the screen, to effectively make your screen a perfect 2:35:1 shape. It therefore blocks out extraneous black bars, as well as light spill from the movie image onto the rest of the screen, leaving you only with the image itself floating in space, without any distractions.
This physical masking also provides deeper black, and hence deeper contrast around the movie image - much deeper than is provided by the letter-boxed black bar part of the image. The purported benefit of this is the image "pops" more, and it is said to also improve perceived contrast. Physical masking has been used not only in the front projection world, but also by finicky owners of RPTVs and even direct views, in their quest to improve the viewing experience of extra-wide movies.
So I gave it a whirl. Using some black cardboard attached to a few L-brackets, I cut two masks perfectly to size. When put on my plasma the entire plasma becomes black, except the 2:35:1 movie image showing through the middle of the masking. It was a fast prototype and not particularly pretty, but with the lights down the masking and the plasma disappear, leaving a 2:35:1 movie floating in pitch blackness.
Results: Pretty neat. It sort of purifies the viewing experience, and hence the image itself. The contrast between the image and off-image area is obviously richer, deeper and more dramatic. The image somehow seems brighter, even to the point that I would notch down the contrast/brightness more than without the masking. But bright, vibrant and pure are the adjectives that spring to mind watching 2:35:1 films this way. Nothing but the image itself on display.
At first I found myself conscious of the masking, aware that I was looking through masking to the image. This made me perceive the image as receding just a tad behind the black image border. That's the double-edged sword of the fact the image borders are going to remain blacker and more solid looking than anything on screen. The immediate effect reminded me of viewing real images through the viewfinder of a 35mm movie camera. And since the black masking removed any dimensional information
near the movie image (no grayish black letter-boxed bars, no visible modulations of plasma bezel etc), it seemed that dimensional cues were left all to the movie image itself. Distance cues seemed more convincing. Peering at landscapes was more like looking into a real scene, actors seemed a tad more separated in dimensional space. Neato. Also, There was something about camera movement that brought out this dimensionality aspect. With the lights down, the borderless image supplied most of the visual cues for orientation, and swooping camera moves in something like The Return Of The King were almost like riding the camera dolly itself, or peering out a swerving helicopter over a scene. Depending on what turns your crank, the effect is either thrillingly dimensional or almost nausea-producing. I thought it was cool.
Downsides? Perhaps one. The black levels ot the plasma image could sometimes appear a bit lighter, given that large image areas of black are now contrasted against absolute black borders. I occasionally found myself concerned with this, but strangely the significance seemed to change per film. While occasionally Alien seemed to have slightly dustier blacks than I'm used to without the masking, Attack Of The Clones and the Hobbit flicks were taken to another level of vividness and dimensionality.
I'm going to keep experimenting. But that's my experience so far. Thought I'd report for any other try-anything-for-the-best-image types out there.
I had a feeling I'd be in the minority on this one.
