Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Screen size -- how big is too big ?

>>Alright, I am starting to get confused here. I am planning on having a 16:9 screen, you guys are saying you are going to have a 2.35 screen? So what do you do when you have a full 16:9 image?

If you don't have one of these fancy lenses (and most people don't), the best thing is probably to stay with a 16:9 screen and live with the black bars top and bottom when watching a 2.35 movie.

If you have one of these lenses and the right "stretching" capabilities in your system (projector, HTPC, player) then you can get a 2.35 screen and flip back and forth between 16:9 and 2.35:1 pretty easily. It's a question of whether you are optimizing for 16:9/1.85:1 or for 2.35:1.

(EDIT - the following paragraph actually answers your question, the rest is just "background" )

You can also run with a 2.35 screen without the lens/prism if you don't mind fiddling with the zoom and lens shift every time you go between 2.35 and 1.85 content, since with a 2.35 screen you need to zoom out in order to fit the taller 16:9/1.85:1 image on the 2.35 screen. Usually you have to shift the image as well, so it is a pain in the butt.

The decision making process, I think, is :

1. Am I going to end up with a lens/prism eventually ?

2. Can I live with the zoom/shift hassles in the meantime ?

If the answers to both questions are "yes", then get a 2.35 screen. If the answer to either question is "no", then get a 16:9 screen.

One day projectors and DVDs will have 2.35:1 native support (I hear a couple of projectors do already) and this will be easier, but for now a 2.35 system is kind-of on the bleeding edge.

But it gets worse. Do you want to hear about "blended" systems, where you use a custom video processor and 2 cheap 4:3 projectors running side by side to get a 2.35:1 image ?

Such a neat hobby

Keep in mind that if you use the zoom methods, your still not reclaiming the full panel of the projector for the image. So the zoomed "to fit the screen" option will not be as good of an image as if you were able to scale the image and reclaim those lost pixels.

Absolutely. It just lets you have a nice wide screen.

In my case going with 2.35 lets me have a larger screen, since I have to fit into a loft with 45 degree walls

A good rule of thumb is 1.3-1.5 times back the screen width.

The miracle of the Internet:

Just a few days ago, I was a confused shmuck with a 4x8 sheet of Formica velcro'ed to my wall, unsure whether to cut it to 2.35:1 or 16:9 aspect ratio. I didn't want to cut to 16:9 because I really liked the 2.35 movies to be a bit wider -- cutting to 2.35 seemed better but when I simulated a 2.35 screen it made the 16:9 and 1.85 movies just a bit too small. Even buying one of those fancy-schmancy lenses didn't seem to solve all of my problems, although I have to admit Randy's Prismasonic still seems like it comes closest without spending insane money.

But no more !!!

After only a couple of days of research, without making any changes to my system, I am now the proud owner of a "constant-area" system, the coolest thing in the home theater world.

I owe Randy quite a lot of beer for suggesting an aspect ratio midway between 16:9 and 2.35 -- turns out I'm not the only one who is not completely satisfied with either of those two aspect ratios.

Room size seems to be the key -- if you have enough space for a big honkin' 2.35 screen (like Randy's) then everything is happy, but the biggest I can run is about 8 feet wide and that makes the 16:9 content seem just the tiniest bit too small. In that case, having a screen around 2.06:1 is ideal -- you use the full width for 2.35:1, and use the full height for 16:9, 1.85:1, or 4:3.

So... now I can relax and go back to watching movies. I will still have to zoom and shift when going from one format to another, and I'll have to play with some moveable borders for the 4x8 screen, but now I have a plan. Probably will still want to add a lens at some point, but I can live without it for a while.

Thanks for all the great input and suggestions. I'm going to go off and do some zooming and shifting

Quote:

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John, I would love to have a beer with you sometime, just have to figure out how we would accomplish this task.

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John could paypal you the amount for the beer. then you guys could start a new thread in the watercooler titled: Randy and John share a beer! then you guys could post back and forth while enjoying your beers together. lol

I don't believe it. Some idiot bought a FULLSCREEN copy of "Attack of the Clones". Never noticed it before because I was watching on a 4:3 TV. If I ever find out who is responsible for buying the DVDs around here... oh wait...

The image looks very... tall.

I discovered something else in the process... might be unique to my projector, but I have a sinking feeling it is common to all widescreen displays. When I play a 4:3 DVD, unless I fiddle with the projector settings the image is stretched across to the full 16:9 panel area. If I flip the projector's "Screen" setting from "Full" to "Normal" I get a 4:3 image with bars on the sides. Manual says Full = 16:9, Normal = 4:3.

Why do I care ? Because my "no scaler, no HTPC" approach to 2.35 CH was going to be picking up a used Panamorph vertical compression lens, mounting the projector back 20 feet as originally designed, leaving the lens in place all the time, and using the "Normal" setting on the projector to squish 16:9 content down so it would appear normal after going through the lens.

That should work fine for 16:9 content, but it means I have no solution for playing 4:3 content without moving the lens or finding a "double-squish" setting on the projector.