I read about this native 2.35:1 projector and I don't understand why this was not done earlier.

http://hometheaterreview.com/digital-projection-debuts-native-2351-projector/

They just added some extra pixels horizontally so that when you display a 16:9 image it is still 1080p. No messing with an anamorphic lens and reducing the brightness and contrast by doing so. And no need to optically stretch the image either.

This projector is what Home Theater is all about. Having a 2.35 movie that is more enveloping than a 16:9 movie. Yet we are getting 3D displays that most people don't really want and it seems that there is a push to maybe having 4k displays, yet there is no content right now. It seems like the movie studios and companies producing displays are trying to give us what they want and not what we want.

The bad thing about the projector though is that it costs around $30,000 to $50,000, but I don't see why any projector brand couldn't implement the same idea with a very small increase in the overall cost of the projector. Maybe we can send an e-mail to JVC and Sony and down the line get reasonably priced projectors that are native 2.35:1.

You are right. Isn't the point of a movie projector to emulate the experience from movie theaters? While not everything is shot in full scope, there is a huge desire it seems for the ability to get the wide image without losing light. in the past, that meant adding a couple thousand dollars minimum to have some sort of prismatic lens.

I like the idea of 2.35:1 native!

Maybe I don't understand this fully, but don't projectors like the AE4000 and others do this already by a simple lens zoom? My in-laws have the AE4000 and I have it setup to switch between 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 modes. There are 2 different 'zoom presets' that I have setup to match the source material. I have them set for the size of their screen and we can switch manually or have the projector detect automatically and switch. No artificial digital stretching or separate lens is used. What am I missing in my understanding in the differences in the way this is handled?

By doing this you are only using roughly 2/3 of the pixels to display the image the rest are still displaying the black bars, though they are zoomed outside of the screen. This is supposed to hurt the overall contrast ratio of the picture in 2.35:1. If you mostly watch 16:9 material then it doesn't matter. If you mostly watch movies (most of which are shot in 2.35:1) then it is more of an issue.

The Dvision projector puts 2.35:1 movies as more important than 16:9. The 16:9 material will have black bars on the sides and should have a loss in contrast ratio compared to a native 16:9 projector of the same specs and size of image.

Ah, that's the piece of information I was overlooking. Makes sense now. My in-laws have a 2.35:1 screen, so even when we watch 1.78:1 material we have unused screen on the sides (we never stretch the image - blech!). I like the idea for a native anamorphic projector. Anybody know if they make anamorphic plasmas?

Thanks for the info Nick.

You guys are smart.

If I ever get a projector, I'm having it implemented by the Axiom Forum Projector Geek Squad.

No unfortunately and we probably never will see it for two reasons.

(1) With plasmas you have to be cautious of watching too much material that does not fill up the entire screen, due to uneven aging of the phosphors. Since most folks will mostly watch 16:9 material this could present a problem. There could be stretch modes (which I cannot stand), but then most HDTV material would be stretched. There is still some older 4:3 material which would be really stretched and even the folks that don't mind stretching things now would probably object to this.

(2) Plasma sets may not be around that much longer. When folks buy TV's from big box stores they seem to be drawn to the extra brightness that LCD's give in torch mode, so plasmas just don't sell as well. Even Panasonic has recently reported losses (if I remember correctly) and they have probably the best picture quality that you can get in a TV regardless of price. But, taking price into account they are a better value that most LCD's of the same size.


Anyways, there are only two TV's that I know of that are 2.35:1, that I know of. A few years ago Phillips had an LCD TV in this ratio. I wouldn't expect a good picture out of the Phillips set. And Vizio, just recently announced one at CES. I'm not sure if it is for sale yet, but it is supposed to be LED edge lit. So the contrast ratio will be just like other LCD's (not very good) and there will probably be color uniformity issues (especially with the extra width of the display).

More and more companies are doing the "lens memory" thing and allowing you to save custom zoom, focus, position settings to accommodate different aspect ratios which is cool. No more manually zooming/focusing/etc. Makes the zoom option a lot more user friendly.

My next projector (on pre-order) has this, and I am pairing it with the fact that it is supposed to have super dark black levels so that "black bars" will really disappear against the black material around my screen.

Vizio and Phillips have "21:9" TVs coming out... Or at least they did at one point plan to. That is pretty much 2.35:1...

I was looking for a price for this projector, until I came upon the description that this was an ultra-high end projector. I don't think I need to know the price anymore.