I was just watching Matrix Revolutions and suddenly realized it was in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Randy's post with that little green guy popped into mind...

Trying to figure out if it's worth planning for a 2.35:1 screen from the get-go. I know Star Wars are all 2.35:1 but hadn't noticed any others... have I been sleeping through a gentle transition to 2.35:1 or what ?

John, you failed to mention the critically acclaimed "Scary Movie" in your list...

Actually, Randy posted some information on this subject not too long ago. Sirquacks Info.

Thanks everyone for asking and answering a question that I have been asking myself lately. I guess I will go 1.85:1 for the screen since that will mean that most of the screen is used most of the time, between movies and HDTV, which is the very close 1.78:1 (I can live with frequent tiny columnboxes).

medic8r

So... after an informal survey, I have concluded that 80% of the movies I watch are in 2.35:1, and the rest are a mix of 4:3 classics and 16:9-ish TV.

So... other than Randy, does anyone else have an HT designed around 2.35:1 and how did you do it ? Anamorphic lens, or just using a subset of the vertical lines in your projector ?

Specifically, some 720p projectors actually use 768v LCD arrays, so they can handle 480*1.85/2.35 scaled up 2x. Whether they actually give a 2x scaling is unknown, as is whether a clean 2x scaling is better than a 1.9x scaling...

C'mon folks, spill your guts here...

Thanks,
John

I'm planning to go with the anamorphic lens eventually. To me it seems that it's the most practical way of doing it and still get a very good quality picture. After all that's pretty much how they do it at the movies (well except a few movie theaters around town which have rooms for different aspect ratios).
I guess it can be a hassle to have to switch the lens on passthrough (and switch off the image stretching) when watching non anamorphic material, but to me that's a cheap price to pay for a constant height projection.

I'm planning on using curtains as screen masks when watching smaller aspect ratios (like at the movies).

That's a good point... if you make the effort to keep things constant height then you can use regular (moving side-to-side) curtains for masking instead of moving them up and down to compensate for changing height.

I had been thinking of running a wooden frame around the screen, hinging the top and bottom parts and painting the back and edges black so I could fold them down as masks, but maybe taking another look at constant height is the way to go.

Does anyone know if the anamorphic lenses make the picture wider or just less tall ? I know they can do either depending on how they are designed, just wondering which approach is more common.