Aspect ratios and displays - Great info in this video!

[Cinescapes]

There's some good information in here about the differences between flat panels and projection when watching movies in scope.

Why Flat Panel TVs are Wrong for Home Theater - YouTube

[chip75]

I found the video misleading. I'm sure we'd all like projectors and home theatres to view movies in but the image isn't going to be different, it's 1920 x 1080 on a Blu-ray and cropped to 1920 x 800 on a projector (then upscaled if it's a higher resolution). If you watch BDs without the letterboxing on a projector all you've done is crop the letterboxing. You're not going to gain any picture detail by doing so.

There aren't any anamorphic (or 4:3) BDs the letterboxing and pillar-boxing is always part of the image. If you had BDs that was anamorphic then you'd have benefits of 21:9 displays (instead of the TV's gizmos doing the work). I do wonder why they dropped the anamorphic feature when going to Blu-rays, but I'd imagine they thought the large panels and increased resolution was sufficient enough to do without it (I'm sure the square pixels were a factor too).

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by chip75

I found the video misleading. I'm sure we'd all like projectors and home theatres to view movies in but the image isn't going to be different, it's 1920 x 1080 on a Blu-ray and cropped to 1920 x 800 on a projector (then upscaled if it's a higher resolution). If you watch BDs without the letterboxing on a projector all you've done is crop the letterboxing. You're not going to gain any picture detail by doing so.

There aren't any anamorphic (or 4:3) BDs the letterboxing and pillar-boxing is always part of the image. If you had BDs that was anamorphic then you'd have benefits of 21:9 displays (instead of the TV's gizmos doing the work). I do wonder why they dropped the anamorphic feature when going to Blu-rays, but I'd imagine they thought the large panels and increased resolution was sufficient enough to do without it (I'm sure the square pixels were a factor too).

this. As far as i'm aware all blu-rays contain 2K video. No matter what the aspect ratio is (unless it's less than 16:9) the horizontal resolution is fixed at 1920px.

A projector isn't going to magically stretch that to 2560px, it's just going to upscale the same as watching a DVD on a 1080p tv or a blu-ray on a 4K tv.

[spectre08]

I recognize at least half of the home theaters pictured at the end either from this site or AVS

[victorvondoom88]

Originally Posted by chip75

I found the video misleading. I'm sure we'd all like projectors and home theatres to view movies in but the image isn't going to be different, it's 1920 x 1080 on a Blu-ray and cropped to 1920 x 800 on a projector (then upscaled if it's a higher resolution). If you watch BDs without the letterboxing on a projector all you've done is crop the letterboxing. You're not going to gain any picture detail by doing so.

Not exactly , the video is about using anamorphic lens. If your player or projector can vertically stretch the image you will use the entire 16:9 panel, this is the "resolution gain" they're talking about. So there's no black bars period. This creates geometry errors , everyone looks tall & skinny. Then you have to use an anamorphic lens to horizontally expand the image & correct the geometry.
Now there would definitely be a gain in brightness but I can't say for sure that you'd notice any perceivable increase in resolution. I'm kind of doubting that but the increased brightness might make it seem that way.

Having said that I can tell you while I do have a projector (went projection in 06'). I have yet to purchase a anamorphic lens. However my last two projectors have had a lens memory function that allows for a "scope" screen. I choose a 2.35:1, so a 2.40:1 has a tiny black bar truth be told I don't even see them they're that small.
The next biggest screen in my house is a 47" in my bedroom which is about 10' away. There really is no comparing the two. Flat panels are great for 16:9 content (1.78:,1.85:1) but when it comes to anything "scope" as they say "there's no replacement for displacement"
If & I realize it can be a big if you can go projector/scope screen it's worth it even without a lens. I realize not everyone can with the room they have etc.

I started with a projector(720p) & 100" 16:9 screen in 06' I ran that for 4 years I believe. In Nov. 2010 I upgraded to a Panasonic PT-AE4000U & my 120" Scope screen. My decision was based on a couple of things. It had always bugged me that TV shows were bigger than my movies. When I pop on Lord of the Rings & it looks smaller than the news that really was annoying to me. I had got spoiled watching TV on 100" screen though too. So rather than simply going with a bigger 16:9 I went with a scope screen that would net me ~97" in 16:9 but jump most movies up to 120".

[chip75]

Originally Posted by victorvondoom88

Not exactly , the video is about using anamorphic lens. If your player or projector can vertically stretch the image you will use the entire 16:9 panel, this is the "resolution gain" they're talking about.

I understand that, but the source itself isn't anamorphic, you can stretch a video in any software video player and then squeeze it back down, it's still going to be the same image, there isn't any extra detail to be gained. They're just basically removing the letterboxing and blowing up the image to fit a 2:40:1 screen.

[victorvondoom88]

Here's a article some might find helpful:

http://www.soundandvision.com/conten...namorphic-lens

This can improve brightness and, if the scaling is good, apparent detail, too. It cannot, of course, increase the actual resolution; there are only those 1920 x 800 pixels in the 2.35:1 source to begin with.

[victorvondoom88]

Originally Posted by chip75

I understand that, but the source itself isn't anamorphic, you can stretch a video in any software video player and then squeeze it back down, it's still going to be the same image, there isn't any extra detail to be gained. They're just basically removing the letterboxing and blowing up the image to fit a 2:40:1 screen.

Basically yes

[8traxrule]

So what does the OP have to say about current theaters being built with common-width screens, so scope movies are masked on the top and/or bottom, with some recently-built theaters having NO masking at all?

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by 8traxrule

So what does the OP have to say about current theaters being built with common-width screens, so scope movies are masked on the top and/or bottom, with some recently-built theaters having NO masking at all?

I'm not the OP, but don't blame the theatres, blame the DCP spec. The spec made 1.85 larger than scope (which isn't really scope anymore, since no anamorphic lens is used in projection).

In a 4K theatrical projector, 1.85 movies generally use 3996 x 2160 pixels and 2.39 movies use 4096 x 1716.

Theatres that use the Sony 4K projector have an option for scope of expanding the 1716 vertically to 2160 (similar to the home projectors described in above posts) and then using a 1.25x anamorphic lens. The advantage of this is that it makes scope larger than 1.85. The problem is that almost no theatre does this because the anamorphic lens is quite expensive and it takes about an hour to switch it out. Sony should have put it on a turret, but they didn't.

As for no masking, I think that sucks, although I'll hold my final opinion until I go visit the just opened AMC Prime theatre that supposedly has installed Dolby Vision.

And now studios are making things more confusing by using non-standard aspect ratios for several recent films. Jurassic World is 2.0:1 and Tomorrowland is at 2.2:1 in a flat container.

The 70mm version of "The Hateful Eight" is going to be in Ultra-Panavision at 2.75:1 (some say 2.76:1) in the 50-odd theatres that are going to play the 70mm version. The only problem with that is that the Ultra-Panavision format was designed for theatres that had very large screens. Most of the films produced in that format were actually intended for single-projector Cinerama and many of those theatres had 90-foot wide screens. Project this on a 30' screen and it's only going to be 11' tall. It will be interesting to see whether they crop the width for digital presentation or simply live with the reduced height.