Model: DLA-HD350 Anyone have this projector?

[mnfish]

Just curious on the performance of it and if you use it with an anamorphic lens?

[Oddiophile]

I own the RS10 the equivalent of the HD350 in JVC's Reference series.

The performance is awesome, I have seen most of the front projectors on the market and the JVC's are the most CRT like IMO. I do use an anamorphic lens with a 2:40:1 screen and it works great.

[mnfish]

What anamorphic lens do you use? I am looking a doing a DYI one made of glass prisms.

[Oddiophile]

I built a DIY trophy plaque lens to get me going till I can afford a good quality lens. The DIY lens can be built for around $100 (but you probably know this sense your are thinking about building one ) it does offer an unbeatable bang for the buck, but the DIY lens wont replace a good quality lens. The RS10/HD350's recessed lens does make it a little tricky integrating an anamorphic lens but most lens will work you just need to add a little extra to the manufactures throw ratio for the lens.

[squirrel101]

I have the HD350 but chose not use the anamorphic lense since i didn't use a cuved screen , i have a 2:40 screen and this thing is awesome, as good or better than my plasma, my screen is 10ft wide, picture clarity is so nice it's hard to believe its projected , i'm still in aw of my theater when i sit and watch/experience a movie.I went with an acoustically transparent screen material from Seymour and it works perfectly with the HD350, no regrets.

[mnfish]

Originally Posted by squirrel101

I have the HD350 but chose not use the anamorphic lense since i didn't use a cuved screen , i have a 2:40 screen and this thing is awesome.

??? I'm confused? If you use the 2:40 screen and don't use the anamorphic lens how does it fill the screen? Do you over zoom it? The v stretch mode would make it look weird without using the lens?

You don't need a curved screen to use the lens? It might have a little pincushion effect on the lower left of the screen with the lens but it is not very noticable? Only with an alignment grid up would you see it (I'm going off other units I've had with a 120" screen)?

I haven't hooked this unit up yet so I'm just going by my past units (and friends) with v stretch and 2:40 screen and lens.

[squirrel101]

I don't use the v-stretch, simply set the zoom to where the black bars fall on the black velvet borders and can't tell they are even there, this is the way i wanted it, and after researching/questioning i felt this was the way for me to go and couldn't be happier. I give a lot of credit to BrainSturgeon for this method although he does use a lense, but also has a curved screen.

[mnfish]

Originally Posted by squirrel101

I don't use the v-stretch, simply set the zoom to where the black bars fall on the black velvet borders and can't tell they are even there, this is the way i wanted it, and after researching/questioning i felt this was the way for me to go and couldn't be happier. I give a lot of credit to BrainSturgeon for this method although he does use a lense, but also has a curved screen.

I have a 120" screen, too, and I don't plan on curving it. The pincushion effect isn't that noticeable for me to justify the extra expense. Plus if you are over zooming it you are actually cutting off a third of your picture and only really getting a 720P picture. I want to get a full 1080P picture.

[Swede]

Originally Posted by mnfish

I have a 120" screen, too, and I don't plan on curving it. The pincushion effect isn't that noticeable for me to justify the extra expense. Plus if you are over zooming it you are actually cutting off a third of your picture and only really getting a 720P picture. I want to get a full 1080P picture.

That's not really true. A blu-ray is encoded at 1080p INCLUDING the black portions of the image, so zooming or lens you will get the exact same resolution, pixel by pixel. What you get by using a lens is using all of the available pixels on your projector, making it similar to using an upconverting dvd-player.

[mnfish]

Originally Posted by Swede

That's not really true. A blu-ray is encoded at 1080p INCLUDING the black portions of the image, so zooming or lens you will get the exact same resolution, pixel by pixel. What you get by using a lens is using all of the available pixels on your projector, making it similar to using an upconverting dvd-player.

Yes..the bd players puts out 1080p and your projector only puts out a 1920 x 1080 pixel picture. But on a 2:40 picture there are black bars on top and on the bottom. The picture itself is not 1920 x 1080. It's something like 1280 x 720 because the other pixels are used for the black bars to make 1920 x 1080. The V strectch mode makes it so it uses all the pixels (1920 x 1080) to make up the picture and eliminates the black bars. That's why we all go to the anamorphic lens to get what the true picture is coming out as. If it was as simple to just over zoom then why do they make the option? What is it's purpose? I just want a better picture?

Maybe these will help:

http://www.zuggsoft.com/theater/prism.htm

http://www.anamorphiclens.com.au/

"We start here with a Cinemascope projection screen that has a ratio of 2.37:1 (21.33 X 9). All cinemascope movies will have grey bars at the top and bottom which make up a total of 25% of the image height. These grey bars are not black as digital projectors cannot project black, only shades of grey (which vary according to the projector being used).

There are only 810 (not 1080) viewable lines of resolution for a 1080P Projector and only 540 (not 720) viewable lines for a 720P Projector. "

[mnfish]

BTW...the shots of his screens are on a 10' flat screen. Not curved

[Trogdor2010]

Anamorphic lenses largely benefit projectors that have a limited zoom range, but it is highly recommended if you use a long throw lens to reduce pincushion to the image (no less than about a 1.5 throw, and recommend a throw of 2.00 and above). Users with projectors with a long zoom range (JVC D-ILA projectors mentioned) have the benefit of using a very long throw while being able to use a short throw for a larger image (not recommend for anamorphic set up). I use an infocus x10 projector (a long throw projector), and infocus has been known to use long throw lenses on their projectors, and it's because they are design to be used with an anamorphic lens, it isn't a known fact to many users of projectors, and it's arguable because it's a niche. I do wished I could own one of those JVC's but just to finally have a really big screen can hold me for now, for that "high contrast" projector.

[mnfish]

Eek! I hope I have enough room to put this over 20' from the screen?

[Swede]

Originally Posted by mnfish

Yes..the bd players puts out 1080p and your projector only puts out a 1920 x 1080 pixel picture. But on a 2:40 picture there are black bars on top and on the bottom. The picture itself is not 1920 x 1080. It's something like 1280 x 720 because the other pixels are used for the black bars to make 1920 x 1080. The V strectch mode makes it so it uses all the pixels (1920 x 1080) to make up the picture and eliminates the black bars. That's why we all go to the anamorphic lens to get what the true picture is coming out as. If it was as simple to just over zoom then why do they make the option? What is it's purpose? I just want a better picture?

Well, the main reason to go with an anamorphic lens is convenience (since most projectors except for the Pana AE3k/4k does not have a one-button anamorphic lens emulation feature) and that you will not get lightspill over the top and bottom of the screen (see my theater gallery for examples of that). The other claimed benefits of using an anamorphic lens are very theoretical and debatable, since there are about equal disadvantages that come with them.

Strictly talking pixels used it would be sort of like this on a 1080p projector:
A 16:9 image would give you the full 1920x1080 resolution (assuming strict 16:9, and not 1.85:1 which would give you a slightly lower resolution)
A ~2.35:1 image would give you about .75x1080p or about 810 lines, the horizontal resolution is not affected so you would get about 1920x810, or about 1920x800 if the movie is at 2.4:1 aspect ratio.

The resolution benefit you would get with an anamorphic lens is that with a scaler it can interpolate the resolution to full 1080p, but since the original information on the BD-disc is only about 800 lines, that is not the TRUE resolution, it is only upconverted. Now, the downside to this is that you may actually get worse picture quality and resolution by doing this since it needs to artificially create a higher resolution than what is actually available on the disc, especially if the differing multiplier is not ideal and if using a less than perfect scaler. So long story short - don't go for an anamorphic lens for the theoretically higher resolution

[mnfish]

So tell that to BrainSturgeon. I'm sure he'd like to hear that he spent all that money for nothing.

So what you're saying is that an over zooming (that you do with your projector) gives you the same resolution as using an anamorphic lens?

[mnfish]

I just want to quote this from Mark Techer of Aussie Morph Lenses. He just sent me this.

"The difference between zooming and a lens is:

1. Full panel use for the lens = over 2M pixles Vs zooming of about 1.5M pixles.
2. The pixles only stretch in one direction with a HE lens where zooming they stretch in both directions.
3. Scaling is CIH's only let down Vs zooming's 1:1 mapping. That should change soon."

"When you over scan with a lens, you might (I do) throw away about 20 to 40 pixels. When you zoom, you throw away 270 pixels!"

So are you saying he and the math is wrong? I just want to know the truth so I don't waste money on a lens?

[squirrel101]

I say before you buy the lens, try overscanning. So the theory about the pixels makes me scratch my head its like saying if I watch a movie on my plasma that is 2.40:1 that because the image has the black bars in it that its not the same as if i watch a movie that is 16:9 in size thus meaning any movie produced in cinemascope isn't a 1080p image, . but my eyes don't fool me when i watch a movie in my theater, my 10ft wide image has as much clarity and definition as it does when i watch the same disc on my plasma, ( please note i don't have hard feelings or attitude about this i jsut know what i see with my own 2 eyes with perfect 20/16 vision) I honestly can't see my theater benefitting from a lense, and certainly couldn't justify the cost, i wish you could see it for yourself.

[Swede]

Originally Posted by mnfish

So tell that to BrainSturgeon. I'm sure he'd like to hear that he spent all that money for nothing.

So what you're saying is that an over zooming (that you do with your projector) gives you the same resolution as using an anamorphic lens?

I would guess BrainSturgeon already knows all this as well or better than I do Also if I remember correctly he has a $40k projector, so a few thousand dollars on a high quality anamorphic lens is probably not a waste in his mind (and I would probably agree)

Originally Posted by mnfish

I just want to quote this from Mark Techer of Aussie Morph Lenses. He just sent me this.

"The difference between zooming and a lens is:

1. Full panel use for the lens = over 2M pixles Vs zooming of about 1.5M pixles.
2. The pixles only stretch in one direction with a HE lens where zooming they stretch in both directions.
3. Scaling is CIH's only let down Vs zooming's 1:1 mapping. That should change soon."

"When you over scan with a lens, you might (I do) throw away about 20 to 40 pixels. When you zoom, you throw away 270 pixels!"

So are you saying he and the math is wrong? I just want to know the truth so I don't waste money on a lens?

No, like I wrote in my previous reply, he is not technically wrong, nor the math, but that doesn't mean you will gain any picture quality from it. If I understand this correctly, this guy is a salesperson, correct? So his job is to sell you something, not tell you you don't need it

You could make the analogy to using a 480p projector or a 800x600 projector for watching regular standard definition 480p DVD's. Would you get better picture quality by using a 800x600 projector compared to a 480p projector? The source is still 480p, so regardless you get the same visual information on both projectors. With the 800x600 projector you would simply get an upconverted DVD image from 480 to 600, but just like with the anamorphic lens you would not get any more details, and since the image needs to be scaled and processed, detail may actually get lost in the upconversion process.

Like I wrote before though, unless you have a Panasonic AE3000/4000 or can live with manually zooming the picture between different aspect ratios, and have a good masking system to reduce/eliminate the lightspill, an anamorphic lens still provides some advantages, for a premium price

[mnfish]

This is good conversation. This is what this site is all about! Two different views on the subject. Both not wrong but what works for them and members can make up their own minds on which one to choose.