1.85 and 2.35 :1

I have a Sim2 Ht200 DM (Thanks Ian G) and have been watching quite a bit of material on this unit. Am I alone in preferring 1.85:1 aspect ratio ?

If I use the Sim to increase the size and crop the sides as it grows is this the best way of filing my screen (I accept I will lose some side information, juts want to minimise the quality impact)

I think I would prefer a wider screen with 2.35:1 pictures. My screen is an 80" diagonal (16:9) and I will make up a black border to turn this into a 2.35 screen, it juts seems less impressive and :small in comparison to the full 16:9

Any thoughts ?

Can videos (NSTC, region ! to get the progressive out of my SD900E) be bought in different pictue formats ?

There are an awful lot of films that are 2.35:1, didn't really notice before !

 

The DVD's ratio will depend on the way it was originally filmed. To buy a "native" 1:2.35 ratio film in 1:1.85 is to buy a cropped version.
Very occasionally, you find a 1:2.35 film distributed in certain locations in the cropped 1:1.85 - for example the R2 Belgian edition of Memento is 1:1.85, whereas all others are 1:2.35 - I bought the Belgian one as it was cheap, and only realised my mistake afterwards. Not too interesting for you, though, as you're after R1 discs.

 

carrera2rs,
I totally agree, when your screen is full of an image, the picture does look more impressive. Surrounding the picture with a black mask does lift the apparent contrast.

When (if) you go to the cinema that is exactly what you see. They mask the screen to fit the picture in whatever AR the director chose to use.

For home use few of us have that luxury. There are screens that have variable masking, but the price tag for this solution can run to thousands.

Regards

 

I read somewhere that the best setup is to have the vertical size constant and mask the horizontal axis. However in most homes in the UK a large 2.35:1 width screen is difficult especially in modern built homes . I would however really like a 12 foot wide by 5 foot screen in 2.35:1 aspect ratio with constant height!.

 

Yes, I'll have one of those too! This was one of the first things I noticed would be wonderful when I saw the AE100 for the first time.
I've got a fixed 8' wide screen, with a home made Roman Blind that covers it when not in use. I'm toying with the idea of adding a strip of black velvet to the bottom of the blind/wall hanging, so I can use it as a top mask for 1:2.35 films - I'd need to shift the image down, too (or have a fold up section for the bottom - WAF might be a bit low on that one, though).

 

There are a couple of technical reasons why Constant Height systems are not common. Probably the most important is lack of resolution. This is why Gordon referred to a 9" CRT with a scaler.

A high resolution CRT has the flexibility and performance to produce a sharp image across such a wide range of screen sizes. Of course, there is a trade off. A 2.35:1 image fills only half the available phosphor area which means less light output compared to the full 4:3 phosphor area. But they do compensate by putting more energy into this smaller picture energy, so the light loss is far less than you would at first suspect.

With fixed panel devices there would also be a light level trade off, but this is less important than their lack of resolution. 16:9 panel projectors help, and good scaling also keeps apparent resolution losses to a minimum.


Regards