OAR is again in danger for HiDef (1 Viewer)

[Juan C]

It does in mine. For example, just last Saturday, I watched In Her Shoes, a 2.35:1 (Super35) film that I enjoyed a lot, and I liked the wide compositions, despite being a character-driven movie (or a chick flick, depending on your point of view ). BTW picture was incredibly life-like (hint, hint).

 

[Ricardo C]

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Actually, it was an entirely crappy solution on DVD, as people with widescreen televisions actually lost resolution.

On HD disks, on the other hand, that would not be the case, as no current solution calls for anamorphosizing (quite possibly a made up word) 2.35:1 movies into the 16:9 frame. I think this can be an excellent compromise on HD disk. I'm worried about older Academy ratio movies, too.

 

[DeeF]

I understand what Will_B is saying though. Movies at home have a very different impact than movies in the theater. The 2.35:1 ratio is very wide, to fill the viewers' peripheral vision. But on a monitor, this very wide ratio is actually smaller (and has less impact overall) than the 1.77:1 ratio.

I'd love to have a home theater system that could keep a constant height, but expand the movie horizontally, according to the aspect ratio.

But I think this is unrealistic.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

It's understandable to feel that way. However a "monitor" is not the reference point for Home-Theater for many reasons...the one key weakness being that the "impact" and scale of the image can't generate a theatrical-experience unless one moves up quite close to the screen (closer than most people feel comforatble viewing a TV set given decorating and living-room realities).

A 100" screen doesn't replicate a 50' theater either, but in a living-room setting it comes much closer to producing a wide-angle picture that engrosses the viewer at typical "sofa" seating distances. 1.6 screen widths is very much like sitting in the middle of a typical theater.

1080P (and higher) projetors will allow even larger screens to widen the viewing angle even more.

With "monitors" contstant height is impossible unless one has a literal 2.35:1 TV set. But with front projection there's much more fluidity...and any enthusiast can play with lenses and scaling software to produce a constant-height projection without too much difficulty. It can always be viewed in "16x9 mode" when someone else wants to watch a movie when you're not around to make the button-pushing much more simplified.

 

[Leo Kerr]

heh heh heh...

two years ago, at work, we were producing a disc of mixed aspect ratio programming - 1.37:1 -> 2.35:1. It was one of the battles that I actually won; constant height programming, all on a giant 16:9 plasma, where everything is in the 2.35:1 area, except for the captions for hearing-impaired (below the image.)

Some people were surprised at how well it works, and it preserves the impact when one goes from the silents and early talkies to some of the first Cinemascopes...

However, we can't all remaster all the programming for our home displays... :frowning:

Leo

 

[DeeF]

Of course, if you do all that programming on a single, un"scaleable" plasma monitor, you're wasting a lot of real estate of picture. There's a lot of black areas.

I don't know what the answer is, but it lies somewhere between replicating the theatrical experience at home, and having a convenient standard.

I guess 16:9 ratio monitors is the best choice, but it is a compromise in many ways.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Leo,

very interesting.

For 'multi-aspect-ratio' programme material I think that constant width is the best way if you at least have a 16x9 screen to start if your goal is to replicate the *effect* that wider was intended to be more dramatic.

Of course, this means that all 1.85 and 1.33 masterial will be windowboxed on all 4 sides.

If I had total control over the display for the demo I would have masked off the plamsa so it would appear as a 2.35:1 window...if people don't know that they are missing a part of the pixels it's less painful!

 

[DeeF]

In terms of the "burn" problem of plasmas -- I wish they would make a mechanical letterbox, perhaps a piece of retractable metal, on the outside of the plasma, and then make source material like DVDs have an optional "white" letterbox instead of "black."

The outer box would mask the picture to the correct ratio, so I wouldn't be able to see the white areas at all. This way, I could watch the right ratio, but not "burn" the picture.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Wouldn't all-white be just as damaging in terms of burn-in as all-black?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Yes, that's why Toshiba used to use light-gray bars that had a reasonable "average" phospher use to side-box 4x3 stuff on their CRT RP sets.

Agree with Dee that mechanical masking is THE way to go with any set where burn-in is an issue and/or absolute black level cannot be acheived to make the bars "vanish".

 

[DeeF]

It would be better than black, but maybe instead of white, they could make the black areas on DVDs have moving pixels, like a screensaver. This would be best of all. Then my mechanical masking device would "mask" the screensaver.

Just an idea... Hey, Fujitsu?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Dee, I think that some plasmas have done just that...I remember seeing something somewhere that used the same color and contrast of whatever was in the picture to fill-in-the-masking areas.

Personally, it's one of the reason why I love LCD/SXRD/DLP because burn-in is an issue that's such a headache!

 

[DeeF]

It's true that some plasmas are replacing their black areas with screensaving colors.

But the problem still remains -- what about the built in areas on 2.35:1 DVDs, top and bottom. These are not provided by the plasma, but are simply black pixels on the DVD. And there's nothing I can do to fix those.

By the way, the problem isn't just "burn-in" with plasma, but the fact that the black areas aren't used, and therefore, the other areas get more use and become less bright over time.

Right on my plasma, the areas left and right (masking 4:3 material) and top and bottom (masking 2.35:1 material) are brighter.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

I thought that was what burn-in was... ???

 

[DaViD Boulet]

That's right...but it only affects displays that have "phosphers that glow" like Plasma and CRT displays. LCD, DLP, LCOS, and SXRD chip-based displays have no burn-in issues at all since there are no glowing phosphers to wear out unevenly. It's one reason that those other technologies are ideally suited for people with video games which can really damage CRT and Plasma sets.

After my 16x9 CRT display got "burn in" from too much use in 4x3 mode, I swore I'd never buy another display for which burn-in was even an issue.

BTW, turning contrast down slightly on any phospher-based set can reduce burn-in issues substantially. If you notice *any* burn-in scarring I'd recommend doing that even if the picture looks a tad dimmer than what you might be used to.

 

[DeeF]

hehe, oh yes, I've turned down the contrast and brightness so much that The Sound of Music looks like Night of the Living Dead.

 

[David Stone]

The OAR always works in my home, no matter what the ratio. Heck, I remember watching my Criterion "Blade Runner" laserdisc at a friends house on her 13" TV. We had to sit close to the screen, but it looked sooooo good compared to the seriously cropped VHS alternative.

 

[Cees Alons]

That's why I'm so disappointed they didn't add a "frame ratio byte/word" to the specs (as well as a "frame rate byte/word", BTW).

During the process of defining the format much too much effort and time went into ridiculous DRM constraints and other consumer pestering measures, and hardly any in image/sound enhancement (except the implied higher image resolution).


Cees

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Agreed.

It doesn't seem like a big deal to most people right now, but in 5-10 years when affordable 4K displays are for sale and/or 2.35:1 constant-height projection becomes more commonplace in high-end home-theater applications, it will become much more obvious that an opportuntity was missed.

The fact that the digital cinema *will* be using 2.35:1 HD trasfers at 2540 x 1080 (minimum) will make what-could-have-been even more clear!