Motorized masking system (1 Viewer)

[John Clancy]

That's true of video projection but not film. An anamorphic print results in an image wider and higher than a flat or masked print. All the masking moves simply to accomodate every ratio possible with 2x anamorphic giving the biggest picture.

All the video projectors I've used here (and that's quite a few of them) do not zoom around the centrepoint with the result the height of the projector has to be adjusted. Not a major issue but a strange way to use a zoom.

 

[MikeWh]

Maybe we should drop the discussion of film projection here, since it apparently is making the thread more confusing.

It seems odd to me that UK video projectors are different than others. I don't know of anyone who has to manually zoom their digital projector (as BenSC first pointed out), once it has been first setup. Zooming is a process of making a picture larger or smaller.... in all dimensions equally. The aspect ratio is controlled (in digital projectors) electronically, and as Ben and Nate have pointed out, the picture is always centered on a single spot, whether in 16:9 or 2.whatever:1. The masking is on top and bottom (or left and right) equally (or more appropriately, the pixels in the masked region are turned off). No movement of the projector is necessary. This might not be entirely true for video with an anamorphic lens, but maybe we shouldn't go down that road just yet...

 

[John Clancy]

An anamorphic lens has nothing to do with it. Although you have hit on a good subject for projecting 16:9 material if you don't have a 16:9 panel in your video projector i.e. a 1.5x 'Scope lens.

 

[MikeWh]

Well... this has gotten way OT. I was referring to the change in projector throw produced by a "horizontal stretch" anamorphic (requiring a change in effective zoom). It's obviously way too obscure to discuss here. Nevermind... moving along.