New Carada Masquerade Masking System (1 Viewer)

[Parker Clack]

From Carada: Carada is proud to announce the Masquerade™ - our new masking system that can be installed over your Carada screen as well as many other brands of fixed frame projection screens, or even over your own DIY screen. The Masquerade™ is a single-motor system with a native aspect ratio of 16:9 with top and bottom masks that will eliminate those annoying “black bars” on movies like Spiderman, The Lord of the Rings, The Bourne Ultimatum, and many other exciting widescreen movies.

Masks fully retracted (16:9)

Masks deployed to 2.35:1

Masks deployed to 2.70:1 The Masquerade™ is a beautifully engineered system, handcrafted with the precision and attention to detail that Carada is well known for. Some of the masking systems currently on the market have various brackets, bolts, and screws visible from the outside, have flat-faced frames that are unattractively butted or overlapped at the corners, and are non-symmetrical (the top, bottom, and side pieces are different widths). Sure they do the job they're designed to do, but when the lights come up they aren’t much to look at. Our system has absolutely ZERO brackets, screws, or bolts visible from the outside of the fascia. The frame is fully symmetrical with a nice beveled front, is precisely mitered at the corners, and comes standard with our Black Hole™ trim (an extra-cost option on some competitors’ systems!) Simply put, the Masquerade™ will look as good as the rest of your theater.

The Masquerade™ is easy to install by design. It is shipped in four pieces (all in one shipping container) which makes getting the system into tight entryways a breeze. The system is then assembled directly on your wall, one piece at a time, making it possible for just one person to install the Masquerade™ (although we strongly recommend a second person to help lift the heavier pieces). Minimal skill and tools are needed for the installation.

The Masquerade™ is a fully integrated design. Some masking systems on the market come without a remote control (instead they come with a basic two-way wall switch that must be hard-wired to the system). If you want a remote control with those systems you have to pay EXTRA for that option, and what you get is an ugly metal electrical box roughly the size of a brick, and an Infrared sensor with a long wire attached. You must find a place to stash the metal box, find a place to mount the infrared sensor somewhere in your room, and run wires from these components back to the masking system. Yuk!

The Masquerade™ has all controls built into the system, and the Infrared sensor is integrated into the frame for an attractive, hassle-free installation. The remote itself is elegantly simple and effective, with dedicated buttons for the 16:9 and 2.35:1 aspect ratios, and “Jog” buttons that allow you to easily adjust the mask positions for other less common aspect ratios (like 2.20:1, 2.70:1 etc). We proudly use Somfy’s new Sonesse line of tubular motors. Somfy motors are used in the world's leading brands of projection screens, masking systems, and other high-end home automation products, and the Sonesse motor will give you quiet, trouble-free performance for years to come.

We worked closely with packaging engineers to design an innovative packaging solution that will protect your Masquerade™ from the most grueling shipping conditions, ensuring that it arrives at your home in the same pristine condition that it leaves Carada. We use a custom virgin linerboard crate with 1 1/8” thick plywood end caps, for a container MANY times stronger than heavy duty corrugated boxes, yet far lighter, smaller, and less costly than crates built from plywood and 2”x4”s. The masking system is suspending inside the crate with ample clearance on all sides so that the beautiful Black Hole™ trim is protected from the crate itself. The result is an incredibly strong package with the crate acting as the exoskeleton, and the rigid aluminum structure of the masking system itself acting as the endoskeleton. Thanks to this innovative packaging solution, systems with an outside frame width of less than 113.5” can be shipped via economical FedEx Ground service. Systems with outside frame widths greater than 113.5” will ship via FedEx Freight, yet are still less expensive to ship than massive wooden crates, and far easier to handle once in your home (no forklift necessary!) Finally, as you’ve come to expect from Carada, the Masquerade™ is an extraordinary value, costing thousands less than competing systems. For example, a Masquerade™ made to fit one of the most popular sizes of home theater screens, a 110” diagonal, is just $2,499! And remember that price includes the custom infrared remote and our Black Hole™ trim. We expect to begin shipping Masquerade™ systems in mid-October. Stay tuned for more details and photos! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This looks fantastic. Parker

 

[Gregg Loewen]

this is very cool!!!

 

[SherardP]

I agree Greg, but the cost of this systems seems rather expensive, I mean heck I only paid 1100 bucks shipped to Japan for the 126 inch Criterion in BW. I hope they dont increase prices on screens, Carada offers an excellent product @ an exceptional value. Would be nice to see them offer this system at a price just a tad bit lower.

 

[Gregg Loewen]

rather expensive ??
You must still be in college or something?
For this kind of a system, this is dirt cheap.
Remember, its not like they can mass produce these things and make 10,000 at a time.

Gregg

 

[Parker Clack]

A similar masking system from Stewart runs in the $7,000 range. This is a great price on a quality product.

 

[GeorgeAB]

You obviously lack experience with motorized devices for home theater. This deal is excellent, as long as it holds up over time. The challenge in this type of device is durability. That you won't know until these have been in the field for a couple of years past the warranty. By the way, what is the warranty? Quite an essential item to leave out, no?

Personally, I prefer this solution to the anamorphic lens approach for wider aspect ratio movies. There's much less equipment involved and no threat of image degradation from scaling artifacts, luminance reduction, focus errors, geometric distortion, chromatic aberation, white field non-uniformity, etc. Most of the commercial cinemas I've been in for years have used this method of re-sizing the screen for Cinemaqscope presentations.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

 

[Parker Clack]

George:

I completely agree that a masking system is the way to go when it comes to re-sizing the projected image to your screen.

Knowing Dave the warranty of this masking system is right up there with the quality of the product. I will let Dave know about this thread so he can answer any questions people might have about this new product.

Parker