Beating the Black Bars (1 Viewer)

[Ernest]

Thomas Norton has written an excellent article in Home Theater describing "constant height" for DVD's displayed by front projectors. From day one we have enjoyed constant width, but not constant height because of the various film formats. Formats wider than 1.85:1 result in horizontal black bars of various sizes. The bottom line is 20 to 25% of the 1080P resolution is wasted on black bars. Now front projectors are able to eliminate the black bars while maintaining fabulous picture quality.

To fill the screen is the ultimate, without compromising picture quality, to use all the resolution the TV offers. With front projectors now capable of delivering true 1080P, not a watered down version TV's provide, we can only hope this technology is incorporated into new LCD's Plasmas, etc.

 

[Jeffrey Nelson]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but...how could you possibly eliminate black bars on a TV when showing a film whose aspect ratio doesn't conform to that of the TV screen without compromising said aspect ratio? Does not compute...

 

[Brian Borst]

And since it (basically) involves zooming in on a picture, wouldn't it lessen the picture quality?
Also, wouldn't the lenses that are used, add some distortion?
Of course the biggest problem there is (as Jeffrey said) would be that it couldn't work on a television set. Unless it would've had the 2.35:1 ratio, obviously.

 

[Vern Dias]

You can't do it on a TV. You can easily do it with a front projector (with or without and anamorphic lens) and many of us have been doing it for years now. (About 15 years in my case).

In the case of HD, there is plenty of resolution to spare, so any loss of quality is more than offset by the resulting gain in involvement and realism.

Zooming is certainly not the only way to do it, it's merely the least expensive way to do it. A certain other AV forum has an entire section devoted to it.....

Google CIH or Constant Image Height.

Vern

 

[Brian Borst]

I already know what it is, and how it's done

. I said 'basically' because I didn't want to explain the entire procedure. I'm curious, do you notice the drop in quality? I think with NTSC discs it would almost certainly be the case. Not so much with HD of course.

 

[Ernest]

I was thinking out of the box when I suggested the technology be incorporated into LCD, Plasma and DLP TV's. I should have said these TV's would be 2:35 x 1, not 16 x9, designed for specifically watching movies whether they be SD, BlueRay DVD, downloads, whatever. The TV's would be used the same way many use front projection today. This technology would target those who can't afford a front projection set-up or have the room for one.

 

[JeremySt]

using all of your projectors native resolution is ideal. utilizing a movable lens to switch between native 16x9 and 2.35:1 is the best option if the budget allows. when done right, youre not optically zooming, but rather the projector eliminates the black bars, fills the native resolution of the projector by stretching the image, then the lens corrects the image's geometry. there are different types of lenses that achieve this result

hastily written.....
step 1: eliminate the black bars by "digitally" streching the image. now all of your projectors available resolution and light output are working only on active image area. the image is now distorted. everyone looks tall and skinny.

step 2: engage secondary lens in front of primary lens. depending on type of lens, image will either squash or stretch the image back to proper geometry. in either case, none of the projectors resolution or light output are wasted on black bars when viewing 2:35:1 material.

permanently engaged secondary lenses will compromise your native 16x9 material.

projectors designed with optional secondary lenses in mind will have modes for both 16x9 and 2.35:1.