Do any native 2.40:1 projectors exist?

[Erik Garci]

Are there any digital projectors that have a native aspect ratio of 2.40:1?

I realize that it is possible to add an anamorphic lens to 16:9 projectors or use only a 2.40:1 portion of their panels. I'm just wondering if native 2.40:1 (or 2.39:1, or even 2.35:1) exists.

[Ohlson]

No
a crt is no more 2.40:1 native than a digital with an extra lens.

Your only hope of ever getting native 2.40:1 is that either GLV or GEMS projectors find their way
1 to the market place
2 to the consumer market place

[raoul]

or, until they get the lasers right, someone builds a device that has that resolution and adopts a constant height approach to doing things. wouldn't it be nicer to have a 2,592 x 1,080 chip?

[Dennis Erskine]

I'm wondering (aloud), if a native 2.40/2.35:1 digital panel would ever make sense. With a 16:9 panel and an anamorphic lens (a good one), you can utilize full panel resolution for cinemascope *and* 16:9.

[raoul]

true but there's one more lens. the less elements in the light path, the better the signal.

also, i'm almost 100% sure that the cost of adding the pixels to the chip (in volume) are lower than the cost of manufacturing the glass for an anamorphic squeeze. also, you'd get back square pixels which would help considerably with computer graphics.

r-s

[cpc]

With 16:9 and an anamorphic lens, you get full height resolution, but width is not full resolution?

[ramick]

cpc, depends upon the type of lens - [all other things being equal] panamorph will compress the image vertically, the other will expand the image horizontally.

[Erik Garci]

Originally posted by Dennis Erskine
I'm wondering (aloud), if a native 2.40/2.35:1 digital panel would ever make sense. With a 16:9 panel and an anamorphic lens (a good one), you can utilize full panel resolution for cinemascope *and* 16:9.
If utilizing full panel res for both is your goal, you could also do it with a 2.40:1 panel and an anamorphic lens. The difference is that the anamorphic lens for a 2.40:1 panel would compress horizontally or stretch vertically.

I think a 2.40:1 panel would make sense if you don't want to deal with an anamorphic lens. That way, 2.40:1 material would use the full panel and appear wider than 1.85:1/16:9/4:3 material which would be pillarboxed. The pillarbox bars could be masked by dark curtains at the screen.

[Ohlson]

Erik Garcia
I think a rectangular form is suboptimal from how you want to work with the light. I think a shape close to a square panel is optimal.

With GLV and GEMS you scan columns horizontally for a constant height setup where you can choose aspect ratio from 4:3 to 2.40:1.

[darinp2]

Since this is kind of a niche within a niche that is already partially filled by using anamorphic lenses my guess is that we won't see projectors like those proposed until 1920x1080 chips/panels become mainstream and somebody decides to differentiate by pushing the horizontal out further. I'm still not sure we'll see wider and not just 16:9 with more pixels though. Also, with HBO and most other movie channels zooming to 16:9 the payoff isn't as big as it will likely be after HD-DVD and BluRay are released and we hopefully have lots of 1080p 2.35:1 content. While upscaling can help I don't see a lot of people clamoring for more than 1080p with regular DVDs.

--Darin

[raoul]

Darin,

What do you mean by "with HBO and most other movie channels zooming to 16:9 the payoff isn't as big ..." What do HBO and Co do with their 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 content? Do they pan and scan ? Is that what you mean by zooming? Say it ain't so!

R-S

[darinp2]

Originally posted by raoul
What do you mean by "with HBO and most other movie channels zooming to 16:9 the payoff isn't as big ..." What do HBO and Co do with their 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 content? Do they pan and scan ? Is that what you mean by zooming? Say it ain't so!

Sorry. It's bad. We get almost no 2.35:1 movies in 2.35:1 on HBO or most of the other HD channels (Showtime and HDNet-Movies are exceptions). The ones we get on HBO are usually old with 2.0 sound or from a studio Mark Cuban is involved with (the rumor is that they won't let HBO chop off part of the movie). Some movies that can be are open-matted so we get the whole image and then some (like "The Matrix"), but usually they just chop the sides off and zoom. The decrease in picture quality annoys me as much as missing part of the images. BTW: All this is because some people will complain if they see black bars. I guess I should be glad these people haven't been able to get studios to do this with 2.35:1 DVDs.

--Darin

[tvted]

Originally posted by raoul
true but there's one more lens. the less elements in the light path, the better the signal.

also, i'm almost 100% sure that the cost of adding the pixels to the chip (in volume) are lower than the cost of manufacturing the glass for an anamorphic squeeze. also, you'd get back square pixels which would help considerably with computer graphics.

r-s

I would bet on it too. I've recently aquired a Prismasonic and though it would require dealing with my very large dog to get it from me, it seems that 2.35 should not only have more width but more resolution to deal with that width as well.

ted

[tvted]

Originally posted by darinp2
Sorry. It's bad. We get almost no 2.35:1 movies in 2.35:1 on HBO or most of the other HD channels (Showtime and HDNet-Movies are exceptions).
--Darin

Ouch,
I don't watch much TV but it hurts to think of Sergio Leone zoomed to clip off the outer edges - you'd be watching noses speaking to each other.:D

ted