CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

OK, I know this is probably a dumb question but what is this anamorphic squeeze mod. I know 2:35 movies are really wide screen and that there are those annoying bars at the top and bottom. Does this mod eliminate them or what do you need to make them go away?

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 4:49 pm Post subject:

The Anamorphic squeeze mod is to give you enough vertical compression so the stuff on screen isn't tall and thin.

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

Thanks for the answer.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

...because basically the Marquee projectors were really only designed to project 4:3 images. The "vertical size" adjustment doesn't go small enough to display even an HDTV (16:9) image. The squeeze mod changes the range on the "vertical size" adjustment so you can squeeze the raster into a 16:9 screen, which is what most people do.

I'm not sure if the standard squeeze mod will let you squeeze your raster down to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Unless you expect to watch **only** scope movies with your projector, running at 16:9 gives you a lot more flexibility.

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

Thanks, I'm not planning to watch only movies there will be a lot of digital tv. I was trying to determine whether or not I could maintain a constant image height with all material. I'm sure that any picture size changes have to be done by an external device. The question then becomes which unit will do the best job for the majority of stuff that I watch. Picture quality in terms of detail and resolution as well as color etc. are all important considerations.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

CIH requires you to set your raster to the height of the "shortest" aspect ratio, then other ARs use that same height but less of the width. So if you really wanted to do CIH you'd have to set the raster to 2.35:1, then fit all other ARs into that raster. You'd have a better picture (better resolution) for your 2.35:1 material, because all 720 or 1080 lines of the raster would be displaying picture content -- as opposed to the letterbox format which wastes some of the lines for the top/bottom black areas. (That assumes you have a source that displays 2.35:1 material on the full raster, with no letterboxing.) Meanwhile for 16:9 content you'd be using a small piece of the center of the tubes, resulting in less resolution and much less brightness for HDTV. (16:9 is 1.77:1. A 2.35:1 raster with the same width is 1.77/2.35 = 0.75 as high as the 16:9. Now put a 16:9 raster in the center of that 2.35:1 area, and it will be 0.75x as high and 0.75x as wide as if you used the full width of the raster. 0.75*0.75 = 0.57 -- so your HDTV material will use over 40% less tube-face area, and at the same contrast settings will be be over 40% dimmer, than if you used the full 16:9 raster area. You might make up for that with a smaller screen size for HDTV, but there will be 40% fewer photons [assuming equal contrast settings] than if you maximized the 16:9 raster.)

Really the only "right" way to do CIH is with a digital projector and an anamorphic lens. That way 16:9 content can fill the 16:9 image area of the projector chip, and 2.35:1 content can *also* fill the 16:9 image area but it gets stretched in width (with the anamorphic lens) to the proper AR. There's really no way to do that with a CRT unless you have a helluva big budget for the anamorphic lens(es). CIH in CRTs necessarily means you use a subset of your tube faces. A blend can do it pretty darn well, especially for 2.35:1, but you still use only a subset of both tubes when you display 16:9 with a blend.

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

Thanks. Wow that was quite a lot of info to digest. As a relative newbie to the world of projection it certainly is a lot of info to think about when doing a setup. This is why it takes me a long time to figure what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it. The challenge is always getting the most bang for the buck. Everything is always a series of trade-offs. I will have to decide what I can live with and what I can't. Poor detail and contrast are always a deal breaker. Some color tweaking I can live with as long as I can perform my own amateur setup with the help of a disk like AVIA 2.

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

For a CRT its best to use Constant Image Width for only 16x9 and 2.35 movies any 4:3 will not be the same width obviously, but it will be as High as the 16x9. That system is the best way to go since Most hardly watch 4:3 anymore.

Athanasios

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

Thanks. Yes 4x3 is getting to be more rare. I know June is the cutoff for the transition to digital in the U.S. but we won't have it here in Canada until 2011 I believe. The constant width makes sense as does showing all material in a 16x9 format. I guess I really don"t like the loss of screen real estate in a 2:35 movie. It seems really small. I'll probably be investing in a box of some type and for movies I think I'll go with a Denon. I'm not really all that interested in Blu-Ray and I'd like to keep the video chain as simple as possible.

ecrabb · Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 4:15 am Post subject:

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

I understand you point but honestly i do not watch any SD DVD'd anymore. Blu ray will not complicate your hardware it will still play your SD dvd's so you can ditch your dvd player, and it is not dyeing. It will only go away when they come up with something better and for that we need new tv's, new players, new media etc and that is years away. Why miss out on it now?

Athanasios

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 7:46 pm Post subject:

I'll throw my 1.7cents in with these guys.

Bluray is here, it's a viable media, it will scale DVD's to HD for you and the players are fairly well made if you go with a brand name.

Also just to correct what you said there docadillac:

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

dturco · Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 11:42 pm Post subject:

docadillac · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 29 Location: White Rock

Thanks for all the input guys. I really appreciate the effort. Its all good info as it helps me to think about what I'm doing. I didn't mean I was going with standard DVD and I realize I must have conveyed that idea. I apologize for that. I'm always open to listen to others and learn or try something new. That's what makes it interesting for me. I engage in discussions because that helps me to think and refine my ideas and knowledge. I don't know if anyone can relate to this but when I was 15 or so I knew everything in the universe. Now that I'm mid 50's I know nothing and question everything.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 12:24 am Post subject:

Yep, I remember knowing it all at age 19. Now in my mid 30's I know much less. By the time I'm ready to retire I'll have to go back to school to learn it all over again.

dturco · Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 12:54 am Post subject: