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2.39:1 digital projection.


Landon D. Parks

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Is there a digital projector with 3 x 1.78:1 chips that you can put a 1.33x squeez lense on to get a native resolution 2.39 (or so) ratio? That way you could shoot in 1.78 and add a 1.33x anamorphic adapter to it to get a 2.36:1 image (Streatched of course). Then when projected, the slightly squeezed image would be brough back to the origional 2.36:1 ratio while maintaining the full resolution.

 

Would that work?

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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The current DLP-Cinema projectors use something around 1280 x 1040 pixels for their chips, which is nearly 1.25 : 1. This is because they were originally designed for projecting XGA computer graphics. Since HD is 1920 x 1080 (1.78 : 1), you either can:

 

(1) use spherical projector lens / put the image into the center of the chip (i.e. letterboxed) and project it either letterboxed to 1.78 or zoom the image until there is no letterboxing

 

(2) use a 1.5X anamorphic projector lens / stretch 16x9 HD to fill the 1.25 chips, which is then unstretched by the projector lens. This is how most 1.85 movies are shown digitally with DLP-Cinema.

 

For 2.39 : 1, you can either make a letterboxed HD tape, in which case either method #1 or #2 can be used, with #1 being the worst. With #2, you can zoom the image in the projector to lose the letterboxing and fill the scope screen area, but at some 30% loss of projector brightness, plus you are only using about 800 or more lines of the projector vertically for picture, OR

 

(3) use a 1.9X anamorphic projector lens / make a 16x9 HD tape in which 2.39 is stretched to fill 16x9, this gets stretched FURTHER to fill the 1.25 chip, then the 1.9X anamorphic lens unstretches it all to 2.39. This is who 2.39 movies are shown in DLP-Cinema projectors although for film festivals like Sundance, you may have to use method #2 because not everyone carries the 1.9X lens.

 

The upcoming "2K" projectors I believe are all 1920 x 1080 pixels actually and thus I'm sure someone will build the correct projector lens to unsqueeze a 2.39 image that was stetched to fill 1920 x 1080 HD.

 

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In terms of adding a 1.33X squeeze to the image while shooting, that's what the new Canon rear extension tube is designed for. The other option is to use the Viper, which can reconfigure its CCD pixel structure to let 2.39 fill the 1920 x 1080 recording, which is probably going to give you better results than an optical squeeze.

 

The Dalsa has a 4K single chip that is nearly 2:1 and would probably give excellent results framed for cropping to 2.35 for either a film-out or HD / 2K digital projection.

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