Secret Uses for
16:9 Cinema - Wide TV Receiver/Monitors
Feature Article - December, 1996
By Scott Marshall, Publisher -
Wide Gauge Film and Video Monthly
Click to see additional photos |
Cinema Wide Screen Video Receiver/Monitors
are marketed by RCA, ProScan, Proton, Panasonic, Pioneer, and
Toshiba.
Introduction:
When one first sees a cinema-wide video receiver/monitor in an
electronics show room, one typically experiences an immediate
feeling of amazement (Why is this television shaped like a movie
screen?), then perhaps confusion (What's it for?), and then
sometimes outright dismissal (Who would want that?). Even sales
staffs are frequently confused about what, exactly, they're good
for.
These sets are, in fact, much more useful than most of us
imagine. It is the purpose of this article to reveal the many
secret ways to use today's cinema-screen TVs.
Our
Example, the ProScan Model PS34190:
This set will be used as our example in the article, since we
have reviewed it (Wide Gauge Film and Video Volume 1,
Number 1). A nearly-identical set is available under the RCA
trade name, and the other cinema screen sets have similar modes
and features.
About
Cinema Wide Receiver/Monitors:
These are, in many ways, normal sets. The difference is the
extra-wide picture tube. The aspect ratio (the screen's width
divided by its height) of normal televisions is 4:3, or four
units of width for every 3 units of height (this ratio normalizes
to about 1.33:1). A standard for High Definition Television
(HDTV) has been proposed that includes widening this proportion
to 16:9 (normalizing to about 1.78:1). In anticipation of the
acceptance of this standard, direct view, front and rear
projection video units are now marketed that are capable of
displaying the anticipated HDTV programming. The current sets
have been designed with features that make their wide screens
useful today. (Although they have 16:9 shaped screens, they are
NTSC rather than the higher scan rate HTDV.)
Cinema
Modes:
When the ProScan is turned on, it is in the normal display mode
showing 4:3 broadcasts displayed in a 4:3 window which fills the
screen vertically, but leaves empty space, or black bars,
on both sides of the picture. The cinema modes make this set
really interesting.
Fill Mode:
This mode is useful only for programs specifically designed for it. It is an anamorphic mode, similar to film formats like CinemaScope and Panavision. Anamorphosis refers to the practice of using different magnifications in different dimensions. The picture is simply stretched across the screen's full width while keeping its normal height. A few laserdiscs and satellite broadcasts have been designed for this mode, the picture looking squeezed in normal mode, but in Fill mode, is stretched to fill the cinema screen. Normal programs look distorted in Fill mode.
Mode A:
This is the most useful of the cinema modes. It is designed to magnify the picture horizontally and vertically the same amount. The result is a picture that just fits the width of the screen, but some picture is cropped off from the top and bottom. The most obvious use for this mode is to blow up wide screen letterbox programs to their maximum size. Letterboxed Flat movies, made for an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, fit the 16:9 cinema screen almost perfectly, with just a small amount of black bar still remaining above and below the picture (depending on the set's overscan, there may be no black bars at all). Scope movies (made in the process formerly known as CinemaScope) can have aspect ratios from 2.35:1 to 2.55:1. Letterbox versions of these films look good in Mode A, but there are many other, little known but surprisingly appropriate ways to use this mode. They are complex to explain, so they are covered later in this article after some more background.
Mode B:
This mode enlarges the picture a bit more than Mode A. More is cropped from the top and bottom, plus some from the left and right. This completely eliminates black bars from letterbox programs of flat films, and nearly eliminates the black bars from scope films.
Mode C:
This mode enlarges the picture to the maximum amount. Scope films will now fill the height of the screen, and a considerable amount is cropped from the sides.
Drawbacks of
the Cinema Modes:
The Fill mode has too few programs prepared for it, even
though it offers the highest potential picture quality. Using Mode
A for programs that are not letterboxed may crop away some
picture area that may need to be seen. The high magnifications of
modes B and C can make the picture look unsharp
or snowy.
Secret
Uses for the Cinema Modes:
Modes A and B have valuable uses that are
unadvertised and not widely known. Manufacturers are either
unaware of them, or feel the public would find them too confusing
to explain. They are being revealed here because readers of Secrets
of Home Theater and High Fidelity and Wide Gauge Film
and Video will have a definite interest.
Secret Use for Mode B:
One might ask why a film or video purist would want to enlarge a scope film to crop away the sides. Many scope films were, in fact, soft matted to aspect ratios close to 16:9. Sometimes an effort was made to assure that no important action occurs at the extreme sides of the frame. This is done partly in recognition of the fact that many neighborhood theaters crop scope films to screens not wide enough to show the whole picture. The other reason is to make pan-and-scan conversion (cropping to ordinary TV screens) easier and less harmful. Therefore, many scope films will play just fine if blown up to fill the height of a 16:9 video screen. Mode B is watchably sharp with high resolution laserdiscs, but sometimes not for VHS cassettes or typical telecasts.
Secret Uses for Mode A:
There are many unadvertised uses for Mode A. Most flat films, and the frequently-used Super 35 film format, are perfect for it.
Flat
Motion Pictures:
The original meaning of the term flat, as a motion
picture format, was not 3-D! Until the 3-D and wide
screen revolutions of the fifties occurred, virtually all movies
were made in the 4:3 aspect ratio Academy frame. The
wide screen processes that came later, such as Cinerama and
CinemaScope, were originally ballyhooed as "3-D you can see
without glasses." Once 3-D and other wide screen process
fell out of favor, films generally fitted into two categories: flat
(sometimes called "spherical" for the normal spherical
shape of the photographic lenses) and scope (the lenses
in this case were not spherical, but, rather, originally they
were cylindrical). Theatrical movie projectors have a lever on
them with two positions to select the choice. In 1953, Hollywood
concluded that the 4:3 aspect ratio should be phased out. New
markings were added to camera viewfinders to show the 1.85:1
cropping for the theater, even though cameras typically continued
to photograph the whole 4:3 academy image (outside the U.S.,
1.66:1 may be used). During filming, both frames are watched by
the filmmakers to assure that the 1.85:1 theatrical cropping
contains all the action to be seen at the theater, but the full
4:3 frame would contain extra image suitable for uncropped
viewing on TV. This is sometimes called soft matte,
because the 1.85 cropping of the picture on the film is postponed
until projection. Some films are made hard matte either
with 1.85:1 camera apertures which block the top and bottom of
the image from getting onto the film, or soft matte and
converted to hard matte for theatrical projection prints
(called the release print).
When soft matte flat films are viewed on a normal 4:3
television set, one sees more of the filmed image than was seen
at the theater. It is possible to see some additional action,
like an actor's body language, that might enhance the film, but
it is generally best to see the original (usually optimal)
theatrical composition. Sometimes during filming, there is not
enough care taken to assure that the full 4:3 frame is clear of
extraneous detail. An example from The Bad News Bears in
this article's accompanying illustrations shows the invasion of a
mic (microphone) boom into the top of the frame, invisible at the
theater, but intrusive on TV.
Soft matte flat films are excellent for cinema screen
receiver/monitors in Mode A. The 1.78:1 aspect ratio is
only slightly less than theatrical 1.85:1. These films come
across beautifully on these sets.
The Super
35 Format:
This is a very popular wide screen format today. Its origins date
back to the 1950s. Originally known as Superscope 235,
it is now, usually, the Super Panavision 35 format.
During filming, the camera exposes the entire silent film frame
area (movie sound is always recorded with separate, syncronized
audio recorders). The camera viewfinder is typically marked with
a rectangle of scope dimensions (the full width of the
frame and about 56% of its height). For the preparation of a
theatrical projection print, the scope area is optically
reduced horizontally to make room for the sound track, and
stretched vertically to make a print for projection in the usual scope
format (a 1.85:1 cropping option is also available for Super
Panavision 35, but is seldom used).
The camera viewfinder is also marked to television proportions,
using less of the frame width but more of its height than in the
area for theatrical presentation. During filming, it is typical
to compose for the theater, and "protect" for
television.This means that everything important is in the area
that overlaps the two cropping areas, and nothing inappropriate
will be in either area designated for one or the other croppings.
The amount of picture seen at the theater ends up to be about the
same as on television, but we see more width at the cinema, and
more height in the home.
The area where these two regions overlap contains only what is
essential to see. It is almost exactly the aspect ratio of the
cinema screen receiver/monitors.
Super Panavision 35 normally comes in two formats, symmetrical
(the area of interest is in the center of the film, with the top
and bottom cropped equally), and common headroom (the
area of interest is at the top and center, with the bottom
cropped), although many filmmakers have their own custom
viewfinder markings and cropping preferences. The ProScan's
cinema modes default to symmetrical cropping. That is, the image
is centered, cropping equally above and below the screen. The common
headroom format is popular with filmmakers because it
eliminates the need to watch for extraneous items above the
action like lights, the tops of sets, and microphones. To
effectively display common headroom programs on the
ProScan, one would select Mode A, then select the pan
function, and pan upwards to view the very top of the picture,
cropping only from the bottom.
Clues To
A Film's Format and Best Cinema Mode:
If cinema screen sets become popular enough, film distributers
might begin to print recommended settings on video packaging (ie:
"For 16:9 cinema screen viewing, set to Mode A, center
pan"). If manufacturers could agree on a coding system, the
tape could potentially contain a hidden signal that
receiver/monitors could detect and set themselves automatically
to the appropriate cinema mode. For now, we have to select it
ourselves. Below are some tips to determine a good setting for
cinema screens.
The Tops of Actor's Heads:
It is normally good composition to frame actors' heads so they just about touch the top of the screen. If there's always a space (about 15% of the screen's height) between the tops of their heads and the top of the picture, it's likely that it is a flat or symmetrical Super 35 production. Mode A should give good results.
If the tops of actors' heads are right up against the top of the screen, then it may have been filmed Super 35 common headroom. To determine this, examine the bottom 30% of the frame. If there is seldom anything there worth looking at, then it may either be a Super 35 common headroom film or it may simply reflect the fact that the 4:3 frame is often difficult to fill, and the bottom portion of the screen will get the lowest proirity in assigning action. In either case, one can just try Mode A panned up to the top. Sometimes, titles are specially prepared for video versions that may be cropped off of the bottom or appear lower than the center of the screen even though the rest of the film is best viewed with the bottom cropped away. If it is clear that important action (disregarding text) is cropped from the bottom, then one can go back to normal viewing.
Scott Marshall
Publisher, Wide
Gauge Film and Video Monthly
© Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997
Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity
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