2.35:1 Widescreen format explained

So for some curious reason (I’ve searched the internet to try to find out why but with no luck) the powers that be decided to adopt a 16:9 format when the domestic TV market moved away from the traditional 4:3 “square” TV image to the “new widescreen” format most of us now enjoy. Launched along with a huge marketing budget explaining how it would mean no more black bars when watching movies on our TV screens. And yet, here we are years down the line and when I watch a DVD at home I see black bars at the top and bottom of my screen. Why?...

You need to start at the beginning really. Let’s take a trip to Hollywood in 1953 when 20th Century Fox launched to a huge fanfare their CinemaScope technology. This was essentially the adoption of methods used in photography since the early 20’s where a lens fixed to the front of the camera was able to capture a much wider field of vision – similar to wide able or “fish-eye” lenses used today – on 35mm film with any loss in definition and still using the entire frame space available. A similar lens was attached to a projector which reversed the distortion to give a natural proportioned image on screen. Cinemas loved it as it was reasonably inexpensive to upgrade their existing projectors and the technology caught on. The process is still in use today under the name Panavision which uses the same method to produce 2.40:1 images.

Today’s widescreen TV’s and screens are 16:9 – that means for every 16 pixels across there are 9 pixels up. Yet as we’ve just discovered, most films are filmed in 2.35 pixels across to every one pixel up. Hence, black bars at the top and bottom of my screen. So what’s the problem with this then? Well ,on my plasma screen at home it’s a little annoying but that’s about as far as it goes. If, however, I had a high quality projector – JVC’s HD750 for example or Meridian’s 810 reference projector I would have essentially spent a lot of money on some super technology that will only ever be used to project black bars!

So what’s the answer? A new lens. In just the way Cinemascope used lenses all those years ago, so we can use exactly the same techniques today. With a bit of digital jiggery-pokery the image from your DVD/Blu-Ray player is stretched and the black bars masked, the projector then projects this stretched image. Placing an anamorphic lens on the front squashes the image back to the correct ratio. The result... your expensive processing chips aren’t working hard to produce black bars and you get to see the full image you were intended to see. Projected onto a 2.35:1 screen means you are truly getting a cinema experience. The image will fill the screen, no black bars and you see the full image as intended by the film maker.

So which is best for you? Well, most people looking at a projector and screen for general purpose viewing 16:9 offers a good compromise that will allow viewing of all available formats. If however you are considering a dedicated cinema room for movie viewing, my advice is to definitely consider 2.35:1 The movie Fifth Element was filmed in 2.35:1 format and projected on a screen of the same format would fill the screen like this.

The downside is that watching TV the image is commonly 16:9 nowadays and so the image on your 2.35:1 screen would look like this:

The decision is of course yours and will depend on what the majority of your viewing is going to be. Audio 7 can, of course, demonstrate 2.35:1 and we will be holding an open evening to do exactly that very soon. To receive an invite please email or phone us.