Smart & Wired: Wide Open Spaces
July 1, 2008
Ultrawide video projection may benefit casual settings even more than it profits home theaters. The wider shape tends to provide a more wall-filling effect than the more squarish shape of a conventional screen. In some rooms, the screen can occupy almost an entire wall, providing an impressive and captivating image. The capacious screen can be made to disappear into a ceiling: rolling down automatically when the projector is activated and retracting when not in use.
At least one screen—Stewart Filmscreen’s CineCurve—has been designed specifically for ultrawide home theater use. Its gently curved face directs more light toward the audience for a brighter picture, just as many commercial movie screens. Black masking slides in from the sides to accommodate narrower aspect ratios.
Fixed-mount (as opposed to retractable) 2.35:1 screens sometimes occupy so much wall space that there is no room to place speakers to the sides of them. In such cases, the speakers can be positioned beneath the screen, but most home theater experts prefer to place them behind a perforated or woven screen, so that sound can pass through. This option conceals the speakers, creating an effect that is more visually pleasing and truer to the commercial cinema aesthetic.
With a motorized sled, screen masking, and a video projector (and possibly a separate video processor) to control, these systems present the most complicated installation of any current video projection systems designed for home use. Fortunately, professional home theater designers and installers can make the operation transparent to users, rendering the process entirely automatic or triggering all functions through touchpanel remote controls available from such companies as AMX and Crestron.
Most of the elite companies, including Runco, JVC Pro, and SIM2, market their products exclusively through custom electronics installation firms. You can locate such firms by accessing the dealer lists on these manufacturers’ websites, or through the member search function on the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association’s (CEDIA) home page.
Runco’s projectors can take the ultrawide concept even further—to the ultraultrawide 2.55:1 aspect ratio used for Ben Hur and a few other epic movies. Of course, having a screen custom-fabricated to accommodate such rare fare is a decision only the most dedicated film buff would make, but it is a feature founder Sam Runco insisted on for his home theater. His response when asked why he would devote such effort when only a handful of movies are available to exploit it? "Because I can."
Runco, www.runco.com
Optoma, www.optoma.com
Stewart Filmscreen, www.stewartfilmscreen.com
CEDIA, www.cedia.net
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