superscope2.66

[Richard Mellor]

hi everyone I just started shooting with a dv camcorder with
a aldu35, and a cannon 1.4 lens, and a kowa 16h 2x anamorphic lens. the output is superscope 2.66 .I would like to buy a dlp projector to play this on. and hope to use the lens to bring back the superscope i have output this on power dvd but can,t stretch
the image to 2.66 on the computer monitor. any help on this would be appreciated

[Brandt Wilson]

Most projectors these days will project a 1.77:1 image natively. If this is the case, letterbox your video so that it looks like 16:9, squeeze your final output video (before DVD) by 1.5, so that it looks like you shot it with the digital squeeze on. This will give you a squeezed letterboxed image. The projector should take care of the rest.

[Ryan Graham]

Hey Richard,

I'm actually the guy you bought the lens from! I wasn't aware you frequented these boards! Glad you got the lens, though; I'd never heard back from you, so I wasn't sure. Why not amble over to Ebay when you get a chance and leave me some + feedback? ;)

Anyway, what Brandt is saying is correct. It will be confusing, but basically you need to go from 2X1 (18X9) to 16X9. So just stretch your 2X footage down a bit until it reaches 16X9 proportions, and the projector should be able to do the rest (unstretch from 16X9).

If this doesn't work, then you should be able to use almost any editing program (I use Premiere) to just change the pixel aspect ratio of the footage (in Premiere, there is an "anamorphic" setting for this). This will letterbox it automatically for you, and then you can export it in normal DV ratio for broadcasting on regular TVs.

As a last resort, you might be able to find a step-up ring that will allow you to mount the lens in front of the projector. You'd have to support the lens somehow, but basically all you'd do would be to rotate it 90 degrees so that it was stretching the image horizontally instead of vertically. Then when you played the original 2X footage, it would get stretched to widescreen optically by the lens (this is how they do it in the movie theaters).

Good luck,
Ryan Graham

[Brett Erskine]

I've been looking for a anamorphic lens (or attachment) for video projectors for this exact reason but havent found one. Are they out there or do you have to adapt a anamorphic camera lens (or film projector lens) for 2.35 from 4:3 source footage?

-Brett Erskine.

[Ryan Graham]

Brett,

I'm pretty sure there aren't any anamorphic adapters just for video projectors (at least none that I've ever seen in all of my research). However, it is fairly easy to adapt an anamorphic lens to anything that has threads, be it a video camera, SLR camera, film projector, or video projector.

Check out http://members.aol.com/Super8mm/Widescreen.html for some further info on these lenses. Basically, you just want to get a lens that is quite a bit bigger than your projector's lens, in order to avoid vignetting. Then all you need is a stepup ring, and depending on the weight of the lens, some sort of support (could be a block of wood if you're not moving the projector around).

Good luck!

Ryan Graham

[Boyd Ostroff]

Hmm, what sort of research did you do? I typed "anamorphic video projector lens" into Google and found these:

http://www.jvcdig.com/home_theatre.htm
http://www.prismasonic.com/index.asp...ction_lens.htm
http://www.digitalmediadesigner.com/.../panamorph.htm
http://www.panamorph.com/Products.html

I have no experience with any of these, but obviously there are some products out there...

[Ryan Graham]

Boyd,

Those are all 16:9 anamorphic adapters. Most new projectors actually come with the ability to project 16:9 internally, much like a high-def TV.

The lenses that we're talking about are 2X (cinemascope) anamorphic, which provides a 2.66:1 ratio on 35mm film. This is much wider than 16:9.

Widescreen at 16:9 (which equals about 1.78:1) is a completely different ratio, and is fairly new as a shooting format, compared with shooting with a 2X lens, which dates back to the 50s.

I'm sure there have to be adapters specifically for video projectors that will do Cinemascope, but I haven't come across any. I'm also sure that if they do exist, they're very expensive compared to the under $150 ones you can get for film projectors on Ebay.

Check out http://members.aol.com/Super8mm/AWS.html for a history of widescreen.

Ryan

[Boyd Ostroff]

Thanks Ryan. I am very aware of what 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 anamorphic mean, and have worked with widescreen 16:9 video on both cameras and projectors.

However, if you take a video camera that can shoot native 16:9 (such as the PDX-10 which I use) and add a 16:9 anamorphic lens the result will be approximately 2.35:1 anamorphic which is the same as Cinemascope. Then on the projector end you could use the internal 16:9 mode and also project through one of these 16:9 adaptors and you'd stretch the resulting image back to the proper 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

There are several threads already online discussing various ideas related to this, although I'm not aware of a lot of people that have actually tried it in practice.

[Brett Erskine]

Boyd-
Not a bad work around but what we are really shoting for is a 2.35 anamorphically shot then squeezed to 4:3 on DVD/Tape and then shown using a projector with a anamorphic lens that will do the whole unsqueeze optically for maximum resolution.

The problem with this idea is any DVD thats mastered this way is going to have to be produced all of the way thru by the user because the commercial DVD's arent made to unsqueeze by this huge degree.

-Brett

[Boyd Ostroff]

Well an HD capable projector that can handle 1280x720 shouldn't lose too much resolution. Using builtin 16:9 it has enough pixels to properly expand the image to 854x480, then the lens could take it the rest of the way. Of course you do have a point as any scaling that involves fractional pixels is less than ideal.

But another approach would be to upconvert to HD which allow display of all 1128x480 pixels letterboxed inside a 1280x720 frame. It's an interesting topic, and one that I would eventually like to experiment with myself if I ever find the time.

Another DVinfo member, Martin Munthe has been working in the 2.35:1 format and has posted some info about his techniques; do a search for his name. He posted some stills which look very nice here

[Ryan Graham]

Boyd,

>However, if you take a video camera that can shoot native 16:9 (such as the PDX-10 which I use) and add a 16:9 anamorphic lens the result will be approximately 2.35:1 anamorphic which is the same as Cinemascope.
--Yes, that is correct. That's what Brandt and I were discussing in the beginning of this thread, except from the standpoint of projecting, as opposed to recording. Your explanation is easier to understand than mine, though!

So I guess the best option for projection, if you don't want the user to have to buy a separate lens, is to squeeze the Cinemascope image down to 16:9 proportions in post, and then let the projector take it from there. So you'd have a 16:9 image coming out of post that would already be a bit letterboxed, and would get even more letterboxed by the projector!

Here's another website with some great pictures and some info on how to record to DV with a scope lens: http://www.owyheesound.com/Motion_Pictures/Film_Making/Cameras/Video_Cameras/DV-Scope_Camera/dv-scope_camera.html

Ryan

[Brett Erskine]

Ryan-
Thanks for the great link and yes the most compatible technique for unsqueezing is just how you described. Its the technique that commercially released DVD use when ever they use the term "Enhanced for 16:9 TVs" on the back cover for films shot in 2.35.

However it is interesting to mention the idea of doing the whole unsqueeze optically because you get that much more resolution. But like I said before this would limit you to being able to show it only on the very rare video projector that happen to have a 2.35 lens on it. You would also have to master your DVD for the full unsqueeze by not unsqeezing it at all in post.

-Brett

[Boyd Ostroff]

Well if you have a projector (or a monitor) that can do 1280x720 then perhaps a good approach would be to upconvert to HDV and playback directly from a computer or a DVHS deck. That should preserve the maximum resolution and not require special optics.

[Scot McPhie]

If it's of any interest here's an old thread too with some examples of shots from a 2x anamorphic lense on miniDv camera

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21238

Scot

[Boyd Ostroff]

It's too bad that this and the owyheesound examples have not been posted at full resolution, it's hard to judge image quality from a scaled down image.

Guys, you can make your links "clickable" by putting them in this form (omit any whitespace between the bracket characters):

[ url ] http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21238 [ /url ]