I guess Cinerama had to continue on some how...

[Ed Gordon]

Yes, the key is to do the lens / PJ setup first. However, this really only works with a horizontal expansion anamorphic, and at shorter throws. Vertical compression anamorphics introduce a vertical bow.

However.... with the wonder of computers and open source software like warping shaders or products like the MadVR Envy ($$$) you could could actually conform the image to a curved screen without a lens.

Vern, I am a JRiver user and found this on there forum:

Projector Anamorphic Lens Support

Over the years there appears to have been several requests for flexible anamorphic lens support in the JRiver forums.

This has been partially addressed, however IMHO, it still could use some additional flexibility.

As JRiver has become an outstanding video media player with great 3D and 4K HDR support, I would hope this can be evaluated once more. Addressing this would mean I could use JRiver media player exclusively and eliminate my existing collection of media players.

Here is my situation where the current support falls short:

I have a home theatre projection setup that uses an anamorphic lens with a 1.5x expansion factor, rather than the more common 1.33x. My curved screen has a 2.70:1 aspect ratio. Before anyone mentions it, the lens is a commercial Isco DLP lens with a diameter is 8", the depth is 6" and it weighs a good 25 pounds. So a sled is out of the question.

In addition, I maintain a constant image height for all the common aspect ratio standard's that have been used over the years.
(1.77:1 (TV), 1.85:1 (Academy Flat), 2.00:1 (VistaVision), 2.20:1 (Todd-AO), 2.40:1 (CinemaScope), 2.55:1 (Early CinemaScope), 2.65:1 (Cinerama), and 2.76:1 (Ultra Panavision).

MPC-HC, VLC, PotPlayer, and Zoom player all support the ability to create custom aspect ratios for all the above formats to maintain a constant height and the corresponding width to restore the original square pixels which eliminates any distortion on the screen.

JRiver is the single exception.

JRiver comes close, with it's advanced aspect ratio correction options, except for the omission of an additional option that could look like this:

Desired Aspect Ratio Correction ratio x.xxx : x.xxx (fill in the blanks with your desired values).

This would eliminate this issue forever, no matter what anamorphic lens expansion ratio or monitor was being used.

Alternately, although not the perfect solution, you could possibly add one more choice to the existing options: 1.78 (Widescreen 16x9) to 2.70 Display.

Ideally, if I could ask for the moon, 8) I would really really really like the ability to create multiple zoom presets accessible from keyboard hot keys with independent X and Y scaling values as is done in the other software mentioned above.

However, I think the i and o keyboard zoom options would be a totally acceptable solution to the issue once the proper anamorphic lens correction has been applied.

Thanks in advance for any consideration.

TV Dias AKA movieman

Source: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/ind...topic=124128.0

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

The funny thing about my first post comparing the twin domes to the Get Smart thing is that the twin domes in my picture were privately owned and located just south of Ogden, Utah. They were called Cinedome 70 Theaters. I have more photos of that place to post. That property is now a car dealership. But I did get two of the 35/70 Westrex projectors out of there. Another Westrex ended up in the Cinema 6 lobby. Last operator there was Cineplex.

[Ed Gordon]

The only D-150 theatre I attended was at the UA 70/150 theatre in Seattle were they ran the Seattle premier of Star Wars:

This twin screen theater, which opened in 1969, was originally outfitted with the Dimension 150 process in the main auditorium and mono sound and a flat screen in the Cinema 70 auditorium. The original idea by United artists was that Cinema 150 would show Dimension 150 films and the Cinema 70 would be equipped for 70mm films. In point of fact, the Dimension 150 process used 70mm film but had amazing asymmetrical lenses for the left and right projectors, which were each over 2ft long. The lenses were manufactured by the Kollmorgen Company of Northampton, MA. The UA 150 was well known locally as the main theater that showed "Star Wars" for a year in 1977/78. The interior of the main auditorium was a large wooden framed roof with an equally massive screen.

In the mid-1990’s it was a second run house that had revival screenings on weekend midnights. UA let the theater get very run down and ultimately closed the doors in early-1992. It reopened on January 10, 1992 as 6th Avenue Cinedome. On February 5, 1995 UA reopened the theater as a discount house named Discount Cinema 150.

The theater was demolished in 2002 and the only thing remaining was the marquee (which has now also gone). An apartment complex is now on the site. “It’s a shame Paul Allen couldn’t have also saved this theater and restored it to it’s glory. Ironically it was just a few blocks from the restored Cinerama”.

Source: https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/4370

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[Mark Gulbrandsen]

John Harvey had a very similar strip screen.in his home in Dayton. The difference was he had a complete Cinerama projection system and the films...

[Vern Dias]

Vern, I used the same material to build my flat scope screen. Your curved screen looks more impressive than mine. Time for me to rebuild my setup. Getting the optimal curve into the the build would seem to be the greatest challenge.

Yes, the key is to do the lens / PJ setup first. However, this really only works with a horizontal expansion anamorphic, and at shorter throws. Vertical compression anamorphics introduce a vertical bow.

However.... with the wonder of computers and open source software like warping shaders or products like the MadVR Envy ($$$) you could could actually conform the image to a curved screen without a lens.

[Ed Gordon]

...As a high school kid I sent a letter to the D-150 UA Corp in LA about buying the whole D-150 set up. D-150 had a local supply place in San Francisco on Golden Gate Ave. I guess they thought I was a movie theatre owner and they sent me a very nice ad cut out press kit with photos and literature. . I still have kept the cover letter and the D-150 install kit. My parents got mad at me ordering all these movie theatre information brochures. One of my first magazines I sent away for was BoxOffice Magazine It arrived every week and featured the 'Modern Theatre' section once a month. I still have many of these 1950/60 issues. They had a cut out post card you could send in for more information. I got a ton of things in the mail when I put 'Terry Theatres' in place of my name. My family thought I was crazy and they were worried movie theatre sales people would be ringing our doorbell. I should have gotten a PO Box. ...

Terry, your story reminds me of my youth. One day while riding my bike around downtown Seattle, I discovered "Film Row". On one city block there were all the major studios, theatre equipment vendors, and National Screen Service. From that point on I constantly bugged the adults with cars to take me there so I could bring there "garbage" back home. Posters, stills, film clips galore! My major score was three reels of the John Wayne movie, Jet Pilot..

When I talked my Boy Scout troop into showing movies in the auditorium of our school sponsor, I wrote a letter to National Screen Service and got a letter from them authorizing me to buy any advertising material I wanted. I still have those materials.

[Vern Dias]

While my first experience with Cinerama was around 1956 or so (it took a while making it to Hawaii, where I grew up) at age 13 or so, my Dad was a theatre manager and I was no stranger to a projection booth. Most of the Consolidated Amusements theatres were equipped to the nines with 3 projector booths.

Waikiki Projection Room.jpg

As a side gig to my full time career (IBM) I did relief projectionist duty at three Cinerama theatres (Cinerama in Honolulu, Cooper in Denver and Minneapolis), all after the end of 3 strip and I suppose that curved screen experience never left my bloodstream. At 81 years of age, I still use my HT a lot and I still HATE black bars above and below the image. It's really nice to be able to show Ultra Panavision titles without those bars. In fact, the only two titles I have that require a slight side crop are "How The West Was Won" and "The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm" both of which on BD have an AR of 2.85:1. The lens stays in place and scaling to handle the various AR's (1.78:1, 2.00:1, 2.20:1, 2.40:1, 2.55:1, 2.76:1, and 2.85:1) are all done with PC's. I also still enjoy all the 3D titles I have.

[Ed Gordon]

Yes, I did. Screen material is drapery blackout fabric, it's vinyl on one side with a fabric backing and a great 1.0 gain screen surface. Frame was constructed from 1x3 and 1x2 poplar, with the drapery fabric wrapped around it. Here's a photo showing the basics:

Vern, I used the same material to build my flat scope screen. Your curved screen looks more impressive than mine. Time for me to rebuild my setup. Getting the optimal curve into the the build would seem to be the greatest challenge.

[Ed Gordon]

...My friends have asked me why I am so enamored of the curved screen; I think it is because aesthetically I find it more pleasing – it just feels more panoramic and I do understand that is totally subjective, possibly even learned. And to that, it probably is because I was probably around 10 when my first introduction to wide screen was when I first saw THIS IS CINERAMA. As a kid who had only seen Academy ratio films until then at Saturday Kids shows, I was simply memorized to see that curtain open and open and open, seemingly endlessly. I remember nothing else about that experience – where I saw it, who took me...nothing – just that curtain opening and that massive curved screen.

Frank, my first curved screen experience was seeing the Windjammer when I was a kid. The Paramount theater in Seattle had a temporary installation for the run of the film. This was around 1958. The Martin Cinerama was not opened until 1963. I recall being impressed with the screen size, but the movie was a boring.

I was more impressed with the Cinemscope/Mag track presentation of Journey to the Center of the Earth at the palatial 5th Avenue theater. The wide screen and multi-channel sound were impressiive, but the main draw was of course the dinasaurs.

The memory of that impressed me so much that when I built my home cinema years later I had to include this intro for home screenings:

... At my age now, it has it becomes quite clear, all we have been doing, is trying to recapture the wonder of our youth.

How true that is!

[Vern Dias]

That is an impressive screen Vern! Did you build that yourself?

Here is the ultimate small Cinerama setup. It is actually a screening room that was used during the restoration of Brothers Grimm. The clip is part of the extras from the restoration Bluray.

Yes, I did. Screen material is drapery blackout fabric, it's vinyl on one side with a fabric backing and a great 1.0 gain screen surface. Frame was constructed from 1x3 and 1x2 poplar, with the drapery fabric wrapped around it. Here's a photo showing the basics:

PXL_20201123_211654734.NIGHT.jpg

[Ed Gordon]

Speaking of curved screens, I guess it wouldn't hurt to mention that I have a 52"x144" curved 2.75:1 screen with a 10" curve depth in my HT....Very Immersive, sitting about 8.5' from that 144" wide screen.

That is an impressive screen Vern! Did you build that yourself?

Here is the ultimate small Cinerama setup. It is actually a screening room that was used during the restoration of Brothers Grimm. The clip is part of the extras from the restoration Bluray.

[Vern Dias]

Vern -- SWEET!

While I am not an optical engineer, I can tell you that I have perfect focus corner to corner on my screen viewed from my primary seating location. Actually, the main issue with cylindrical horizontal expansion anamorphic lenses when used at short throws is pincushion distortion.

To solve this issue, I actually installed the PG / Lens first, then projected a test pattern and measured how far out the sides of the screen needed to be, compared to the center to correct for the pincushion caused by the lens. That's where the 10" depth of curve came from.

The result is less that 1/8" image spill over on the entire periphery of the screen, and the impression that the screen is floating in space.

[Terry Monohan]

Mark** thanks again for the Smell-O-Vision stories. Did you know that UA Theatres was very picky on the D-150 lens. You had to rent It from them if you wanted to show a regular 70mm film print and use the full D-150 masking set up. In the SF Bay Area we were lucky to have 3 or 4 D-150 deep curved screens and a few were not put in UA house's.

The Blumenfeld Northgate Theatre in Marin County had a nice D-150 set up and old man Syufy/Century had a .D-150 screen in the now torn down Dome Theatre in Pleasant Hill CA.

As a high school kid I sent a letter to the D-150 UA Corp in LA about buying the whole D-150 set up. D-150 had a local supply place in San Francisco on Golden Gate Ave. I guess they thought I was a movie theatre owner and they sent me a very nice ad cut out press kit with photos and literature. . I still have kept the cover letter and the D-150 install kit. My parents got mad at me ordering all these movie theatre information brochures. One of my first magazines I sent away for was BoxOffice Magazine It arrived every week and featured the 'Modern Theatre' section once a month. I still have many of these 1950/60 issues. They had a cut out post card you could send in for more information. I got a ton of things in the mail when I put 'Terry Theatres' in place of my name. My family thought I was crazy and they were worried movie theatre sales people would be ringing our doorbell. I should have gotten a PO Box.

This got me a early start in the movie business while still in high school with a job taking tickets/loge boy and working for Fox West Coast Theatres in Oakland CA first at the Fox Oakland Theatre then when It stopped showing movies went up the street to the Paramount Theatre. Both of these large deco old movie palaces in downtown Oakland are still open today renovated and doing live stage events.

Maybe someday I will be lucky and find on E Bay a D-150 Curvulon lens along with the hard to find D-150 masking control adjustment box and D-150 jacket vest.

[Frank Angel]

Vern -- SWEET!

[Frank Angel]

Ed, you're a man after my own heart -- GREAT video! How great to be able to get that awesome curve screen look and feel.

More than once over the years,my colleagues question me about my slightly obsessive preference for using a curve screen rather than a flat one, and I give exactly your demonstration but on a flat screen and with a string instead of a measuring tape. Doing it with flat screen is even a bit more dramatic because as you get to either end, the string is no longer touching the screen. So the question is, assuming a projection lens focal point is equidistant across the entire screen, then it follows that if the sides of the screen are farther away from the projector than the center. Therefore, when you rack the lens so that the image is perfectly in focus at the center of a flat screen, it follows theoretically, that the sides would be slightly out of focus, but not so on the curved screen where the lens-to-screen distance remains constant across it's entire width. But it is not; It seems we easily achieve fairly consistent focus end-to-end across a flat screen. How can this be, and if that were NOT the case, I would have pulled out my hair long before it fell out on its own.

One of my friends who works with lenses theorized (and admitted he was only theorizing, not stating a fact), that projection lenses may have a given depth-of-field that allows where "perfect" focus, at least as good as the eye can detect, actually occurs, not a one single point, but within a range of point in front of and behind the screen. One of the A/V techs then suggested that lenses may be purposely designed to correct for the unequal throw distance that a flat screen presents. I say that is highly unlikely since then Isco and Schneider et al would need to offer a different type of lens for flat or curves screens, not to mention that the distance discrepancy between the screen center and the screen edge of a flat screen will vary based on the throw distance itself.

If anyone from Isco or Schneider or an optics designer has an answer to this conundrum, jump right in.


My friends have asked me why I am so enamored of the curved screen; I think it is because aesthetically I find it more pleasing – it just feels more panoramic and I do understand that is totally subjective, possibly even learned. And to that, it probably is because I was probably around 10 when my first introduction to wide screen was when I first saw THIS IS CINERAMA. As a kid who had only seen Academy ratio films until then at Saturday Kids shows, I was simply memorized to see that curtain open and open and open, seemingly endlessly. I remember nothing else about that experience – where I saw it, who took me...nothing – just that curtain opening and that massive curved screen.

Next came CinemaScope and it was the same thing...incredibly wide vista in front of a very impressionable kid's eyes. In fact, I was very intrigued with what was happening with the installation of CinemaScope in Century Theatre chain's Fresh Meadows Theatre, our more high-end/first run theatre which I passed almost daily on my bike, each time stopping and trying to get a peek thru a side door the workers had propped open. I knew it had to be something special because most theatres in the neighborhood were closed for a week to do the CinemaScope installation. At a time when movie theatres were the major entertainment venue, closing them would for a week would be akin today to streaming services shutting down.

I was able to see them working on the screen frame, although I had no idea what it actually was. And just a bit later to sit in the audience to see THE ROBE curtain open wider and wider as THE ROBE credits played, I was hooked. Funny thing, tho about that -- I also had seen THE HOUSE OF WAX at the very same theatre only a short time before and as many on this forum will tell you, I am an unapologetic and admittedly fanatical fan of all things 3D, and that love more than likely started as I sat there watching in total rapture, seeing and feeling the space between objects in the image on the 3D screen (dual projection/polarized 3D). But here's the thing, Fox in all its ads and 1-sheets used the tag-line, The Miracle You See Without Glasses, clever marketing ploy trying to capitalize on the fact that while audiences (some) seemed to enjoy 3D films, they definitely were very negative about having to wear glasses to experience it. Even as a kid, the ads were implying that CInemaScope was going to give the same depth perception as the other 3D films I had seen, i.e., binocular vision but without glasses. This was purposely deceptive and patently untrue; wow, what a disappointment for a kid.

So sitting watching the opening of THE ROBE and seeing those curtains open and open and the wide on the wide curved (somewhat) screen, yes I was impressed, but immediately realized that we had been duped. I kept tugging on my dad's jacket saying, "But daddy, it's not 3D, which little Frankie fully expected it to be. After about the third time of my complaining to him, he about had enough and told me to shut up and watch the movie. No matter, those first childhood experiences certainly made a serious impact on that impressionable young boy.
And that's why I love the curved screen and 3D movies. At my age now, it has it becomes quite clear, all we have been doing, is trying to recapture the wonder of our youth.