Seymour-Screen Excellence announces TRIM 'affordable' motorized masking system (1 Viewer)

[Martin Dew]

Martin Dew submitted a new blog post

Seymour-Screen Excellence announces 'affordable' TRIM motorized masking system

Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

 

[Edwin-S]

I get a good chuckle out of their idea of affordable.

 

[Mysto]

I get a good chuckle out of their idea of affordable.

I wish I could afford 10K for my entire theater

 

[Sam Posten]

I get a good chuckle out of their idea of affordable.

Yeah and WTAF:

Chris Seymour, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering, a minor in economics from University of Missouri-Columbia, and an M.B.A. with honors from New York Institute of Technology.

And why the hell would you do 1.78? EVERYTHING HD is 1.85

 

[Edwin-S]

I wish I could afford 10K for my entire theater

I hear you.

What makes it more amusing is the "affordable" 5 to 10K is before motor, controller and installation costs. All of those could mean an extra 3K, so total cost is more like 8 to 13K.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And why the hell would you do 1.78? EVERYTHING HD is 1.85

The HD spec is for 16x9 (aka 1.78:1).

The theatrical DCP spec is for 1.85:1, but there’s no consumer grade equipment that is natively designed at that ratio.

 

[Edwin-S]

Yeah and WTAF:


And why the hell would you do 1.78? EVERYTHING HD is 1.85

It would appear to make more sense to go 1.85:1, but isn't HD home releases all framed at 1.78:1 to fit standard HDTV screens.

In any case, to get 1.85:1, it might make sense to calculate out a constant height screen that would give the correct ratio with the use if side masking.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Exactly, Edwin. All HD and UHD content is presented within a 16x9 container.

 

[Martin Dew]

I have a 2.35:1 CIH screen, so I built my own side masking panels out of sheets of rigid home insulation foam (from Home Depot) and tight-stretched high-quality black velour over them, making sure the image border edge was absolutely square. Because they're so light, I just attach them with Velcro to the screen frame. You can line up the borders using the PJ test pattern or a paused image for both 1.37 and 1.85. Cost me about $40 in total! The only disadvantage is that you have to stick to the same aspect ratio throughout a movie show, but hey...

 

[Edwin-S]

I have a 2.35:1 CIH screen, so I built my own side masking panels out of sheets of rigid home insulation foam (from Home Depot) and tight-stretched high-quality black velour over them, making sure the image border edge was absolutely square. Because they're so light, I just attach them with Velcro to the screen frame. You can line up the borders using the PJ test pattern or a paused image for both 1.37 and 1.85. Cost me about $40 in total! The only disadvantage is that you have to stick to the same aspect ratio throughout a movie show, but hey...

It is fotunate that there are only a handful of films where the aspect ratio shifts. If one likes classic cinema then issue pretty well goes away.

Anyways a little inconvenience and a savings of 9,960 is probably worth it.

Of course, IIRC, using a constant height requires a panamorph lense for some films and that is not exactly a small outlay, although it is considerably less than this motorized masking.

 

[ArnoldLayne]

Similar to Martin, I have a home brew el-cheapo but el-worko just fine $100 system.
I have a 16x9 screen, with the L/R speakers to either side. They are normally covered by full-height AT panels. For narrow movies, I can easily reposition them on each side of the screen- although I don't find that as critical as the wide screen masking. For that, I click the remote to move the image to the top of the screen. Then I only have to mask the bottom part, which done by raising up a black velvet bar and attaching it via velcro at the bottom of the picture. Done. Saved $10,000 .

 

[KPmusmag]

I would want masking for 1.37 and 2.55 as well.

 

[Martin Dew]

I would want masking for 1.37 and 2.55 as well.

Actually, you can do 2.0 (Lawrence of Arabia, 2001) with my method, but you can't do 2.76 (Ben-Hur). I need to build a set of horizontal panels too. The zoom and lens memory flexibility on the Epsons means that you don't have to use an anamorphic lens for scope and wider.

 

[MG Stearns]

Mine is exactly like Martin’s. Home Depot styrofoam cut to fit and black velvet wrapped. I’m not handy, but they turned out fine. The frame of my Criterion screen is thick, and deep enough, thatthe panels just fit snugly inside. No need for velcro. They are super fast and easy to pop in or remove. So nice being able to see both 1.85:1, 2:1, and 2.2:1 movies “float”. I, too, have an Epson (the 4010 4k), a sizeable step up from the Panasonic’s I previously owned.

 

[David Norman]

Yeah and WTAF:


And why the hell would you do 1.78? EVERYTHING HD is 1.85

Except the large majority of HD TV shows. I'm assuming this system works for those too.