Home Theater with true cinema aspect ratio

I have been wanting to set up a high end projector based home theater for a while now. I first became interested in home theater when we set up our first incarnation circa 2001. We purchased a Pioneer rear projection 1080i HDTV. We also purchased a Bose Acoustimass system along with a Yamaha receiver. We also then purchased a DVD player with progressive scan, something quite special at the time. It was connected to the receiver and then TV via component cables, and send audio via optical. For some time, we also had a Comcast HDTV receiver. Very high end equipment at the time – probably worth about $5000 in 2001 dollars.

I was seriously impressed with the quality at the time. HDTV was remarkably clear, DVDs sounded much better than TV audio, and music was so clear. In our buying process, we encountered multifarious options for each component. Why were they all so different? Could there be an even better setup?

When we moved into our current home in 2005, we had a dedicated “media” room where the previous owner kept a TV. After a long hiatus, we finally took the initiative to redo the room and turn it into a home theater. We purchased a $500 480p InFoucs projector, and experimented with the screen setup. The experience was incredibly engrossing. We even enjoyed just watching trailers on the projector, even though we just a pair of computer speakers set up for sound. Later, we installed a 135” screen, mounted the projector, and installed our Bose system. We used this setup until 2007 when we purchased a PS3 and started watching HD content.

We soldiered on with this setup until 2010 when we purchased the Panasonic PT-AE4000U, a highly regarded 1080p projector. It had a special feature: 21:9, or anamorphic, projection. 16:9 is normal widescreen: what’s common today on laptops and TVs. It is the format that TV is filmed in. Movies are filmed in an even wider aspect ratio – 2.35:1 or 21:9. That’s why you get black bars on top and bottom when you watch movies on your TV or laptop. My dream was a 21:9 screen, with Constant Image Height (CIH) projection. This means that every format – 21:9, 16:9, and 4:3 – are all the same height, and you have no black bars when watching movies. When watching TV or playing games, you’ll have black bars on right and left.

The PT-AE400U is still a native 16:9 projector. This means that it always projects 16:9. The 21:9 implementation detected 21:9 content and then changed the lens configuration, including zoom, to a different set of user defined settings. This means that it is a bit tricky to adjust the projector to actually take advantage of 21:9, considering the tilting and zooming of the projector necessary to get it to even fit on your screen. We tried to minimize this by placing the screen and projector perpendicular, and lowering the projector as much as possible, to avoid the use of vertical shift, a manual adjustment.

However, we couldn’t get it to work for a long time, until I watched this Youtube video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t19oT19Qr_w . You can see how the image actually is shifted to the top of the projecting frame when switching into 2.35:1. By adjusting this setting, and reducing the lens vertical shift to the minimum possible for the setup, we were able to achieve both modes within a fixed 2.35:1 frame.

Now we’re painting the screen with screen paint instead of buying a very expensive 2.35:1 screen. We’re still running our ages old Bose Acoustimass system on our Yamaha receiver. I believe we’ll upgrade our receiver soon, but my father likes the Bose system too much to change it. I always thought a set of Martin Logan electrostats would really improve the experience. Maybe sometime in the future.

We’re also installing a set of heavy curtains over the door and window to insulate from sound. I thought we should get some movie posters too, as well as a small popcorn machine. We also need a new rack to organize our media. I was considering installing some sound absorbing panels as well.