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Curved Screen Vs Standard Screen


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I am looking at purchasing a new screen about 100" and wanted to hear what peoples thoughts are with the new Curved variety. Are the new curved screens a fad or is this technology here to stay?

If you were to buy in the current market wold you invest in a curved screen?

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Curved screens came about because of anamorphic lenses, so if you're not using an anamorphic lens on a cinemascope screen I would not recommend one.

However if you want one, like what you see, nothing much else matters. Go for it if it's what you want.

But if you want to know the good and bad about curved screens then see here

They've been around for years, decades in commercial cinema.

As far as curved 16:9 screens go, complete gimmick. If you can't curve the picture to contour the screen, why curve the screen in the first place?

The new JVC's have a pincushion feature where you can create pincushion without a lens, so in that instance you could get away with a curved screen.

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I am looking at purchasing a new screen about 100" and wanted to hear what peoples thoughts are with the new Curved variety. Are the new curved screens a fad or is this technology here to stay?

If you were to buy in the current market wold you invest in a curved screen?

Modern TVs with curved screens are built to wrap the pixels around (and they're a gimmick). A projector is built to throw a flat image. Put an expensive curved screen in front of it and you just need to buy an expensive new projector to throw a distorted image at the screen so you end up with a 'normal' image. I'd put my money into buying a better flat screen or flat projector than all the hassle and expense of a screen a few inches closer at each side.

0.02

Peter

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I experimented with curved screens a few years ago but finally went back to a flat screen as it was too difficult to engineer a simple masking system to follow the curved screen when wanting to change screen formats.

The only apparent benefit was a slight increase in brightness, although the image did take on a 'minimal' immersive look to it, it was only minor in its effect and was hardly worth the complication of producing a curved screen that worked effectively.

I used a sheet of 2400 mm x 1200 mm x 6mm MDF painted ultra flat white, pinned at the top and bottom edges at the centre of the screen. The vertical ends of the panel were raised about 34 millimetres. So it was only a slight curve which didn't introduce obvious image distortion but when one projected an image one could see a slight curve at the centre's edge, top and bottom of the screen.

This optical effect is quite obvious and can only be reduced by minimizing the curve in the screen, which brings one to the conclusion of why bother to curve the screen in the first place unless to correct a lack of focus at the screen's extremes.

One thing I did notice was that the curved screen did somewhat focus the audio from the centre channel into the sitting area which helped a little with dialogue clarity, but apart from that the required effort brings little benefit if anything.

C.M

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I have an anamorphic lens with a flat screen and even now I do not feel I need a curved screen.

It really depends on what type of program you watch the most of. If you move the A-lens from the light path for 16:9, then you probably don't want one as you introduce barreling when the A-lens is out. If you leave the A-lens in the light path all the time, then a curved will be of great benefit as both light beam and screen can be aligned for perfect geometry (A-Lens pending of course).

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Curved screen is nice when you have a large one, 140 in+ and wall to wall, it compensates the viewers from each far end of the side walls and if set correctly pin cushion is negligible, I have 2 rows of seating, if I sit at the front row which is about 4m from the screen I feel enveloped in the movie from my 150 in curved screen but I like the back row more as I get better bass from 6m away from the screen. Projector is 6m from the screen and that's the minimum distant to stretch the A-lens for 150 in on the Epson, any closer and I'll get dull lights on both side of the screen. My A-lens is motorised but I often leave in in place and just use the projector setting to switch between anamorphic and normal, as Mark said above I find it aligns better this way than to move the lens out when viewing 16:9 format which is only about 20% of the movies I would watch away.

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Of course it will look better if you leave the lens in place as you still have the pin cushion there. Removing the lens makes the image straight again so kind of pointless having the screen curved when the image is straight.

Some would argue leaving the lens in place deteriorates the 16:9 image because you remove 25% of the actual resolution, but if it's not noticeable then it doesn't really matter... Like the whole lens vs zooming argument.

You can also opt for watching 16:9 movies in scope format, you just lose 12.5% off the top and bottom of the screen.

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In the case of the 16:9 movies with the A-Lens I don't use the vertically stretch feature (so the image is squashed and stretched) and I have had zero people point it out until I show them by digitally correcting the image! I game (PS4 and PS3) all the time this way also apart from Multiplayer FPS where I set the PJ to 4:3 as the extra width is hard to track quickly...

P.S I use an Oztheatre 120in scope screen with Xeit CM-5E and JVC HD550. I did have the Aussiemorphic Mk3+Corrector previously and was also happy doing the same but with more pincushion.

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In the case of the 16:9 movies with the A-Lens I don't use the vertically stretch feature (so the image is squashed and stretched) and I have had zero people point it out until I show them by digitally correcting the image! I game (PS4 and PS3) all the time this way also apart from Multiplayer FPS where I set the PJ to 4:3 as the extra width is hard to track quickly...

P.S I use an Oztheatre 120in scope screen with Xeit CM-5E and JVC HD550. I did have the Aussiemorphic Mk3+Corrector previously and was also happy doing the same but with more pincushion.

Yes you don't use any vertical stretch for 16:9 + lens in place, you expand the image horizontally with the lens and then pull it back in by using the 4:3 mode. So 16:9+lens=scope width + 4:3 mode = 16:9 with lens still in place.

But if you want to watch 16:9 in scope in the correct geometry then you would have to, but I gather most don't want to lose the top and bottom of the pic so they either do what you mention, leave the lens there and scale electronically, or remove lens from the light path.

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It really depends on what type of program you watch the most of. If you move the A-lens from the light path for 16:9, then you probably don't want one as you introduce barreling when the A-lens is out. If you leave the A-lens in the light path all the time, then a curved will be of great benefit as both light beam and screen can be aligned for perfect geometry (A-Lens pending of course).

I leave the lens in the light path at all times and I scale electronically. I understand that a curved screen would have benefits, but the flat screen does the job.

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I leave the lens in the light path at all times and I scale electronically. I understand that a curved screen would have benefits, but the flat screen does the job.

When I first built my curved screen, my TR was just 1.3:1, so I had MASSIVE amounts of pincushion distortion. So I made my curved screen adjustable for the day that I would have a decent 2+:1 throw ratio.

A flat screen does work and the pincushion goes un-noticed for most of the time until you display a PC desk top or a grid. Even then, most people would probably still not notice because they are still in awe about the width.

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