Enabling "anamorphic" on JVCX9500

[scottrichardson]

Finally fired up my projector for the first time over the weekend. Looks amazing. It's the top end X9500 from JVC thanks to Richard at Ozts  

I wanted to test the anamorphic lens however the option for anamorphic was greyed out when trying to watch a movie on Netflix via my PS4 Pro. 

I finally got the option to work when I switched to a bluray from the PS4 Pro. 

Can someone tell me why anamorphic was greyed out while watching Netflix?

If I was to take a best guess, it was looking for a 23.97fps signal?

 

[CAVX]

Interesting.  I thought the scaling in the JVCs just worked regardless of the input being 1080/24P or 2160/24P.  Not sure about 2160/60P.  I heard that locks up.  

[betty boop]

On 14/08/2017 at 0:51 PM, scottrichardson said:

I wanted to test the anamorphic lens however the option for anamorphic was greyed out when trying to watch a movie on Netflix via my PS4 Pro. 

 

it lists there as an option, for x7000/9000 anyways, not sure be any different with the x7500, x9500. perhaps media related ? 

http://eu.jvc.com/microsite/eu/dla-x9000/feature05.html

 

Anamorphic mode for wide cinematic films

A 2.35:1 aspect ratio for wide cinematic films can be enjoyed by combining the projector with a third-party anamorphic lens to create dynamic picture reproduction just as can be seen in a movie theatre.

[CAVX]

@scottrichardson do you have another UHD player/source to test?  

I have had a play the X9500 and the Samsung gen 1 player and it seemed to work OK.  

The X7500 and the OPPO 203 combo worked fine.

Also OPPO is about to release a new "anamorphic" FW update where they will now include "Fixed Lens" mode to complement the current "moveable lens", so you will be able to HS as well as VS.  Still no word about 3D JAVA discs though.     

 

[scottrichardson]

Hey guys. So it's over a month later and I'm still experiencing issues. I'm so far only able to use anamorphic mode on the projector while playing Bluray.

 

Neither Netflix on PS4 Pro or my Apple TV will allow me to choose 'anamo' on the remote or 'anamorphic' from the settings menu for the projector. Additionally, 'vertical stretch' within the Marantz 8802a processor settings doesn't do anything at all when using Netflix.

 

Surely vertical stretch works with more than blu ray???

[Javs]

Anamorphic mode does not work in 50/60p by design. Its not a bug. You will also find things like Keystone correction can not be used either.

 

You need to be feeding 23/24hz for it to work.

 

Netflix is 60p on PS4...

 

Can you drop the Apple TV to 24hz?

[Javs]

On 16/08/2017 at 9:13 AM, CAVX said:

@scottrichardson do you have another UHD player/source to test?  

I have had a play the X9500 and the Samsung gen 1 player and it seemed to work OK.  

The X7500 and the OPPO 203 combo worked fine.

Also OPPO is about to release a new "anamorphic" FW update where they will now include "Fixed Lens" mode to complement the current "moveable lens", so you will be able to HS as well as VS.  Still no word about 3D JAVA discs though.     

 

 

Thats because the Samsung player is one of the only ones which can display Netflix content at its native 24p...

[CAVX]

10 hours ago, Javs said:

 

Thats because the Samsung player is one of the only ones which can display Netflix content at its native 24p...

Interesting.  And here i thought Netflix was a bit backwards with all the program I watched being 1080/60P (and back to 3:2 pulldown) when I streamed this through my OPPO 203D. 

On my BenQ, both anamorphic modes, VS and HS, worked fine with any refresh rate, so I am puzzled as to why the JVC will only work at 24fps.  It may not be a bug, but is seeming to be a bad design.  it is about remapping the image and it should not matter that the frame rate is.

[scottrichardson]

38 minutes ago, CAVX said:

Interesting.  And here i thought Netflix was a bit backwards with all the program I watched being 1080/60P (and back to 3:2 pulldown) when I streamed this through my OPPO 203D. 

On my BenQ, both anamorphic modes, VS and HS, worked fine with any refresh rate, so I am puzzled as to why the JVC will only work at 24fps.  It may not be a bug, but is seeming to be a bad design.  it is about remapping the image and it should not matter that the frame rate is.

Exactly mate. I’m actually a little disappointed. The majority of my viewing is on streaming devices. It’s only the big movies I’ll buy on disc for 24p. I’m going to call JVC later today to confirm wtf anamorphic is meant to work with. 

[Javs]

2 hours ago, CAVX said:

Interesting.  And here i thought Netflix was a bit backwards with all the program I watched being 1080/60P (and back to 3:2 pulldown) when I streamed this through my OPPO 203D. 

On my BenQ, both anamorphic modes, VS and HS, worked fine with any refresh rate, so I am puzzled as to why the JVC will only work at 24fps.  It may not be a bug, but is seeming to be a bad design.  it is about remapping the image and it should not matter that the frame rate is.

Is your BenQ 4k?

 

Anamorphic works in all resolutions and modes except 4k 50/60p.

[loser]

Quote

I'm a little curious here. Why would you want to use an anamorphic lens when you can simply blow up the image to fill the screen?

 

[scottrichardson]

10 hours ago, loser said:

 

 

My zoom doesn't fill the screen if I do it that way. But I still wouldn't do that if I could. The main advantage of vertical stretch + lens is that you can use all of the available pixels to output coloured/light pixels, rather than wasting a quarter of the pixels on rendering black bars. So stretch and crop the image in software on the projector, so all pixels are outputting the image, then stretch it out wide to fill the bigger screen with the lens hardware.

[CAVX]

10 hours ago, loser said:

 

As mentioned, more pixels on screen as you can use the full panel and not throw away 25% of the vertical rez.  For 1920 x 1080, that is a difference of about 1/2M pixels.  Move to UHD and  we are talking about over 2M pixels wasted on black bars!  That is more than the whole of 1920 x 1080!  

 

Pixels are expanded by 33% in both directions when you zoom.  Using a n A-Lens only expands the pixels horizontally.  

 

There is also about 14% (measured and documented) light increase over the same sized zoomed image when using an A-Lens.  With UHD and HDR-10, you need as much light on screen as you can get.

 

The ONLY thing that makes zooming more appealing is price.    

 

[CAVX]

22 hours ago, Javs said:

Is your BenQ 4k?

 

Anamorphic works in all resolutions and modes except 4k 50/60p.

I'm still in the dark ages   1920 x 1080 here for a while yet.

[Quark]

22 hours ago, Javs said:

Anamorphic works in all resolutions and modes except 4k 50/60p.

I do wonder if that's a limitation of the JVC's processing power rather than some arbitrary decision.

[CAVX]

Not allowing it to scale 2160/60P is as dumb as those older 1080P projectors that could not scale 3D.  

[betty boop]

7 hours ago, scottrichardson said:

 

My zoom doesn't fill the screen if I do it that way. But I still wouldn't do that if I could. The main advantage of vertical stretch + lens is that you can use all of the available pixels to output coloured/light pixels, rather than wasting a quarter of the pixels on rendering black bars. So stretch and crop the image in software on the projector, so all pixels are outputting the image, then stretch it out wide to fill the bigger screen with the lens hardware.

definitely reasonable for using a scope lens isn't it. i'm still curious why this worked via this worked via the Sammy uhd but not via other sources that incorrectly cant output at 24p.. that said i would be checking out some true native 4k/50/60 though not sure of anything uhd wise as am pretty sure only true the billy walk uhd is 16:9 ? and uhd 50/60

[Owen]

On 10/11/2017 at 9:48 AM, CAVX said:

There is also about 14% (measured and documented) light increase over the same sized zoomed image when using an A-Lens. 

That depends on the projector and the characteristics of its lens, you may only get 5%. In any event 14% is stuff all, 0.14 of a stop in camera terms.

 

On 10/11/2017 at 9:48 AM, CAVX said:

The ONLY thing that makes zooming more appealing is price.  

How about no reduction in MFT for a sharper picture, no added chromatic aberrations, no added geometric distortions, and no issues due to non linear scaling.

Little wonder why cinemas dont use A-lenses any more, they are a thing of a bygone era.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Owen

[Gee Emm]

They played a valuable role, in their day.

[CAVX]

5 hours ago, Gee Emm said:

They played a valuable role, in their day.

They continue to play a valuable role to this day.  Content creators either have gone back to film + A-Lens or used one with a digital camera (to allow them to use all of the imaging chip) for new films.  There is a certain look to the image that is favorable.  Directors like James Cameron claim not to like them due to a short depth of field, hence why he went with Super35 for his Scope films.    

In the home projection arena, it is simple maths - 100% Vs 75% of the panel for CinemaScope.  I choose 100%.      
As far as MTF goes, I think plastic projection lenses have done more damage than an all glass, fully corrected anamorphic does.  

This thread is also asking how to activate how to turn on the anamorphic mode on a JVC.  Just because a certain user feels that there is no need to use them doesn't make their existence redundant nor gives him the right to crap all over them or anyone that uses one.     

[Owen]

Hang on mate, I am simply pointing out the facts and have no skin in the game as I dont sell AV gear.

 

It is not possible to add an extra lens into the light path of a projector without degrading the image in just about every measurable way. The on screen image will contain the sum of the defects of BOTH lenses.

The less glass between the imaging chips and the screen the better, its as simple as that. The non linear scaling required for an A-lens is less than optimal as well and introduces more degradation.

 

These are the FACTS not my "opinion". If we cant state facts in a technical forum like this one what use is it?

 

If you think stating the obvious is crapping all over a product, especially one that you may have an interest in selling, so be it, but suggesting I am denigrating people who choose to use an A-lens, for whatever reason, is uncalled for mate.

 

Anyone who is truly confident in their purchase decisions is not going to be affected by anything they read on the interweb.

[CAVX]

Great.  So can we move on to the problem at hand? 

 

How does the owner of the JVC turn on his anamorphic mode?  

[scottrichardson]

My new Apple TV 4K has a generous set of options for changing the video output. 

 

It appears switching to 4K/25 or 4K/24 allows me to use the anamorphic mode on my projector. 

 

There are other resolutions, so I’ll try to keep pumping up the refresh until anamorphic no longer is enabled. That way I can determine where the projector has issues. 

 

4K/60 most definitely doesn’t work. Sadly JVC support merely suggested “turning on anamorphic mode in the settings”. Sigh. 

 

As as for the tangent about lens or not. I simply cannot use the zoom method in my room on my screen. It’s 165” anamorphic. It’s too big to zoom to fill. I’d need to have my PJ another 2m back which would put it in my neighbours driveway. 

 

That aside, I’d still opt for a lens because the increase in pixel size would not be advantageous even if I could zoom. On a somewhat smaller screen I would certainly see it as an option. But I am very happy with the end result of my lens in place for scope stuff. Yes there is a very slight degradation in picture quality caused by extra glass, but it’s vastly negated by the size of my screen and the overall power and quality of the x9500. 

[Gee Emm]

I was very happy using my A-lens when I had a projector.

I knew there was some degredation, but all this was forgotten when a scope image started playing

[Owen]

On 10/29/2017 at 10:46 AM, CAVX said:

How does the owner of the JVC turn on his anamorphic mode?  

Use a playback device that will correctly display movies at their native frame rate of 23.97fps rate, NOT 60fps which is just wrong and terrible to watch anyway. A PC is an effective solution as it can play anything out at 23.97fps, including Netflix if you use the app.

 

I'm not aware of any 21:9 content shot at 60fps, can anyone think of anything? Little wonder JVC didn't  consider it an issue worth addressing.