[rwood01]

Chas,

The HTB Anamorphic lens can be used with many front projectors, including the 4805, to display 2.35:1 native format video without any loss in resolution or lumen output. Here's how it works:

I'm sure you've noticed that many movies still have the "black bars" on the top and bottom of the screen even when displayed on your 16:9 TV or projector. This is due to the fact that they're in an even wider format than 16:9. I've read that somewhere around 2/3 - 3/4 of major motion pictures these days are in 2.35:1 - 2.4:1 format.

With a front projector setup you can pretty easily get rid of these bars by zooming our so the bars fall above and below the screen. The major disadvantage of this method is you're losing a big chunk of the projector's potential resolution. With the 4805 for example, you have 480 vertical lines of resolution. Let's say (I'm just guessing here) 100 of those lines are used to display the black bars, leaving you with 380 lines of resolution for the actual movie. It's obvious that this is not desirable. When you zoom out to get rid of the black bars, you just enlarge those 380 lines of resolution, increasing the chances of the "screen door effect".

One great feature of the 4805 is it's ability to scale the movie in "letterbox" mode. This takes a 2.35:1 movie and stretches it vertically to fill the full resolution of the display panel. The movie will now look too tall and thin, the black bars will be gone, and you're now using the full capability of the projector and displaying the movie with all 480 lines of resolution and the full lumen output of the projector. This is where the anamorphic lens comes in. By placing the lens in front of the projector it will stretch the image horizontally by 33%, returning the image to it's proper 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Now you are viewing the full picture as it was meant to be seen, plus you're taking advantage of the full capability of your projector. The result is really amazing. I was truly blown away by the results. Of course, it helps to have a 2.35:1 aspect ratio screen, otherwise you'll have to use a portion of your 16:9 screen.

Ryan