Anamorphic Lens

[James Henry]

Is anyone still using anamorphic lenses with more recent generation DLP projectors to maximize light and manage their curved screen during scope projection?

[Rick Cohen]

Most locations use a singe non-anamorphic zoom lens for both scope and flat.

[Gordon McLeod]

With a fixed height i still use anamorphic lens on our larger screens but they are getting very pricy

[Dave Macaulay]

I understand the principle and know they exist. But I've never seen one, and wonder how you get a squeezed DCP to use one with?

[Marcel Birgelen]

The problem is that modern non-TI ICPs have flaky support for anamorphic image stretching. Barco's ICP-D is a good example. And while some of the modern Christie projectors might support it, it requires expensive add-on licenses for the "image morphing" features. So, I think that anamorphic for DCI is, unfortunately, mostly dead nowadays and the installations that still use it are mostly legacy installs with limited time left.

[Leo Enticknap]

NEC Series 2 does it pretty solidly, I suspect because due to their relative light inefficiency, this feature was extensively used on Series 1 NECs, and a lot of customers wanted to preserve their existing lens arrangements when they upgraded. I look after a couple of sites with anamorphs on Series 2 NECs mounted on XL movers, that are operated by GPI, triggered by the relevant titles.

[James Henry]

I appreciate all of these responses. The situation I was considering it for is restoring a historic single screen theater on a bit of a constrained budget. I was sort of curious if it is possible to do the anamorphic stretch on a DP4k series projector. I know Barco claims they don't support it at all, far better for them to sell a brand new even brighter projector. Since it is a single screen case and a bit of a pet project, I am willing to go deep into the custom file editing if it was necessary and useful. I would absolutely build in an automated sled for it. If only every projector was twice as bright!

I find it interesting how anamorphic mostly went out of favor, and yet IMAX uses what I understand to be internal anamorphic optics in their GT 1.43 screens.

I am guessing nobody has an extra old DLP ISCO 1.25 lens laying around from a prior generation projector they replaced.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Whether or not your DP4K projector supports anamorphic lens configurations or not depends on the ICP/server combination. Our DP4K-23B with 1st generation ICMP, for example, will still support anamorphic lenses, the SP4K in the same room, will not.

The reason it went out of favor is because it costs quite a lot of extra money. It's a cost-cutting measure, just like the lack of masking and curtains in most modern digital cinema installs.

IMAX uses anamorphic lenses to squeeze the 1.90 AR of the native DLP chips onto their 1.43 screens. They need every bit of light they can get... I'm not a fan of the look of that though, those massive screens are still way too big for 4K and those rectangular pixels look unnatural to me. If you've ever seen the screen of a Apple Lisa, then you know what I mean...

[Ed Gordon]

I find it interesting how anamorphic mostly went out of favor

Anamorphic was introduced to fit a 2.66 image onto a 1.33 film frame. When digital replaced film, there was no need to use the squeeze/un-squeeze method since digital captures at 1.78. DVD's supported anamorphic to for the same reason that film did. Blurays, like digital cinema never supported anamorphic since it was no longer beneficial. Old movies shot in anamorphic are un-squeezed as they are digitized. Essentially, The introduction of digital cinema replaced film, film cameras, film projectors and anamorphic lenses.

Note: Anamorphic lenses are still used for photographic effects such as Bokeh ("a distinct visual style with unique lens flares and oval bokeh").

[James Henry]

I am shocked Barco and Christie haven't introduced a pixel-shifted 4k module like it seems Digital Projection to get to pseudo 8k. It would reduce any artifact the warp Christie seems to have started allowing may introduce.

[Ryan Gallagher]

They do show up on flea-bay on occasion too, a findable one right now:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/277732432275
and
https://www.ebay.com/itm/406845124655

actually quite a few more when using better search terms: "ISCO DLP anamorphic"
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw...DLP+anamorphic

[Marcel Birgelen]

I am shocked Barco and Christie haven't introduced a pixel-shifted 4k module like it seems Digital Projection to get to pseudo 8k. It would reduce any artifact the warp Christie seems to have started allowing may introduce.

Pixel shifting is something that's a bit frowned upon in professional gear and since there is essentially zero 8K DCI content available as of now, nobody is really worrying too hard about it. The chance of adding extra artifacts and the extra processing involved doesn't seem to be worth it, for now.

I guess what came closest to "pixel shifting" was the trick IMAX pulled off with their 2 x 2K xenon setup.

[Sascha Roll]

Anamorphic was introduced to fit a 2.66 image onto a 1.33 film frame. When digital replaced film, there was no need to use the squeeze/un-squeeze method since digital captures at 1.78. DVD's supported anamorphic to for the same reason that film did. Blurays, like digital cinema never supported anamorphic since it was no longer beneficial. Old movies shot in anamorphic are un-squeezed as they are digitized. Essentially, The introduction of digital cinema replaced film, film cameras, film projectors and anamorphic lenses.

Note: Anamorphic lenses are still used for photographic effects such as Bokeh ("a distinct visual style with unique lens flares and oval bokeh").

There are so many Errors in your post that I don't even know where to begin.

[Steve Guttag]

I have sites with Anamorphic lenses. They are all S2 projectors. The OP has the right idea...all of the other posts here that talks about anamorphic history in either film or video do not understand the OP's question and/or don't understand what anamorphic lenses bring to Digital Cinema.

The key to being able to use an anamorphic, as a couple have pointed out, is the ICP (or equivalent) ability to scale the image vertically to "fill the frame." One does not get a special DCP for anamorphic. It is all in-projector.

The benefits are:

• 23% more light on a fixed height (2.39:1) screen through more efficient use of the DMD.
• Typically, one-size smaller projector/light source.
• Lower electric bills for both the lamp/laser and exhaust by not generating as much heat or using as much electricity to light it.
• Little to no prime lens movement between Flat and Scope formats which yields better focus stability, over time and possibly more image centering stability over time.

With laser technology, it might be considered more dubious...though, depending on the projectors under consideration, saving one projector size could save well over $10K and sometimes more like $20K.

As others have noted, support for anamorphic scaling is more sketchy in the Series 4 world. Barco, though they followed the TI protocol so well, you can use the ICP/Enigma program to control it, they, notably, deactivated/don't respond to the Anamorphic Factor. I have experimented enough working with the ICP-D and how it scales based on input size to know that it will scale vertically, if configured just so. However, since it is not officially supported, you could be one firmware update away from disaster since they are not going to be testing for it.

I have not tested Christie S4 projectors, as of yet. They do not use the ICP/Enigma program (unfortunately). I have not tested Sharp/NEC but they have tried to stick with modeling their FMT board after the ICP right down to the BR-2330 battery.

[James Henry]

Steve, thanks for your follow-up. I was halfway waiting for you to make a response.

From an optics perspective a perfectly square chip/light processor would produce the highest brightness out of the optical projection circle per input brightness. Any other aspect ratio is somewhat reducing that efficiency. I suppose modern laser projectors can just take care of that by producing an incredible amount of light.

Since Imax creates their anamorphic scaled full chip DCP files from the high resolution 5.6-6k content they scan film at from my understanding, they really don't introduce any artifact that wouldn't also occur with scaling to any other aspect ratio unless it is perfectly the same aspect ratio and an integer scaling factor. They could even or may even scan their source film (for the film content) with an anamorphic ratio and a 1x 2x, 3x, or 4x integer scale to keep everything in the analog domain like back in the day for all film sourced movies.

I love what you said about no prime lens movement between flat and scope. I am so skeptical of any automated lens movement to actually be endlessly repeatable unless it has true configured physical stops or a frequent internal calibration process.

I may end up tinkering with it just out of the sake of curiosity if I come across a lens for a decent price. Sadly, most of the ones someone had listed from eBay I had looked at before and are not the minimal anamorphic factor of ~1.25 that is needed. Those earlier chips were really pushing the anamorphic factor at 1.5! If you end up pulling one out during an upgrade let me know! I wish I could borrow one just to test it out before committing to buying one.