Widescreen Explained | What are 16:9 & 2.4:1 Aspect Ratios? | How Panamorph & Lens Memory Work

If you have ever watched a blockbuster movie on a regular television, you probably noticed black bars above and below the movie. You may have wondered why the movie did not fill up your TV screen. In this video, we explain why most movies are created this way and review the modern technologies that allow you to enjoy movies in their widescreen format. Then, we will help you decide if a widescreen home theater is the best option for your home theater room.

0:00 Intro
0:50 How Widescreen Came To Be
2:38 What are Aspect Ratios?
3:58 How To Get Widescreen In Your Home Theater
6:50 Is Widescreen the Right Choice For Me?
8:54 How To Make Widescreen Even Better
10:50 Summary

#hometheater #widescreen #audioadvice

[hometheaterfever]

Wow Beautiful explanation. That was an amazing video and enjoyed every second of it. Thank You

[GenevaCircle]

Finally an explanation of anamorphic lenses in plain language with useful visuals. Thank you!

[viveksamrat]

Explained way better than any article out there.. kudos

[prestonfernandes]

I'm glad you made this video. I was interested to know why alot of people choose 2.4:1 over 16:9. I think it's really down to personal preference.
I can agree that 2.4:1 just has that wider, more impressive feel and it's also much more cinematic than 16:9. But even though I love 2.4:1 movies I would probably go for 16:9 if my room were to handle it. My reasoning behind this is because some movies are most shot in 2.4:1 but they have some scenes in the movie that were shot on imax cameras and the aspect ratio changes to 16.9. I say it would be a shame if that extra bit of immersion would be cropped out and plus 16.9 content on a 2.4:1 screen is smaller compared to 2.4:1 content on a 16.9 screen the width remains the same but extends in height.

[scottwallace]

Great explanation. One nuance that maybe is a little graduate level for a video is to help people understand that with a Panamorph in place, the widescreen image area doesn’t suddenly manufacture more source pixels. The pixel count of the 2.4 sliver of the image is fixed, just as the pixel count for the black bars above and below are fixed. When you use the electronic stretch and optical compress method of widescreen display, the projector has to perform image interpolation to create information to fill the full pixel array of the imaging chip. The number of original source pixels remains the same. The biggest benefit, as you mention is that you’re using the entire light engine on image and not projecting black bars above and below the image.
Thanks again for all of your helpful videos.

[dj.excess]

Amazing video and explanation. Thanks. You guys are awesome!!!

[gregwillis]

Best explanation yet! Wish I had bumped into this 45 minutes ago

[marcbronze]

What’s crazy is that I figured this out without seeing this video. Hey these guys are great, shout-out to Seth who reaches out via email about a next gen receiver (I’m still waiting for my response on your reply ) but I got a Epson 4010 and went with a elite screens 125inch 2.35:1 screen. I LOVE IT. Everything he explained I was able to figure out and calibrate without watching videos . I just did my own research. But yea this works !! Don’t let them fool into buying a 10 k projector or anamorphic lens .

[manishagrawal]

One of the Best explanations. It's so much cleaner now. Crystal! 👍🙏

[narayan]

I watched your many videos about home theater atmos, it was a lesson for me

[koryk]

Great video, definitely thought this would be a pushy sales video but it wasn’t!

[dlcphoto]

Excellent video - you made some very hard to understand concepts easily understandable - nice!

[kthx]

Thanks for the informative video! What does one do for 2.76 content?

[jayroland]

Thanks for the explanation, it really helped, though I was waiting for the plug and sure enough at 6:35 it arrived as "...when you buy your projector from Audio Advice..." which was the time I switched off.

[avtechman]

Bravo AA.. Well done Sir. Keep up the great work

[kdmaj]

Great video on the subject guys, one of the best for sure.

[williamvangundy]

How about framing curtains for the screen? With the black level of modern projectors are these needed?

[zeemithwani]

Any recommendations on 2.40 lens memory 4k projectors. I know of Epson 6050u but thats not true 4k.

[VividTheater]

Awesome video! Too bad you guys don’t do installs in Canada.

[PepijnHazelhof]

Sometimes a movie switches between different aspectratio's, how do you co-op with that?