News Flash

CinemaScope Home Theaters Coming

While most of the buzz at the upcoming CEDIA conference will be about wide-aspect home theater systems, some vendors are looking to tap the next frontier in image formats: CinemaScope. Look for several high-end systems to debut at CEDIA.

HDTV has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (or 1.77 ratio). CinemaScope, which is even wider, has a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This very-wide-aspect format is the favorite of Hollywood where perhaps 80% of major motion pictures are still filmed in this format. Indeed, perhaps 40% to 50% of DVDs are made in CinemaScope, so there is plenty of source material out there in this format.

The problem however, is that no microdisplay company that we are aware of has a native CinemaScope display on its product development roadmap.

"Not to worry", says Shawn Kelly, CEO at Visual Systems Research, Inc. (VSR) (Commerce, MI) (www.visr.com). "The solution is to use a Panamorph lens added onto a native 16:9 projection system."

The Panamorph lens is typically used to optically transform a 4:3-aspect image in 16:9-aspect images. But, when coupled to a 16:9-aspect image, it will widen it even further to produce the desired CinemaScope format.

"At CEDIA, there will be several new CinemaScope systems, with some coupled to new 2.35:1 screens," says Kelly.

While such systems will be targeted at the high-end of the home theater market, most of the action is focused on enabling a mass consumer market to front projection systems.

"The key to opening up the home theater market is to offer a low-cost projector with wide-screen performance that works well in the home," explains Kelly. "If you assume the home has ambient lighting, then the best on-screen performance will be achieved by using a high brightness-low contrast projector instead of a low brightness-high contrast projector. And the lowest cost solution will be to use a 4:3-aspect business-class projector with an Panamorph lens as opposed to a native 16:9-aspect microdisplay system."

VSR sells the Panamorph lenses and recently announced a supply relationship with Hitachi America, Ltd. (Brisbane, CA) (www.hitachi.com), a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan). At CEDIA, look for a new projector from TAW (www.taw.biz). It will features 0.9-inch 1365 x 1024 resolution D-ILA panels from JVC and the first built-in anamorphic lens system to produce a 16:9 aspect image. In addition, the company is advertising that the engine can be upgraded later to 1920 x 1600 resolution panels, which seems a bit dubious to us, even though this panel is on JVC's roadmap.

Kelly also foresees changes in the way front home theater projectors are marketed to consumers. "Earlier experiments in mass retailing environments with low-lumen projectors did not excite consumers. These systems will need a new marketing approach and new channel partners," says Kelly. He hinted to look for some new names in the channel by early next year, but declined to be specific.

We agree that changes are needed and there are already signs of this. Sears for example, has now started to sell Plasma and LCD TVs and may well be evaluating front projection too. Sears actually owns a line of high-end retail stores called Great Indoors, which could be used for upscale home video systems. Stay tuned. -- Chris Chinnock

Virtual Systems Research, Shawn Kelly, 248-360-9089, slkelly@visr.com

Insight Media, Chris Chinnock, 203-831-8404, chris@insightmedia.info

-- ### --