STACK #207 Jan 2022

LIFE TECH FEATURE

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SUPER 8 Before the arrival of the VCR, if you wanted to watch a movie at home, a Super 8 projector would recreate the cinema experience in full colour with sound. The only downside was that the range of films available – including blockbusters like Alien and The Empire Strikes Back – consisted of edited highlights on a single reel, comprising around 17 minutes of footage. But that didn’t diminish the thrill of firing up the projector and enjoying the best bits on a big screen with friends and family.

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Summer is traditionally the time studios release their biggest movies, and now you can bring the cinema experience of a blockbuster movie night home – or even better, enjoy it in the backyard, the great outdoors, or anywhere you choose with a portable home theatre projector. H ome theatre projectors have never been more affordable, or as advanced. Gone are the days when the bigger the THINGS TO CONSIDER When choosing a home theatre projector,

will be set up in a bright room, 3,000 lumens and above is recommended, while 2,000–2,500 lumens is optimal for a darkened home theatre or media room. There are two types of projectors – lamp and laser. Lamp projectors require the bulb to be replaced after approx. 8,000 hours of use, so even if you’re watching two or three movies

first evaluate the size of the room and the size of the projected image – will you be using a dedicated screen or pointing it at a clean white wall? Also consider the amount of natural and ambient light in the room where you’ll be using it, and whether you want a fixed model or a portable one to use outside or on a camping trip. For the best results, a projector should be centrally positioned to the screen/wall. Brightness levels and image quality are also important considerations. Brightness is measured in ANSI Lumens – the higher the lumens, the brighter the image. If a projector

projected image, the more the picture quality was likely to degrade. Today’s projectors can beam movies and content in glorious 4K Ultra HD, and images look as sharp and clear in a brightly lit room as they do in a darkened one. And there is no longer a need to mount them on the ceiling or a rear wall for the best results. Moreover, the advent of portable projectors means that summer movie nights are no longer confined to indoors – the projector can be added to a backpack to enliven a camping trip, a night on the beach, or set up in the backyard to create a cinema under the stars.

THE BIRTH OF THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER Released on June 20, 1975, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is considered the first bona fide ‘summer blockbuster’ – cinema queues snaked around the block in the rush to get tickets. Jaws was not only a monster hit at the box office, it also changed the way Hollywood films were marketed, igniting a new cultural phenomenon: the ‘summer event movie’. Spielberg was not yet a household name, but the novel’s best-seller status

a day, you’ll still get years of use from the lamp. Laser projectors have a longer lifespan of around 20,000 hours and feature greater contrast for 4K content. Some projectors feature receivers for direct connection of a 4K UHD Blu-ray player or games console, and many newer models will also offer Android and smart TV functionality, multimedia and streaming support. Think about what you’ll mainly use it to watch and purchase accordingly.

combined with an unprecedented TV marketing campaign and wide release strategy resulted in Jaws being the first movie to gross $100 million. The summer blockbuster was born!

38 JANUARY 2022

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