STACK #212 June 2022

FEATURE LIFE TECH

Cinemas have been offering moviegoers even bigger screen experiences over the decades. CINEMASCOPE The advent of television in the 1950s threatened cinema attendance, so the boss of 20th Century Fox commissioned the development of an anamorphic widescreen format called CinemaScope – which was twice as wide as the standard 1.37:1 Academy ratio – to lure audiences back. The first CinemaScope film was Fox’s biblical epic The Robe , in 1953. WIDE R SCREEN

CINERAMA This panoramic widescreen format required three synchronised projectors, which beamed the picture onto an enormous, curved screen that filled the audience’s entire field of vision. Only a handful of cinemas were Cinerama compatible, and the first movie to be released in the format was How the West Was Won in 1962.

affect the quality of the picture – the darker the room, the better the clarity. A projector’s brightness is measured in ANSI lumens, and the higher the lumen count, the brighter the image will be. 2000-3000 lumens is good for a standard lounge room and daytime viewing, while 3000-4500 is optimal for larger rooms and will also deliver better image quality in environments with more ambient light. A lower lumen count will suit a very dark room, like a dedicated home theatre. LASER BEAM Laser projectors are gaining in popularity over the traditional lamp variety, which required the bulb to be replaced after 8,000 hours of use and were prone to overheating. Laser projectors have a lifespan of 20,000

FIXED OR PORTABLE? Where will it be used the most? If it won’t be budging from a home theatre set-up or lounge room, the size of the unit isn’t really a factor. But should you wish to create a ‘moonlight cinema’ experience in the backyard or on the deck, or throw the projector in a backpack to take camping, then choose a portable or ‘capsule’ model. Always ensure the projector sits on a perfectly flat surface and is centred directly in front of the screen/wall to avoid image distortion. THE RIGHT KIND OF BRIGHT Brightness levels are an important factor in both the projector and the room it’s set up in. The amount of ambient light in a room can

70MM A high-resolution, speciality format with a wider aspect ratio than standard 35mm film, 70mm debuted in the 1960s and was primarily reserved for epic movies like Ben-Hur and 2001: A Space Odyssey . It is still used occasionally by filmmakers today, including Quentin Tarantino ( The Hateful Eight ) and Christopher Nolan ( Dunkirk ).

IMAX

A large film format in regular use today, IMAX offers incredibly immersive picture

quality and sound projected onto a screen that’s approximately six times bigger than a traditional cinema screen. Initially used for documentary shorts, many modern movies are now shot to include IMAX sequences, like the films of Christopher Nolan.

hours, which equates to around ten years – even when running eight hours a day, every day. Lasers offer greater colour accuracy and image stability, and deliver the deep blacks synonymous with 4K HDR content – and they’re more energy efficient, too.

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