AV News 192 - May 2013
AVs on a Widescreen Projector
Malcolm Imhoff FRPS
At the Internationals last September the standard of the projected images was
universally acclaimed as 'stunning'. It was largely down to the excellence of the
Epson EH-TW3600 'full-HD' projector (5 Stars in the What-Hi-Fi Review, but
not available now), and the quality and size of the 16-foot screen, which I'm
looking forward to seeing again.
There was a problem though, of which most people will be unaware. Having
submitted my entries I got an e-mail from the technical team, Dick Williams and
Keith Leedham, to say that my AVs, made at 1400 x 933 pixels, did not fill the
screen. Using a 3:2 ratio you would expect to see black bars at the sides of the
screen, but my pictures did not even fill the height of the screen, even though
I had not ticked the 'fixed slide of slide box' as is my custom.
I was informed
that the entries of
a few of the other
experienced AV
workers, some of
whom had made
1400 x 1050 px
(4:3) sequences,
had also exhibited
the exact same
problem, which I
suspect looked a
bit
like
my
illustration in Figure 1 above.
The work of the majority of authors was displayed as you would expect, as
in Figure 2 below.
After a great
many
e-mails
and
telephone
calls
I
was
advised to re
publish my AVs,
selecting 16:9 as
the 'aspect ratio'
in the Project
Options. I have
found that if you
specify a 'virtual
size of slide' of
1920 x 1080,
even if your pictures are not this size, this automatically changes the value in
the 'aspect ratio' box to 16:9. This worked, as those who were there at the
Internationals will know, but to me it doesn't make any sense at all.
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