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2.2 Aspect Ratio

A little background. We have some defined aspect ratios that are part of our guide database and are also reflected in the control protocol: 1.33, 1.66, 1.78, 1.85, 2.35, and 2.40.

Does the 2.40 AR get reported correctly on Premiere systems? For example, if I play 'The Gentlemen' (store download), it indicates the AR is 2.40 on the Play Movie screen. But the control protocol reports this:

02/!/000:TITLE_NAME:The Gentlemen:/08 02/!/000:MOVIE_LOCATION:03:/69 02/!/000:ASPECT_RATIO:05:02:/73

The '05' indicates 2.35 according to the control protocol document snippet below. Would I be correct in assuming that 2.40 should be indicated as '06'?

00 No image aspect ratio specified (not in playback, Kaleidescape user interface is displayed), or image aspect ratio unknown (often the case with trailers and supplemental material). The controller cannot make any assumptions about the projected video, and so should open up the masks.
01 Image aspect ratio is 1.33 (4:3)
02 Image aspect ratio is 1.66
03 Image aspect ratio is 1.78 (16:9)
04 Image aspect ratio is 1.85
05 Image aspect ratio is 2.35
 
By chance, are the titles that you’re playing that are showing unexpected shift amounts coming from Blu-ray Discs? Or are they downloaded from the movie store?

I do use top masking on my own system, by the way.
Hi Mike,

I have some time scheduled with my programmer on Monday will be doing some testing of my masking settings this weekend to prepare for that. Any further tips or suggestions from your side?

Thanks.
 
Hi Mike,

I have a 1.78 screen and I am in the process of changing my masking settings to use top masking only for 2.35 and 2.40 content because it is a better viewing angle for my single row theater and also has the advantage of getting rid of letterboxing. I have been experimenting with the Vertical Shift setting that is available in the Lumagen Radiance Pro to shift the image for 2.35 and 2.40 content to the bottom of my screen, and from there closing the top mask.

Right on. This is exactly what I do in my theater. FWIW, because 2.35 and 2.40 are almost identical in size on my 110" diagonal screen, I use a single setting in the Radiance Pro for both of these ratios. That setting is based on a 2.40 movie, so I end up clipping a very small amount of the 2.35 frame on movies that are truly 2.35, which are actually pretty rare.

To put hard numbers on it, 2.40 content is 40" tall on my screen. 2.35 is 40.85". So for true 2.35 content, by masking it to 2.40 I end up clipping 0.425" off the top and bottom of the image, which is negligible.

One setting you may wish to employ in addition to shift in the Radiance is the masking feature, on the top. This will ensure that if a movie is slightly taller than the preset that you're using, you don't end up projecting distracting light onto the top mask.

The first thing I did was to use the Kaleidescape Test Masking option to determine the proper Vertical Shift setting for 2.35 content. So far in my testing this is working fine with 2.35 titles.

I then put on some 2.40 titles so that I could use them to set the vertical shift value since Test Masking has no 2.40 option. This is where I started running into some unexpected problems because the vertical shift value I needed changed dramatically depending on the specific title I was playing. For example, A Few Good Men worked as expected because I needed a higher vertical shift value to move the image slightly lower on my screen than for 2.35 content. Ford v. Ferrari also worked with a higher vertical shift value than 2.35, although I did need to tweak it slightly. But when I tried Cloud Atlas or Bacurau the image was way too low on my screen and the bottom was cut off so I needed to set the vertical shift value to be exactly half of what worked for A Few Good Men in order to raise the image much higher than where I moved it for 2.35 content, which is counterintuitive. When I tried playing Cloud Atlas and Bacurau on my ATV the higher vertical shift setting for 2.40 worked exactly as expected.

That indeed does not make sense. I happen to have Cloud Atlas in my library (downloaded from our movie store) and so I just fired up my projector and played a couple of scenes. (I haven't seen the movie yet so I just picked a couple of scenes at random.) The movie comes up exactly as expected at 2.40, and my normal 2.40 masking preset is displaying it perfectly masked. I have buttons as part of my Control4 setup that let me manually select aspect ratios, so I can switch to 1.78 or 1.85, see what lies at the top and bottom of the film frame, and then switch back to my 2.40 preset and verify that I'm seeing the entire frame with nothing being clipped and with no extra black.

I would tend to suspect that maybe something is not quite set up right in the Radiance. It's easy to mess things up when setting up the various options for shift, mask, etc., and inadvertently introduce some image distortion that is really not obvious when you are looking at it. One thing you might try is to project the movie with the Radiance set for a 1.78 aspect ratio, and then use an actual physical tape measure to check the size of the black bars top & bottom, and the height of the active image area, to see whether the image is the size you expect, and that it's vertically centered.

Be extra sure that you're not inadvertently applying NLStretch or LBoxZoom settings, as those will mess things up. You only want to use vertical shift and input masking.

FYI, I am using Crestron as my control system, and I have scheduled time with my programmer on Monday to try to fix this.

Cool. I use Control4. Our Control4 driver actually doesn't distinguish between 2.35 and 2.40, which is one reason I have the one preset instead of two.

So here are my questions for you:

1) Is there a way to use Kaleidescape controls to work with top masking instead of relying on the Lumagen Vertical Shift setting?

No, not really, at least at present. The Lumagen approach is a good one.

I have quoted below from SJHT's post in this thread which would suggest that there is:

Normally, for 2.4 aspect ratio movies, my system (which reads the K control information to know the movie is 2.4) lowers the image to the bottom of my 16:9 screen and lowers top masking. Also, because K control system allows you to reframe things, you can instruct it to set screen masking on. This allows all of the on screen displays (menus, etc.) to be reframed to 2.4. Works slick. Also, when I go back to the movie covers screen, the system reverts back to 16:9 (e.g. raises masking, etc.).

What SJHT is referring to here is the setting where you tell your player that you are using screen masking. This ensures that the movie's subtitles(*) as well as the Kaleidescape system's playback menus and indications (the "Pause" message in the top right corner, the menu that lets you pick audio/subtitles/etc) are all displayed within the same part of the screen as the actual movie image. This ensures that none of that content is cut off when the letterboxed area is masked off.

I put an asterisk after subtitles because there are some rare movies where the subtitles are actually "burned in" on the image, as opposed to being displayed by the player. In those cases, obviously, we're not able to move them.

2) Can you also explain what SJHT means when he says the K control system "allows you to reframe things" so that the on screen menus are reframed to 2.40?

See above.

3) Is there a reason I am seeing such dramatically different results, only on Kaleidescape, with the same vertical shift setting for titles that are all described as 2.40?

Many thanks.

See above for some suggested troubleshooting. I'm not sure how you're routing signals. Do you have the Apple TV and the Kaleidescape player on different inputs? The Radiance has both per-input settings and per-source-resolution settings, so it's possible that something is configured subtly differently for the Apple TV and the Kaleidescape player. If you are running different inputs, you could try swapping the devices to the other inputs to see what happens, just as a diagnostic step.
 
Does the 2.40 AR get reported correctly on Premiere systems? For example, if I play 'The Gentlemen' (store download), it indicates the AR is 2.40 on the Play Movie screen. But the control protocol reports this:

02/!/000:TITLE_NAME:The Gentlemen:/08 02/!/000:MOVIE_LOCATION:03:/69 02/!/000:ASPECT_RATIO:05:02:/73

The '05' indicates 2.35 according to the control protocol document snippet below. Would I be correct in assuming that 2.40 should be indicated as '06'?

00 No image aspect ratio specified (not in playback, Kaleidescape user interface is displayed), or image aspect ratio unknown (often the case with trailers and supplemental material). The controller cannot make any assumptions about the projected video, and so should open up the masks.
01 Image aspect ratio is 1.33 (4:3)
02 Image aspect ratio is 1.66
03 Image aspect ratio is 1.78 (16:9)
04 Image aspect ratio is 1.85
05 Image aspect ratio is 2.35

You know, I need to double-check this, because I could have sworn that we added a 2.40 preset, but you're quite right that the protocol reference is only listing 2.35. I may be thinking of something that we did for CinemaScape.

I tried a few movies here at home to see how we are reporting them on the control protocol for non-CinemaScape systems like mine, and they are all coming up as 05 (2.35). However, the ones that are actually 2.40 have additional top and bottom trim values applied. Examples:

Jack Reacher, which is actually 2.35:
01/!/000:SCREEN_MASK:05:+000:+000:05:0122:0122:/92

Cloud Atlas, which is actually 2.40:
01/!/000:SCREEN_MASK:05:+010:+010:05:0130:0130:/92

See page 172 (GET_SCREEN_MASK) in the Control Protocol Reference Manual for information about the trims.
 
That indeed does not make sense. I happen to have Cloud Atlas in my library (downloaded from our movie store) and so I just fired up my projector and played a couple of scenes. (I haven't seen the movie yet so I just picked a couple of scenes at random.) The movie comes up exactly as expected at 2.40, and my normal 2.40 masking preset is displaying it perfectly masked. I have buttons as part of my Control4 setup that let me manually select aspect ratios, so I can switch to 1.78 or 1.85, see what lies at the top and bottom of the film frame, and then switch back to my 2.40 preset and verify that I'm seeing the entire frame with nothing being clipped and with no extra black.

I would tend to suspect that maybe something is not quite set up right in the Radiance. It's easy to mess things up when setting up the various options for shift, mask, etc., and inadvertently introduce some image distortion that is really not obvious when you are looking at it. One thing you might try is to project the movie with the Radiance set for a 1.78 aspect ratio, and then use an actual physical tape measure to check the size of the black bars top & bottom, and the height of the active image area, to see whether the image is the size you expect, and that it's vertically centered.

Be extra sure that you're not inadvertently applying NLStretch or LBoxZoom settings, as those will mess things up. You only want to use vertical shift and input masking.

See above for some suggested troubleshooting. I'm not sure how you're routing signals. Do you have the Apple TV and the Kaleidescape player on different inputs? The Radiance has both per-input settings and per-source-resolution settings, so it's possible that something is configured subtly differently for the Apple TV and the Kaleidescape player. If you are running different inputs, you could try swapping the devices to the other inputs to see what happens, just as a diagnostic step.
Mike,

First of all, thank you for your detailed and helpful reply. It is very encouraging to know that you have managed to get top masking to work for you.

I just tried some of the troubleshooting steps that you outlined above. I thought that the Lumagen Auto-Aspect setting might be the source of the problem because I had previously set it to On (HDMI only) for my Strato input since that resolved issues I was having with Kaleidescape 4:3 content being stretched automatically to get rid of the pillarboxing. I turned off Auto-Aspect, but I still had the same issue with the 2.40 vertical shift setting cutting off the bottom of the image when I played Cloud Atlas.

I then tried swapping the inputs for the ATV and Strato, but that did not change the result. The vertical shift worked perfectly for Cloud Atlas on my ATV, but cut off the bottom of the Kaleidescape image even after I swapped inputs.

I will continue to troubleshoot and will probably also reach out to Lumagen, but as an interim workaround I may just set up two different vertical shift settings for 2.40 input just to make sure I can get top masking to work as intended.
 
One other thing you could try -- bust out the tape measure as I suggested above, and with no shift applied (1.78 aspect ratio), measure the height of the image, minus the letterbox bars.

Then engage the image 2.40 image shift. Measure the height of the image again. If you're just applying too much shift, the height will be smaller, because something is being cut off the bottom. If it's the same (or larger), then stretch is being applied somewhere.
 
One other thing you could try -- bust out the tape measure as I suggested above, and with no shift applied (1.78 aspect ratio), measure the height of the image, minus the letterbox bars.

Then engage the image 2.40 image shift. Measure the height of the image again. If you're just applying too much shift, the height will be smaller, because something is being cut off the bottom. If it's the same (or larger), then stretch is being applied somewhere.
Mike,

Can you advise whether you have your Strato Video Output Behavior set to “minimize display mode changes”? Jim Peterson of Lumagen figured out that all of the titles I am having problems with are either in HD or SD resolution. Since the vertical shift is in input resolution and I set it in 4K, then if I am sending a different resolution I will not see the vertical shift that I am expecting.

He asked me to temporarily change my Strato setting to ”minimize display mode changes”, and once I did that the vertical shift worked as intended.
 
Aha! Yes, that’s what I was getting at above when I noted that the Radiance has both per-input and per-resolution settings. I didn’t realize that the titles you mentioned that were working properly were 4K, but that explains it.

I currently have my Strato set to minimize display mode changes (because it makes for the smoothest transitions between content and OSD), but I have run it the other way as well. So, I configured shift settings for the various possible input resolutions. I don’t recall right now if the shift values are the same for HD as they are for 4K or if they were different. If they’re the same, you can do a lot of copying of settings. I suspect that they may not be, though. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had to tweak the shift values.
 
Lumagen support is the best! Depending on the room, I‘m in the camp of 16:9 screens with top masking. I have a script which runs several 2.4 movies with the top masking down and the the final scene is full 16:9. Maskiing comes up for the final scene. So cool…. All works automatically with the great control system that K provides.
 
I have just been testing the new Letterbox Control: Bottom option included in the 7/28/21 software update for the Lumagen Radiance Pro which is specifically designed to make it easier to use Top Masking without needing to send a different vertical shift value for each change in aspect ratios (or input resolution).

So far this looks like a significant improvement.
 
You know, I need to double-check this, because I could have sworn that we added a 2.40 preset, but you're quite right that the protocol reference is only listing 2.35. I may be thinking of something that we did for CinemaScape.

I tried a few movies here at home to see how we are reporting them on the control protocol for non-CinemaScape systems like mine, and they are all coming up as 05 (2.35). However, the ones that are actually 2.40 have additional top and bottom trim values applied. Examples:

Jack Reacher, which is actually 2.35:
01/!/000:SCREEN_MASK:05:+000:+000:05:0122:0122:/92

Cloud Atlas, which is actually 2.40:
01/!/000:SCREEN_MASK:05:+010:+010:05:0130:0130:/92

See page 172 (GET_SCREEN_MASK) in the Control Protocol Reference Manual for information about the trims.
Does the GET_SCREEN_MASK return different values for 2.2 or 2.0 movies (vs. the 1.85 for aspect ratio per your previous comments)? I could use that instead of waiting for the Lumagen Pro to analyze the movie once it is playing to trigger masking changes, etc. Still think you should add a NEW control feedback which covers the real AR. Would not impact current installed base. Thanks.
 
What you'll see for GET_SCREEN_MASK for 2.2 and 2.0 movies, generally, is that it will currently return the code for 1.85, since that is the closest of our preset ratios that is more "open" than the true ratio. However, the trim values at the end will be different. It would be somewhat challenging, but not impossible, to build programming around the existing masking event, depending on how much access you have to the raw event in your control system. For example, in Control4, the installer/programmer would have no access to the trim values if they're using our standard driver, because the driver only exposes the preset ratios.

Fully agree that the correct answer is to have an updated screen mask event that includes the correct ratios. The challenge here is that adding additional aspect ratios is something that affects a broad swath of software, all the way from our content-authoring/ingest workstations through to the players, the store interfaces, control system drivers, and so on. It seems simple, but is a deceptively large amount of work that has to happen in coordination, so it's something that needs to be tackled when we have resources available to work on each of the affected areas.
 
What you'll see for GET_SCREEN_MASK for 2.2 and 2.0 movies, generally, is that it will currently return the code for 1.85, since that is the closest of our preset ratios that is more "open" than the true ratio. However, the trim values at the end will be different. It would be somewhat challenging, but not impossible, to build programming around the existing masking event, depending on how much access you have to the raw event in your control system. For example, in Control4, the installer/programmer would have no access to the trim values if they're using our standard driver, because the driver only exposes the preset ratios.

Fully agree that the correct answer is to have an updated screen mask event that includes the correct ratios. The challenge here is that adding additional aspect ratios is something that affects a broad swath of software, all the way from our content-authoring/ingest workstations through to the players, the store interfaces, control system drivers, and so on. It seems simple, but is a deceptively large amount of work that has to happen in coordination, so it's something that needs to be tackled when we have resources available to work on each of the affected areas.
Thanks Mike! This actually works. If the K control system reports a 1.85 aspect ratio movie (which typically could be 1.85, 2.0, 2.2, etc), my system then takes a next step in looking at the GET_SCREEN_MASK2 data. The top mask/bottom mask absolute numbers are different for those aspect ratios (e.g. for my 16:9 screen, a 1.85 movie is 0056, a 2.2 movie is 0096). Based upon the differences, I can adjust the masking and other control actions as needed. Tested with several movies and seems to work perfectly. I may need to put some ranges in if there are slight differences, but didn't see any in my testing.
 
Glad to hear that it works so well! Yes, I think you may find that you want to have some small ranges in there, although I have honestly not done a survey of titles in those ratios, so they may be more consistent than I expect.
 
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