| Author |
Message |
    
John Rappold
New member
Username: Jrappold
Post Number: 2
Registered: 8-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, October 05, 2008 - 10:20 am: |   |
I just purchased How The West Was Won on blu-ray HD. The film includes a flat letterbox version and a "smilebox" version which simulates the original curved Cinerama screen. If you have blu-ray, I highly recommend this release. It looks fantastic, and everyone I've shown the smilebox version to loves it.
To get an idea of what smilebox looks like, go here, and scroll to the bottom of the page:
http://www.cineramaadventure.com/smilebox.htm
As a fun project, I was wondering if I could simulate this in PF? Here are the technical details I know:
Cinerama used a three lens system. Each lens was a fixed 27mm. They were set for a 146 degree viewing angle.
So...If I shoot three stills with my Nikon DX lens at 18mm, that give me 27mm, but how do I figure the viewing angle when I take the pano?
Also can PF warp the picture into the smilebox format?
Sorry for the questions, I'm not too technical in figuring this stuff out. Just thought it would be cool to try. |
John Strait
Moderator
Username: Jstrait
Post Number: 370
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - 2:54 pm: | |
Hi John,
I'm intrigued by your question.
I don't know enough about the math used in the Smilebox process to duplicate the result precisely. But I think there may be a way to fake it with PF.
Do you know of any other sample images on the web? I'd find it particularly helpful if you had one or two with straight lines (buildings, etc.). Nature scenes like the one from "Search For Paradise" (on the web site you mentioned) are remarkably forgiving of distortions. |
John Rappold
New member
Username: Jrappold
Post Number: 3
Registered: 8-2008
| | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2008 - 11:01 pm: | |
I've put together a page with some links to technical materials on Cinerama, and some photographs I took off of my HDTV of both the letterbox version and the smilebox version of How The West Was Won. I'm not sure the photos will be helpful, but I hope the technical info is. Interesting stuff.
http://johnrappold.org/smilebox.html |
John Rappold
New member
Username: Jrappold
Post Number: 4
Registered: 8-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 3:51 pm: | |
If anyone is still interested in this, here is a review of the How The West Was Won Blu-ray release. This review contains several comparison shots between the widescreen and Cinerama versions. There are also a couple of revealing comments by one of the creators of the Smilebox process, e.g Cinerama is slightly cropped on the edges compared to the letterbox version.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews40/how_the_west_was_won_blu-ray.htm |
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