Projector and screen question - full screen to wide screen?

Question

Hello-I have a projector that works great and displays a great picture. It was expensive and I am not looking to replace it right now. I received a projector screen as a gift and the screen is intended for wide screen use. The only problem is that my projector displays the movies in full screen. There is about 1 foot at the bottom that does not fit on the screen. Is there a converter or something I could put over the lense to convert the image to widescreen. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

I have a projector that is native 4:3 and currently use a 16:9 screen ... so I have the same situation you have.

In my case I set the projector for 16:9 display and widescreen movies are set to display full width using the projector zoom. Widescreen movies fill (or if wider than 16:9 aspect (e.g. 2.35:1) there is a black bar on top and bottom) the width, and 4:3 aspect (fullscreen) movies fill top to bottom, but have bars on the sides.

You can do it ... just play with the settings and the zoom.

Answer 2

I don't think you will find a converter to change that.  You might want to try going through the projector's menus to see if it has adjustable "aspect ratio" (wide or normal screen).  The best thing to do though is to make sure that your projector is the right distance from the screen in the first place.  No part of the picture should be off the screen.  If your lens has a "zoom" adjustment, then use that to resize the picture to fit the screen.  If there is no "zoom", then you will have to physically move the projector closer to the screen.

AV professionals always like to see the image fill the screen from top to bottom and side to side if possible.  Black bars on the top, bottom or sides are ok too when necessary.  Having part of the image off the screen would be unacceptable.