Screen Ratios and Issues

[starixiom]

I was wondering if there was any rules of thumb to consider when your set is going to be shown off a projector? The screen size is about the type you would find in a club or small "art house" setting as opposed to movie theater size. I was just wondering if there are any aspect ratios, color loss(intensity), or pixilation issues i should worry about.

My movie is in VCD format and all though there are inheirent issues with this compared to DVD; this is the only real option available to me without purchasing all new equipment. I guess i could record it to VHS if i had to in a pinch but i prefer to stay away from that route.

That being said, how clear does VCD Project onto a screen? Is it real blocky or distorted? Are the colours washed out?

Thanks.

[holly]

It should be fine. MPEG-1 kinda breaks into squares sometimes (looks like badly compressed jpeg) when the screen gets really busy, but it sort of washes over the screen in a little techno-shiver and is gone... can look really clean with fluid motion and bright images. Colors are great in mpeg1. I think it's a step up from vhs.

Projectors are kinda funky. They're all different and they can be adjusted. If you're not in control of that part just relax and don't think about it. If you want to be able to do something to your video to make it pop on the projector, push the color levels up (saturation). Projectors are less about contrast and more about color so bold color differences can make an image seem clearer while subtle depth shading and shadows can get washed out by ambient light.

edited to add
You should probably not do anything to your video until you see it under these conditions. Most likely it will look great!

[starixiom]

Thanks for the reply. I kind of had a feeling this would be the case. In another post i inquired about adding a Video Equalizer to my setup. Would you or anyone else recommend using this so i can change colors and brightness on the fly?

[wellREDman]

a video EQ can sometimes be be more a hindrance than a help, because they can contain a video amplifier, which can be cumulative with the amplifier in your mixer, add on a distribution amplifier to give you more outputs and you find your signal is overloaded and fuzzy,
definitely go with holly's advice and dont use anything unless you can test it first.

[LEVLHED]

I've used VCDs extensively, they will do the job...and as holly said, its the fast detailed bits that it pukes-out on, but I'm sure you're aware of their limitations already...