Wide Angle

Today I have moved to my new home entertainment setup. The gear remains the same. There is the good old Panasonic PT-AE2000 full HD projector and the good old Sony PlayStation 3. But the setup is very different. Moving the projector far to the back of the room, I've managed to get a picture with 140" (>350 cm) diagonal - at 16x9, the image is 120" (~300cm) wide. At the same time I 've moved the sofa forward, so my eyes are only about 80" (200 cm) away from the screen. To picture these proportions it is like keeping a nose 6" (15cm) away from a 14" widescreen laptop.

There are some unexpected effects of such extreme setup. Firstly, at FullHD (1920x1080) I see no pixels nor grain. The image is very smooth (I suppose the Panasonic display engine makes some clever tricks here...). Secondly, I feel I no longer play a game. I am IN the game. This is especially true with simulators, like the Blazing Angels or H.A.W.X. from Ubisoft, where you fly a plane using the Sixaxis motion activated controller. True, there is neither force feedback on the controller nor my seat tilts nor swivel to relay accelerations. But visuals are enough to make a difference. Actually the difference is in the action being visible both in the center, where you focus your eyes and on the sidelines, where your eyes still see, even when you are not focus on anything particular there. And you can move your head and look up or down or sideways and see virtual space surrounding you... again feeling much closer to the real thing, being really inside the virtual world rendered around.

Something to consider when planning the next multimedia setup. 60" flat screen telly just won't cut it... not to mention 20" Mac... :)