Cinerama, Inc. - 1960's-70's Film Company Stock Certificate

Stock with eagle vignette printed by Security-Columbian Banknote Company. Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporation. It was the first of a number of novel processes introduced during the 1950s, when the movie industry was reacting to competition from television. Cinerama was presented to the public as a theatrical event, with reserved seating and printed programs, and audience members often dressed in their best attire for the evening.

RCA uses the word "Cinerama" to refer to a display mode which fills a 16:9 video screen with 4:3 video with, in the words of the manufacturer, "little distortion." Manuals for products offering this mode give no detailed explanation. One online posting says it consists of "a slight cropping at the top & bottom combined with a slight stretch at only the sides," and praises it. The posting suggests that other vendors provide a similar function under different names. Mitsubishi calls it "stretch" mode. The RCA Scenium TV also has a "stretch mode" as well as a 4:3 picture stretched straight across.

There is no obvious connection between this video mode and any of the Cinerama motion picture processes. It is not clear why the name is used unless the nonlinear stretch alludes to a curved screen. (Ironically, some widescreen cinema processes—not Cinerama—displayed a fault known as "anamorphic mumps," which consisted of a lateral stretch of objects closer to the camera). In the U.S., RCA does not appear to have registered the word Cinerama as a trademark; conversely, a number of trademarks on Cinerama, e.g. SN 74270575, are still "live" and held by Cinerama, Inc. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinerama