Best Proj. Scree if Room has Light Walls?

[ssmacc]

I need to get a Projector Screen fast (house is about to be finished and need to install before the room above is carpeted), the room will have black out curtains and no other natural light can be seen. However, the cealing is white and 3 of the walls are cream (I know it’s far from ideal).

My question is should I go for the:

Panoview DE-9092EGA

Or

The Graywolf II

Given the light conditions,

I’ll probably get the Optoma HD20.

I’m after a 92” and the throw distance is ~4m.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[sswats]

for a 92" projection the HD20 projector has to be between 3.06m to 3.66m of the screen. Any further and the projection will be too big.

at 4m you'd need a 100" screen minimum, upto a 120" screen.

 

[wolvers]

Rooms with more ambient light, which is basically what you will have when the PJ is on due to the lighter walls, affect the black levels mostly so I would imagine the grey screen to be better. White screens are generally only for properly dark rooms with darker walls.

I'm in a similar situation to you, white ceiling and magnolia walls, and the grey screen I have now is definitely better. I painted it myself though, with Flat Matt Dulux Grey Steel.

Hope that helps.

 

[ssmacc]

Thanks for both posts,

sswats, good point I'll do the real screen calculations later

wolvers69, you've convinced me a gray screen is the way to go.

 

[Warbie]

I would go for lumens over grey to combat ambient light. An HP High Power screen will do you right (i'd pick one of these screens in any room condition tbh - I have a bat cave and have still gone for the massive plasma look)

 

[ssmacc]

I would go for lumens over grey to combat ambient light. An HP High Power screen will do you right (i'd pick one of these screens in any room condition tbh - I have a bat cave and have still gone for the massive plasma look)

Can't seem to find the screen, whats the full name for google?

Cheers

 

[Dangerous Dave]

I would go for a bigger screen as 92" will seem small quickly I have a 120" screen at around 4 meters from the seating position and I feel this is a little small once I got used to it.

 

[Chris1712]

Its quite a personal choice tbh. If your not that fussed about a 'film like' look then anything with gain is going to help you, grey will go someway to helping black levels but you will lose a lot of brightness.

I have a graywolf II, it makes it more usable with the lights on/during the day, but the sacrifice is poorer quality when your in batcave mode. Also bare in mind that retro-reflective screens like this will have quite a narrow viewing cone. The brightness tails off very quickly when your out of the cone.

Personally I'd rather have the better blacks of a low gain grey, than the improved 'punch' of a high gain screen. It really depends whether you want to show off/watch during the day or actually want an accurate picture.

EDIT: I only have the graywolf because it was free, if I had spent my hard earned on it personally I'd be dissapointed with the blacks and sparklies, but the brightness improvement is pretty huge.

 

[Warbie]

Can't seem to find the screen, whats the full name for google?

Cheers

My mistake. It's a High Power screen from DaLite. It's retroreflective, meaning the light reflects back to the source, so you need to have the projector around head height and to not sit too far off axis. The gain is 2.8 which makes the picture very bright and plasma like, and allows for larger screen sizes. Mine is around my 10th screen - had everything from matt white to grey, cheap to expensive - and the HP screen is the best so far. The picture pops right out - it is just like having 120" plasma. I wouldn't trade it for a Stewart Filmscreen

They're dirt cheap in the states, but can be hard to find around here. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[wolvers]

^^Does that mean that the viewing angle is considerably worse, if it reflects back to the source?^^

Surely a brighter projector and a more reflective screen is going to create more ambient light in the room by reflective off the light walls and ceiling? That's got to make black and contrast levels much worse.

 

[Chris1712]

^^Does that mean that the viewing angle is considerably worse, if it reflects back to the source?^^

Surely a brighter projector and a more reflective screen is going to create more ambient light in the room by reflective off the light walls and ceiling? That's got to make black and contrast levels much worse.

The tighter viewing cone means that light is reflected back at you and not the surround walls/ceiling. My room is considerably darker with the 1.8gain graywolf II. Ofcourse some black fabric on the back wall would now be a good idea. As for black and contrast levels, they're all ready destroyed by the gain.

 

[Warbie]

The viewing cone is certainly smaller. The end result is the people sitting in the sweet spot, or 'the cone of goodness!' (a 4 seater sofa in my lounge), get the full benefit of the brighter image. As you move outside the cone the brightness drops quickly. However, the brightness never dops below that of my old 1 gain angular reflective Beamax, even at an acute angle.

You're right in that a great deal of light is thrown back at you, but it is also thrown back at other light sources that shouldn't be there. In my experience lumens fight ambient light better than grey. You're also right about black levels rising. The key thing is that perceived contrast goes up with the gain - blacks have never looked as good in my HC as they do on a HP screen, despite being measurably higher. For the first time i'm not bothered by black bars in scope movies - something which drove me nuts with older 1 - 1.5 gain white and grey screens. Another cool thing is the lack of visible waves - even if they're there you simply can't see them on a HP screen due to the nasture of the material. Unless you're going for a fixed screen or an expensive tab tensioned option, waves will become an issue and will become visible on a large screen.

I'd also like to point out that the High Power screen is a very different beast to the graywolf - the latter has all sorts of nasties and doesn't get close to matching what the HP does well.

 

[wolvers]

All interesting stuff. There's certainly plenty of things to consider to get the right screen for the environment.

Found this after a quick search.

Is high gain good?

It is easy, and wrong, to jump to the conclusion that a high gain screen must be preferable to a low gain screen. After all, higher reflectivity means a brighter image and a brighter image seems like a good thing, right? The problem is that there are some downsides to higher gain in a home theater environment.

First, as just noted there is a trade-off between gain and viewing angle. A 1.0 gain screen diffuses light evenly in all directions. Thus seating can be placed in a wide viewing angle relative to the screen and all seats will afford a similar viewing experience regardless of the angle of view. With a high gain screen the brightness of the image increases to those seated in the center, and diminishes for those seated at the outside. Furthermore once you move off center axis the relative brightness of various portions of the image can shift quite dramatically. Thus a high gain screen can put limitations on the number of optimum viewing seats you can have in your theater.

Second, a high gain screen does not typically reflect red, green, and blue equally. So it can generate color shifts in the image that are noticeable as you move around the screen viewing it from different angles. Once again, the image looks different to each viewer depending on where they are seated.

Third, any screen with a gain higher than 1.0 has some degree of hotspotting. That is, when viewing the screen from a center position, the middle portion of the image will appear brighter than the edges. On screens under 1.3 gain or so this is not very noticeable, but as gain increases beyond 1.3 it can become a real distraction.

High gain screens have a definite place in the world. In conference rooms and classrooms where you want some lights on and most of the seats can be positioned within the screen's narrow cone of reflectance, high gain screens can be quite effective in boosting image brightness. However, the videophile looking for the optimum image quality in a home theater environment will usually want to opt for a low gain screen.

I'd certainly like to try out the HP screen, I wonder if I can get just the material as I use fixed screens that I make myself.

 

[Warbie]

I'd certainly like to try out the HP screen, I wonder if I can get just the material as I use fixed screens that I make myself.

You can buy the material seperately, but it actually works out cheaper to buy a screen and cut the material out. Go figure (if you do go that route, make sure to specify the older 2.8 material over the newer 2.4)

Bar the viewing cone, the info you quoted above tends to apply to angular refelctive screens with gain. Hotspotting for example does not exist on an HP screen. It is, however, easy to see on something like a Stewart Firehawk at 1.3 gain. The angular reflective screens with gain also suffer from nasty sparklies in the hotspot - something that bothered me considerably on white screens with only a tiny (~ 1.2) bit of gain. Again, not the case with the HP material. It's pretty unique as material goes. My only gripe is the viewing cone. While not an issue when watching a movie with 4 people, when we have a bunch round the experience isn't equal. The 4 people on the sofa get the plasma like image and the others get the picture I used to get with my old 1.0 gain screen - which isn't nearly as good Oh, having to have the projector around head height is a pain - I had to unmount it from the ceiling (wasting a mount that cost £100 :/) and build a shelf. I can also hear the pj fans now in quiet scenes as it's closer to ear level (not a problem if you can have the pj just above head height and behind). Either way, the experience is much better now - more pop with blacks that look blacker and whites that are almost painful - and there's no going back.

For what it's worth i've tried Beamax, Carada, Stewart, Graywolf, and diy grey (goo, black widow) and White (goo, Lumitech) and none of them compare to my eyes to the HP screen.

 

[Chris1712]

I'd certainly like to try out the HP screen, I wonder if I can get just the material as I use fixed screens that I make myself.

Generally if you contact the screen manufacturers directly they will send you an ~A4 sized piece of your chosen fabric, or a few different ones. Might not be free but won't be too expensive.

 

[wolvers]

I spoke to them on live chat earlier and they gave me some details of dealers in the UK. ssmacc, If the you're interested let me know.

 

[ssmacc]

I spoke to them on live chat earlier and they gave me some details of dealers in the UK. ssmacc, If the you're interested let me know.

I'm interested cheers!

Thanks for all the advice everyone, still undecided but feel better equipt to make a informed dicision.

 

[wolvers]

I stupidly left it on my work laptop............which is still at work so I'll have to post it on Monday. Sorry.

You should know that it's very expensive though. You're probably looking at £400+ which is a lot when you consider the cost of the HD20. I'm not sure what kind of budget you had in mind for the screen.

Also, while looking at projectors for myself, I came across this this review of the HD20. It has a section on choosing a screen which may be quite helpful to you.

http://www.projectorreviews.com/optoma/hd20/screens.php

 

[ssmacc]

I stupidly left it on my work laptop............which is still at work so I'll have to post it on Monday. Sorry.

You should know that it's very expensive though. You're probably looking at £400+ which is a lot when you consider the cost of the HD20. I'm not sure what kind of budget you had in mind for the screen.

Also, while looking at projectors for myself, I came across this this review of the HD20. It has a section on choosing a screen which may be quite helpful to you.

http://www.projectorreviews.com/optoma/hd20/screens.php

Thanks, not sure on budget yet, but the screen should last a few Projectors so haven't ruled out £400ish...

 

[wolvers]

The companies that I was told to speak to are Midwich, Sim2 and Avcom.