Hi all,
I'm a newbie hoping to get a projector soon.
Any words of advice would be appreciated in terms of screen/projector combo.
Would this screen be any good?
https://www.vonhaus.com/vh_en/100-i...WE3xIaSMfS1U067RU_G8_1U5gMQmYw9BoCywYQAvD_BwE
Anything particular I should be looking for when searching for screen?
Could someone recommend a full hd projector up to £500.
It would be used for mostly watching movies, but I'd also plug ps4 into it.
Distance would be about 3m, also ceiling is high (about 3m) so I guess I could kind of throw downwards?
I'm aware of the audio aspect of this, but this I shall have covered
Many thanks
M
Throwing downwards is a bad idea. The problem is that it creates a distortion of the picture shape. When you project downward, the bottom of the image will look wider than the top. This is because the angle creates a longer distance for the light to travel to get to the bottom edge of the screen than compared to the top edge.
If you haven't had a projector before, then you'll probably gravitate towards electronic keystone correction to 'fix' the picture distortion. In one sense it will work because it will squash the bottom edge width and compress the picture height to make it fit the boundaries of the screen. However, it does that by redrawing the image on the pixel grid in a way that introduces a lot of jagged edges (stair casing) to what should be smooth vertical edges. It's like really bad scaling, and made worse because the projected image is so large.
The other problem with electronic keystone is that it can only ever shrink the image within the boundaries of the imaging chip. That means the image gets progressively smaller the more the keystone correction is used. The result is a longer throw distance.
It's common to find that projectors can sit above the top line of the screen they are projecting on to. This is called Offset. The amount of offset varies with the make and model and with the throw distance and zoom setting. Something like the Optoma 144x has an offset of about 17-18cm where the throw distance is 3m and the screen width (
not the diagonal) is between 185 and 204cm. This means that with the projector firing level and true, the start of the picture for a full frame 16:9 image will be 17-18cm below the centre line of the lens.
Screens: You can make your own fixed frame screen with various paints ranging from the DIY option by mixing a couple of Dulux colours, or by purchasing specialist screen surface paints (better colour reproduction and sharper focus). What I haven't seen anyone do successfully is make their own electric or manual pull-down screen. This means you're relying on something purchased if you want something that will roll down in front of a window.
With electric screens you have three main components: The screen surface, the motor roller mechanism, and the control system. Since virtually all economy projector screens are made in China, you're getting Chinese electronics and motors. Try to check if it's properly CE rated as opposed to carrying the fake look-ee-like-ee CE mark that they say stands for China Export (yeah, right).
With screen surfaces, it's not possible to make a high performance surface at a bargain basement price. If it was, it would have been done already and I'd be watching my projectors on a surface the equivalent of a Stewart StudioTek 130 but at a tenth of the £2500 retail price. It ain't happened yet, and there's no sign of it coming.
So what's the deal with surfaces?
Higher-end screens use fibreglass or fibreglass/vinyl composites to make a flat surface. The fibreglass adds rigidity, and when laid in the correct way, it can help to prevent the ripples and edge curling that are a common complaint with cheaper screens, and yet still go around a 3-4" diameter screen roller. There's a penalty and a catch though. The penalty is weight. The thicker and heavier the surface then the better the roller mech and motor have to be to cope. That leads to the catch which is this all costs money.
In the mid-market you'll find mostly PVC vinyl surfaces and some PVC/fibreglass composites. Various combinations can be laminated together to achieve certain properties such as flatness or light-blocking from the rear. Some of the screen surfaces I sell have micro-engraving and others have angled light reflecting particles embedded in the surface to help with image sharpness and contrast. Within limits, the more you spend the flatter the surface, the better the colours and the crisper the image.
Entry-level screens forego quite a bit of this tech. To save money on the roller and motor strength they use thin vinyl because it's light, but of course it has very poor rigidity so edge curling and rippling in the surface is a big problem. The vinyl surfaces have poor optical qualities resulting in the patchiness mentioned by a previous poster. Compared to better screens, the pictures often lack punch and have a slightly softer focus. Colour quality can vary too for viewers at a variety of angles.
Screen recommendations - For something worth buying to keep, the Sapphire range is pretty good. Their glass fibre composite electric screens start at around the £400 mark for a 92" diagonal 16:9
The sort of screens being sold for anything from £50-£200 are a bit of a lottery. Just see if you can find some reviews, or look at buying something used from a decent brand such as Sapphire, Owl, Screenline, Draper, Da-Lite.
