Catfisch Cinema (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

The can is a taste thing for me. In my soda hierarchy, it’s fountain soda, with glass bottles a close second, cans a decent runner up, and plastic bottles a distant last place.

Plus, if I open a two liter, I’ll just keep refilling my glass. If there had been a Soda Drinkers Anonymous in my 20s, I would have been a charter member.

(Can you tell I used to drink way too much of that stuff?)

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

RE: glass bottled sodas, definitely the Mexican stuff w/ real cane sugar, not the corn syrup stuff (and some of them supposedly w/ trace amounts of real "coke", LOL).

Actually, these days I like an occasional Jarritos Piña when I'm less budget-conscious about it... though I found my local Key Food actually do sell 1.5-L plastic bottles (sometimes at pretty good prices) that actually seem to taste the same (probably because they still use real cane sugar, not corn syrup, for them).

_Man_

 

[John Dirk]

I was drinking ginger beer but decided to switch to the zero sugar A&W root beer [half the price] as an inflation-fighting step.

@DaveF - Stop us before we go even further down this soft drink rabbit hole.

 

[John Dirk]

And I’ve discovered that my theater builder did not follow my request to run projector cable in a conduit for future upgrading. They ran multiple ethernet cables. And zip-tied them and anchored them on beams.

That suck's! You simply can't trust anyone to deliver what they sell. I'm doing my own yard work now because the people we were paying handsomely to do it a few years back consistently did half-assed work. I told my wife we'd be better off investing in some pro level equipment and doing the work ourselves. Of course married folks know that means I'm doing all of it, but still...

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

That suck's! You simply can't trust anyone to deliver what they sell. I'm doing my own yard work now because the people we were paying handsomely to do it a few years back consistently did half-assed work. I told my wife we'd be better off investing in some pro level equipment and doing the work ourselves. Of course married folks know that means I'm doing all of it, but still...

That's how I tend to be as well. Why pay someone else good $ for half-a$$ results if/when I'm handy enough myself?

Too bad it's not so easy to even find people/kids to do half-a$$ job at plowing substantial amounts of snow here in Brooklyn nowadays... unlike how it used to be... I finally bought a very modestly priced, battery-driven, "non-pro" (single-stage) snowblower several years ago, but even using that completely knocked me out one of the first times I used it in the middle of a sizable snowstorm (when I literally passed out for 15-30min as soon as I got back inside and sat down, LOL) because it really can't handle more than 4-5" at a time, especially if the snow is all that wet -- and the thing requires almost as much effort as manual plowing once the snow reaches beyond 4-5", if it still worked at all at that point. Probably shoulda bitten the bullet and spent ~2x as much on a 2-stage snowblower... though now I'm seeing there are apparently much better 3-stage ones, but they might be too big (and power-hungry... NVM costing as much as a good prepro or power amp ) for how I use one mainly just for our small, albeit quite steep, driveway and sidewalk areas, LOL.

_Man_

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And here I was led to believe the point of having kids was so they could shovel the snow.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

And here I was led to believe the point of having kids was so they could shovel the snow.

You and me both, LOL!!! But the kids always seem to think I'm just kidding...

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

Unfortunately, I'm not the least bit surprised. If they're not required by law to do something, they refuse to do it. I've found that is generally the case with all home related work.

This was the theater builder, not the original home builder. The request for conduit was verbal, clearly asked and agreed, but not part of a written plan. At this point, I can only guess that they decided that conduit was harder / costlier and instead they ran two additional lines of extra Ethernet (they used HDMI over Ethernet for the projector video). But they also anchored the cabling presumably because they do things neat and tidy.

Maybe the guessed that HDMI over Ethernet would advance so that extra runs would be useful in the future as video standards evolved? Regardless they did the wrong thing, and a very simply stupid thing. But that’s six years gone, and only now discovered. Too late to worry about it now.

I can do 18Gbps HDMI as is; I believe I’m fine for all normal UHD disc and 4K streaming purposes. I think it’s only a problem if I want to upgrade to videogaming and have 4K@120Hz. But, I’m going with an NX7 which doesn’t support that anyway. So, it remains a future concern.

Worst case, I can run external HDMI fairly discretely.

I generally don't do soda cans. They're just never economical enough for me (for the home anyway).

Yeah, opened 2-L bottles will get stale after some time... though I'm usually able to get thru most of them before they get completely stale... plus I mix in some bit of seltzer, which helps w/ that -- I do also generally put the cap back on very tight though.

Anyway, I don't really drink much soda, except when I do get around to opening a 2-L bottle... at which point I might have something like ~10-12oz cup (mixed w/ maybe ~3-4oz seltzer) each day until it's all gone...

_Man_

I drink a can maybe once a week. 2L bottles don’t work for me.

Similarly, this is why I’ve switched to box wine: i stays good for months, so no pressure to finish a whole bottle within a day or two of opening it.

I was drinking ginger beer but decided to switch to the zero sugar A&W root beer [half the price] as an inflation-fighting step.

@DaveF - Stop us before we go even further down this soft drink rabbit hole.

Welcome to my Cinema and Soda Thread!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Welcome to my Cinema and Soda Thread!

You need to put in a tap that dispenses both soda and box wine!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hey! Since I ain't getting that "pop" from my PJ's HDR, gotta get some real pop instead -- and I don't do the other "pop"(corn) either...

I was drinking ginger beer but decided to switch to the zero sugar A&W root beer [half the price] as an inflation-fighting step.

Ginger beers are good stuff... but they tend to come too sweet (whether alcoholic or not) and definitely need to be watered down some...

@DaveF - Stop us before we go even further down this soft drink rabbit hole.

Welcome to my Cinema and Soda Thread!

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

I’m looking at upgrading my screen. I have a “4K” screen from 2016. It’s a Screen Innovations (SI) Maestro acoustically transparent woven screen. But the weave is coarse enough that I see the texture in bright, semi-uniform scenes. (Disney’s Frozen can demonstrate this with its scenes of a vibrant blue sky or bright white snow fields.)

Maestro | Screen Innovations

Speakers can sometimes be an eyesore, detracting from the immersive experience of the screen. Ideally, movie sound, especially voice should generate from the direction of the image. Maestro allows you to place your speakers behind the screen surface with extremely minimal attenuation.

www.screeninnovations.com

With my 4K projector, I started thinking a bit more seriously about a new screen. And now I’ve take action to explore and decide.

 

[DaveF]

I narrowed my screen options substantially based on the review of screen materials here and talking a bit online with the author.

31 Acoustically Transparent Screen Materials Reviewed and Measured – Pixel Home Theater

pixelht.com

Subsequently, I now have screen material samples for:

Ultraweave v7

DREAMSCREEN ULTRAWEAVE V7 SCREEN FABRIC FIT-ALL SYSTEM – DreamScreen

dreamscreen.no

Silver Ticket WAB and WVS

Acoustic Screen Material Options

Currently Silver Ticket Products offers 4 types of acoustically transparent screen materials made to put speakers behind the screen material. The 4 materials are the 2GP, AGP, WAB and WVS. The WAB material is readily available as it sells on many different marketplaces on the internet. The WAB...

www.silverticketproducts.com

XY Screens 4K and 8K

8k Woven Acoustic Transparent Sound Max 8k | Xy Screens

Find movie screen material manufacture? 8K Woven Acoustic Transparent Sound Max 8K, we specialized in XY Fabric, diy projector screen fabric, Ask!

www.xyscreen.com

SI doesn’t have a woven screen newer or finer than my current Maestro screen.

Stewart and Seymour were eliminated based on cost. I don’t know exactly what the cost, but I know they’re in the $3,000 to $5,000 range for a 120” screen. If I find my current options aren’t appealing, I can reconsider.

My SI screen was around $2500 in 2016. So I’m aiming for $2500 and preferably $1500 and under.

 

[DaveF]

To get started, I taped onto my screen:

• Silver Ticket Gray (AGP) (bottom left)
• Silver Ticket WAB with black backing (left)
• DreamWeave v7 with integrated black backing (middle left)
• XY Screens 8K (middle right)
• XY Screens 4K (right)

I put up the gray screen because I was curious about a “high contrast” gray screen. In my light-controlled room it was far too dark. And the vinyl material is too specular, with significant hotspotting even on a small sample because I don’t have them taped absolutely flat. I got rid of it pretty quickly.

I then ruled out the ST WAB. It looked no better and possibly worse than my current SI Maestro.

 

[DaveF]

I took down the ST AGP and ST WAB. I put up the Silver Ticket WVS plus black backing. So now I have up:

• Silver Ticket WVB with black backing (left)
• DreamWeave v7 with integrated black backing (middle left)
• XY Screens 8K (middle right)
• XY Screens 4K (right)

To get a feeling for these screens, here are up-close, macro-ish photos compared to my SI Maestro. The Maestro is to the left and the screen sample is to the right.

Silver Ticket WVS with Black Backing (the BB is sheet of shear black fabric included in the sample kit). I immediately eliminated ST WAB. it’s a finer weave than WVS. But it’s still coarser than the DreamWeave and XY Screens. And it’s obviously less reflective — a lower gain.


DreamWeave v7 with integrated Black Backing (the black backing is attached to the screen material making it a single piece of two-sided material, white on front and black on back)


XY Screens 8K
XY is the one material where it’s not stated which side is the viewing-side. I‘m unsure if I actually have the front side forward or if I have the screen oriented in the right direction. I’m trying to get that info so I can be sure I’m demo’ing correctly next weekend.


XY Screens 4K
XY is the one material where it’s not stated which side is the viewing-side. I‘m unsure if I actually have the front side forward or if I have the screen oriented in the right direction. I’m trying to get that info so I can be sure I’m demo’ing correctly next weekend.

 

[DaveF]

I’m down to three options

• DreamWeave v7 with integrated black backing (middle left)
• XY Screens 8K (middle right)
• XY Screens 4K (right)

I called my wife down at this point and got her opinion. I showed her generic material (AppleTV aerial screen saver), and we couldn’t see any differences.

So I went to the all white screen and pointed the texture in the current screen.

Then I went into D+ and started “Frozen” and jumped around to find some scenes. In much of the movie, where it’s normal to dim, you can see any appreciable difference. But there are scenes with bright blue skies spanning the upper half the image. And of course there are scenes with bright snow fields covering much of the screen. These are the scenes that you see the texture of my current screen.

Then at her request, I put the black backing under the XY Screens to see what that did. It’s helpful. But not totally fair; I want to a larger piece of fabric to give it a fair test.






Currently I prefer the DreamWeave v7 and then the 8K slightly over the 4K. She prefers the XY Screens 4K.

These screens vary in gain by about 10% between each other. But so far on these samples, I‘m not sure I can perceive it. (Contrast to the Silver Ticket where it was obviously lower gain.)

 

[DaveF]

Did another comparison with my three finalists in a better configuration.

• Left is XY Screens 8K
• Center is DreamWeave v7
• Right is XY Screens 4K

I have a black backer from my Silver Ticket samples that I used on the 8k and then 4k. I‘d like to get a full-size piece of black fabric to do a better comparison.

Curious what I’m missing out on with AT screens, I put up the two conventional, “white” samples, from Silver Ticket. The top center was definitely a higher than unity bottom center was a nice bright white, and obviously a bit brighter than my AT screen or new samples. I better understand the appeal of a non-AT screen, especially getting an excellent unity gain screen from someone like Stewart or Seymour.

As for my samples: in comparison, the weave of my screen is obvious on bright, uniform-ish scenes. I can’t see the weave or structure on the 4K, 8K, or v7 materials. In this demo, they were almost identical.

The next time I do a demo, I think I need black backing for both XY materials and have my wife again looking them for her feedback. But I think I’d be happy with any of them. Which makes it a matter of cost and customer service.

I suspect DreamWeave is going to be a $3000 screen and XY will be $1000 screens. But DreamWave has better service, sold by AV Sciences in Rochester, NY and corporate engagement on a forum. XY is direct from China and service reports are mixed.

 

[DaveF]

(I was fearing I had a blown speaker, which would have been been difficult and costly to fix. Fortunately, I tracked it down to a loose subwoofer connection at the processor, undoubtedly from my recent blu-ray player and remote control upgrades. Big sigh of relief.)

 

[DFurr]

Dave if you haven't purchased a screen yet, check out Harkness. I've used them for our HT and all of our commercial theatres. My home screen is a 1.8 gain matt white mini-perf.

Perlux HiWhite Data — Harkness Screens

www.harkness-screens.com