Hey Austin Texas Buddies? Can anyone help me out? (1 Viewer)

[Nils Luehrmann]

(working on it Jonathan) lol


How's this?

http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/f1d0b...EU9b.AfYcXL2H4


This is what happens when the dads host play groups.

 

[mike_frontier]

Nils,

I have to agree with you 100% that pics can be false to the human eye .

I did read allot of bad, but more good thing on the Dazian, but does not mean anything but as you said they do not compare it to other screens.

Nils, what screen do you recommend for my use?

Thanks,

 

[Chad Anson]

Nils, I'm pretty sure the Coated Celtic is not perforated. Dazian has a few other materials that are perfed and agree that those would look awful for HT use.

 

[Chad Anson]

Nils, the following is why I think you have the CC confused with another of Dazian's fabrics. One interesting point is that his frame of reference is a Parkland Plastex screen.

From http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=209654

DAZIAN PROJECTION FABRIC REVIEW
After talking to the Dazian reps I received all eight of their current line of fabrics that they recommend for use as projection screen. The Dazian reps were great to talk to and answered all my questions and are what I think customer service is all about.

I received the following eight Dazian projection fabric samples: Brite Screen, Deauville Mesh, Acrobat, Trapeze, Bright Trapeze, Polyscreen, Polysilk, and Celtic Cloth.

All of the samples had a usable viewing area of approximately 4¡¨x6¡¨. I imagine that this is the typical sample size Dazian sends out for fabric samples. I would recommend to Dazian that for their projection fabrics they send out samples 12¡¨x12¡¨. The small samples are just to small since sometimes the edges of the sample don¡¦t lie flat which can distort the projected video. Screen companies tend to send out the larger samples so Dazian should follow suit. Also, the smaller samples make it a little tougher to really get a good idea of what the projected video looks like on the sample.

I currently have a 72¡¨ (diagonal) screen which I constructed using a sheet of Parkland Plastic as the screen. The cost of the Parkland was approximately $20 and I got it at The Home Depot. This plastic is becoming a favorite for DIYers since it¡¦s easy to work with and inexpensive. The plastic is normally used for waterproofing walls but so many people are buying it for screens that Parkland is manufacturing the material in a larger size just for home theatre screens. ƒº My screen has a 3 inch wide black frame which is made of wood. I¡¦m using a rather old Panasonic CRT projector that when new put out 500 lumens. This projector will never see that day again. ƒº In the next few weeks I¡¦ll be installing an NEC 9PG-Plus projector and will repeat the screen tests.

I taped each of the eight Dazian samples on the screen along with 6 other samples from some of the well known screen companies. I then just watched some movies generated from satellite and compared the samples.

I found that all of the Dazian fabrics produced an image that were all just a touch ¡§greyer¡¨ or ¡§darker¡¨ than my Parkland Plastics screen. While the best of the group did have good images the ¡§whites¡¨ were just a tad faded out. All the fabrics are thin and rather flimsy. So much so that I think each one of them may need a backer to them so that the projected image doesn¡¦t shine right through the material. Since the samples are small I could not test for audio transparency. Although personally I don¡¦t like the idea of putting a center speaker behind anything since you will get muffled sound to some degree.

After watching a few movies, here are my impressions of the Dazian projection fabrics from BEST to WORST.

ACROBAT: This fabric has a fairly tight weave to it and has only a very slight stretch to it. Although it was just a shade darker than the Parkland Plastic (PP) it had a very nice image.

CELTIC CLOTH: It was difficult to tell the difference in image quality from the Acrobat but I gave the edge to Acrobat. The Celtic had almost no stretch to it and less than Acrobat. It had a very nice image but again a little darker than PP and about the same brightness as Acrobat.

POLYSCREEN: This fabric has no stretch to it at all and was just a little darker than the above fabrics but it does have a nice image. So I placed this one in 3rd place.

TRAPEZE: This fabric has a great deal of stretch to it. So much in fact that I don¡¦t think it would make a good screen at all. Screens need to fit the frame tautly so that there are no sags or wrinkles in the screen. I think that this material would loosen up over time and show signs of sagging and wrinkling. The image quality was about the same as Polyscreen and like all the Dazian samples a little darker than the PP screen and a little darker than the above fabrics.

POLYSILK: This fabric had an OK image but I noticed that if the fabric was not perfectly flat there would be some minor grey shading on the material. This material feels and looks just like silk and does not have any appreciable stretch to it.

DEAUVILLE MESH: This material has no stretch to it. The material looks like a cloth window screen in that the holes in it are about 1/16¡¨ in size. This is far too big to be a good choice for a screen. Typical perforated screens have holes that are the size of pin holes. The only reason I think I got a fairly good, although dark image from this sample is that it was taped directly to my PP screen.

BRIGHT TRAPEZE & BRITE SCREEN: I placed these two fabrics in a tie for last place. These fabrics have an extremely ¡§silvery¡¨ finish to them and the Bright Trapeze was extremely stretchable. Neither of these fabrics had a very good image and both had a large amount of dark shading all around the fabric. I think this was caused by small wrinkles in the fabric. With fabric this thin and samples so small I found it tough to get them to lie flat against the PP screen.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS:
First one has to consider that these fabrics are relatively inexpensive especially when compared to the professional quality screens. If I was going to use any of these materials for my screen I would use either Acrobat or Celtic Cloth. The image on these fabrics was just a touch darker than on the PP but the quality of the image was good.

It will be interesting to see what the fabrics look like after I set up my NEC projector which is only a few years old and is a professional grade CRT projector.

Dazian also carries a line of projection screen which is made of PVC. They don¡¦t currently sample these screens but hopefully that will change in the future as it really needs to.


One thing that I found really interesting was that the PP screen competed very well with the expensive screen samples that I had. PP is tough to beat for the price.

Jim K.

Keep an eye out for a comparative screen material review by a user named "Tryg" on AVS. Supposedly he's gotten ahold of many of the popular DIY materials and is putting them through the paces.

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Mike and Nils, the pictures you posted show as small white boxes with a red "x" in them. I know I've pointed that our before, but I have yet to get any good advice on why this is happening. I'm on a Windows 2000 Professional network with all Bill Gates software on line. Nearly all photos attached and included in forum posts are viewable, but every once in a while, as on Mike's and Nils' last posts, the photos are not viewable, so I surmise that there is some file format that is not viewable, or a photo file is occasionally corrupted as it winds its way through the firewall and fiber.

Nils, I want to see Eric with a pint in his hand, or at least wearing an appropriate green hat. BTW, my new official Indiana Jones hat arrived!

 

[Jonathan DA]

Hank, the most likely reason you can't see the photographs is because the domain on which they reside has been put on the restricted list by your company's IT security group. Usually this happens when the domain also hosts material that may be of an offensive, sexual, or criminal nature. If you log on at home you will probably be able to view them.

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Dr. J, here I am at home, running Windows XP and am hooked up via EV1.net, and the pics on Mike's and Nils' posts are those darned little white boxes with small red "x's" in them. Go figure. Could it be the spam filtering that EV1 includes?

 

[mike_frontier]

yea the pics I posted are with an red "X" the address from where I got them from changed so thats why the X is there :frowning:

 

[mike_frontier]

I said screw it and I ordered the DA LITE Model B Matte White pull down screen, I hope this one will do me great.

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

...until your next 180

 

[Jonathan DA]

This is getting fun Hey Mike, every DaLite pull down screen I have seen has wrinkles in it and distorts the picture. We have dozens of them at the office and they're all wrinkled. Colin has one too that he no longer uses because of the wrinkles.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

There are very few drop down screens that wont wrinkle, and those that don't cost some serious dinero. Even then they will never be as flat as a fixed screen.

On the other hand, if a HT can't accommodate a fixed screen then obviously this is a compromise one might have to make.

If you do go with a drop down screen it is important to remember that air movement will cause the screen to 'ripple' which can be extremely distracting while trying to enjoy the picture. To avoid this be very conscious of where your HVAC registers are. A common technique is to take a bed sheet and hang it where you would like to put your drop down screen. Then crank up the HVAC and if the sheet shows movement, find another location or change the direction and air flow of the registers.


Mike,

Take three deep breathes, count to ten, and step away from the ledge...


I guess this whole scenario reminds us why professional AV designers, installers, and calibrators have excellent job security. (and why many retailers charge restocking fees) :frowning:

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Mike,

Also, last we heard, even though it wasn't advised, you were planning on a screen width of about 8'. This is even more important now because the larger the drop-down screen the worse the wrinkling and rippling will get.

If you do stick with a pull-down, and with a 96" wide screen, and with a Da-Lite Model B, then what ever you do, do not go with their Matte White material. It is a low gain screen (1.1) and with your projector's (Z1 clone) low lumens (700 spec, +/-450 real) you are going to seriously benefit from a high gain screen. Of course I have already advised you on this issue on at least two or three separate occasions, so I guess maybe I'm wasting my time here, but I'll try one more time...

Low Lumens + Big Screen + No Gain = Low Ft Lamperts = less than ideal PQ (yes, CRTs have low lumens, but that's like comparing apples to oranges - I'll explain later)

Because of the size of the screen, you don't need to worry about off axis viewing so I would recommend using Da-Lite's 'Glass Beaded' material (2.5 gain). This would effectively give you about 30 ft lamperts.

If maintenance is a concern (Da-Lite's Glass Beaded screens can not be washed) and you want a little more punch to the picture even when moderate lighting is used, then you may want to even consider their 'Hi-Power' material (2.8 gain). This screen can be washed and will give you about 35 ft lamperts which is still low enough to avoid hot-spotting while at the same time provide an excellent picture even with considerable lighting.

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

I'm trying to come up with some good dry humor here, but there's not much more to say.

So, I'll tell you about the hot mid-20's babe I encountered at HEB. I was in the chip isle (one of the food groups, right?) and she was bouncing (literally) toward me, searching the shelves with a tad of frustration evident, so I said: "Just buy one of each, they're all good". She smiled and said: "I can't find the baked Doritos, they've moved them". I spotted them and pointed them out and she said: "So you're pointing me to the top shelf where I can't reach them?" Being the chivalrous Texan that I am, fetched her the chips, to which she smiled BIG and said: "Thanks, you ROCK!" To which I said...

Now, wasn't that more interesting than another screen explanation? (Jalapeno and Dr. J: avoid temptations for smart-mouth replies - keep the thread on topic, which was...ummm...uhhh...)

 

[mike_frontier]

Nils,
Thank you, thank you.... thank you.

From you explaining this in time and what you recommended and I was able to cancel out the Matte White screen order and go with the Glass Beaded one . The price was the same so there was no more additional cash that needed to be taken out of my pocket book, which is always great.

From what the sales rep told me that I would not be able to ceiling mount my PJ w/ the glass beaded screen and since I do not do that now I’d be fine for a while .

But thanks for your recommendations and I will soon be enjoying my new screen



Hank Frankenberg,

After helping that chic @ HEB and when she said "you ROCK" did ya blush ? (lol)

 

[Jonathan DA]

Aren't glass beaded screens retro-reflective? Which would explain why the sales rep said not to ceiling mount the pj. Will hot spotting be an issue? Come on guys, let's get Mike so confused his head explodes! We can film it high def for demo material.

PSMoFo, "hot mid-20's babe" is an entirely insufficient description. If you fail to provide a more evocative description again, I'll start a campaign to revoke your Guy card.

 

[mike_frontier]

Mr. J thats not cool lol

I better not feel like I would be looking at an RPTV screen lol

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

If it was me, with that same projector, same desired screen size, and was only considering a Da-Lite, then I would get the High Power. You can ceiling mount, is relatively easy to maintain, and for someone who changes their mind alot, the High Power will hold its value significantly better than Da-Lite's Glass Beaded.

let's get Mike so confused his head explodes!

And to think we have yet to discuss components, speakers, sub woofers, cables, lighting, and the big daddy of them all.... dreaded acoustics!

(I can already hear Mike's temples beginning to expand.)

 

[mike_frontier]

Nils,

Your not joking man. I aboput changed out all my equipment except for my rear surrounds, VCR and DirectTV IRD(lol).

My wife tells me when I am sleeping I always saying something about Harmon/Kardon in my sleep (jus teasin).

-----------------> as for the Da Litel Glass beaded screen I just found out that there's one here @ my work place has and its electronic Roll-down. MIS dept people here tell me I can bring in my laptop and PJ to see if I will like it. But I am not worried, the store I purchased it from has an excellent rtrn policy which is always good.
I'll post up and let you know what I think of it.
Thanks all

 

[Jonathan DA]

Room Acoustics...is there an evil laugh emoticon?