Not as happy with my 8700UB as i thought i would be (1 Viewer)

I bought the Epson 8700UB and so far i am not that impressed. It doesnt look as good as my tv when playing my games,right now i have it on my wall in my bed room and its a beigh wall. I ordered matirial to make a screen and was wanting a screen that was 130". Its going to be in my basement in a room that is dedicated to my home theater. No windows and i will be viewing with no ambient light. Im hoping when i make my screen it will look better but as now it dont. Forza 4 just doesnt look like it should.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings 130" is likely a mistake. Too big. Nothing bigger than 110-120 for most budget projectors today. And this one is on the higher end of the budget units. Will enjoy it for a short time and watch the light output drop much faster as a result. Regards

 

[GeorgeAB]

I bought the Epson 8700UB and so far i am not that impressed. It doesnt look as good as my tv when playing my games,right now i have it on my wall in my bed room and its a beigh wall. I ordered matirial to make a screen and was wanting a screen that was 130". Its going to be in my basement in a room that is dedicated to my home theater. No windows and i will be viewing with no ambient light. Im hoping when i make my screen it will look better but as now it dont. Forza 4 just doesnt look like it should.

Don't rule out operator error as a potential source of your disappointment. What will be your primary seating distance in your planned theater? What will be your screen material? Also, what color will the ceiling, floor covering, and walls be? Best regards and beautiful pictures, G. Alan Brown, President CinemaQuest, Inc. A Lion AV Consultants affiliate "Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

 

[Gregg Loewen]

your watching it on a beige wall ???

 

its on the beige wall bc thats all i had to try it out. The screen will be blackout cloth and the walls and the ceiling i dont have a color for yet. I still have to frame up the room and i planned and doing a drop ceiling and painting the tiles flat black and the walls i wasnt rlly sure of yet. The seating distance can be anything i want it to be, i plan to mount the projector far enough back that im not zooming in to much but still have a bright picture. Floor will most likly be a dark carpet, something easy to lay and clean. my ambitions were for 130 so I bought screen material for it but if i dont like it i can size it down. Most thing I will use it for will be video games and movies. i know the wall that i have it on is alot of the problem and i hope once i get my material for my screen it will look alot better, i calibrated it to the best of my ability and it looks better than what it did.

 

[Gregg Loewen]

its going to look like crap no matter what you do as you are not using a screen (yet).

 

[GeorgeAB]

its on the beige wall bc thats all i had to try it out. The screen will be blackout cloth and the walls and the ceiling i dont have a color for yet. I still have to frame up the room and i planned and doing a drop ceiling and painting the tiles flat black and the walls i wasnt rlly sure of yet. The seating distance can be anything i want it to be, i plan to mount the projector far enough back that im not zooming in to much but still have a bright picture. Floor will most likly be a dark carpet, something easy to lay and clean. my ambitions were for 130 so I bought screen material for it but if i dont like it i can size it down. Most thing I will use it for will be video games and movies. i know the wall that i have it on is alot of the problem and i hope once i get my material for my screen it will look alot better, i calibrated it to the best of my ability and it looks better than what it did.

The optimum seating distance for a 130" diagonal, 1920 x 1080 pixel image, for average 20/20 vision, would be 16.25 feet. Sit closer to the screen wall and you will be able to save money on a smaller screen, plus a smaller screen will not require as many lumens from a projector to reach and maintain the recommended 12 to 16 fL of brightness. Keep your room surface colors dark and light absorptive/non reflective, to prevent projected light off the screen from bouncing back to it. The blackout cloth temporary solution will look better than a painted wall until you can save for a real projection screen.

 

Ok so after i get everything set up and finally choose screen size what kind of screen should i buy since a blackout cloth wont give me the best picture.

 

[GeorgeAB]

Ok so after i get everything set up and finally choose screen size what kind of screen should i buy since a blackout cloth wont give me the best picture.

Using blackout cloth may still be a reasonable solution to start out with, if your current budget is low. The screen type you would need to result in "the best picture" will depend on the size you end up with and the room surface colors you select. You need to keep in mind that a video display system is exactly that.....a system. All design factors are interrelated and affect image quality in varying degrees. Designing a dedicated front projection system is not as simple as so much of the novice commentary on hobbyist forums might imply. There are unanticipated pitfalls and consequences to making inexperienced/uneducated assumptions, such as thinking you could judge the performance of a projector based upon the use of a beige wall for a screen. Another example may be your screen size expectations. Every design decision you make will have an impact for good or ill upon the eventual performance of the system.

 

Well I got my projector and everything set it for the time being. It is in my basement, There is no lighting at all, The walls are still just block and the ceiling is unfinished. The screen looks a hell of a lot better than it did on the wall and yes i was dumb for judgeing but i may just need to calibrate it some. The projector looks great when the scenes are inside or dark or something but if it is outside or bright like playing my forza it seems like its all kinda washed out. Its really hard to explain what i am meaning. This pic is kinda what im talking about, when in bright scenes its like the right part of the pic. [ATTACHMENT=222]FirehawkG3_vs_mattewhitesplitscreen.jpg (21k. jpg file)[/ATTACHMENT]

 

[GeorgeAB]

What size is the projected image on your screen?

 

It's a 130" screen and I have it sitting at a pretty far distance from the screen. I figure maybe just need calibrated or something I'm doing wrong. Most other things look amazing on this thing even at this size.

 

[GeorgeAB]

Your screen material is probably close to unity gain (1.0). A unity gain screen reflects light energy equally in all directions. It will also receive ambient light from any direction and reflect it back in all directions equally, along with the light from the projector. There is probably too much screen illumination bouncing off the room surfaces during bright scenes. This contaminates the image you see on the screen. A larger screen size means the edges of the image are closer to the adjacent room surfaces. It sounds like it's your room conditions that need to be calibrated, not the projector. You could also change your screen to help compensate for system challenges.

 

Well it's in a open basement and it's only close to one wall and close to the ceiling as possible. Light shouldnt reflect from it since it is fiberglass insulation Lol. The floor is concrete and I say it reflects light pretty good. Hopefully in time when I get my media room built it will help it look a lot better.