Front projection screen (1 Viewer)

[Nancy Parr]

Hi!

My projector is a Sanyo PLV-Z2 (16:9 native 720p) and my screen is a 110" DIY screen made with stretched blackout cloth. I'm wondering if I can get significantly better results with a professional screen (Da-Lite; Draper; Stewart; etc.) ?

What is your POV on this issue ?

Here is a picture of my modest Home Theatre dedicated room.



Thanks.

Nancy Parrish

 

[Jim Mcc]

Nancy, your room looks great. Is that corkboard on the left wall? The crown molding against the black ceiling and wall looks great. Mine is pretty similiar, I also painted my screen wall flat black, and my ceiling tiles. I also use a B/O cloth screen, 106" diagonal, and I'm very happy with it. Of course, it's my first screen though.
I think an expensive screen would improve image, but not drastically.
Do you plan to carpet floor?
What I did is I mounted my center channel speaker above screen, and my 2 front speakers on wall at same height. It sounds better than low to me, and it gets them off the floor and out of the way. Just a suggestion.

 

[Nancy Parr]

Thanks for your suggestions Jim.

I'm not sure what "corkboard" is but the down part of the left wall as well as the right and the back ones are made with 3/4" X 8' X 4' soundboards called "Sonopan". To hide these non esthetical soundboard I put a green ozite carpet over these 3 walls using “no more nails” glue. I did the same with the screen's wall using black ozite carpet. Carpet has 2 big plus compared to paint, first it's totally reflect free and it's good for the sound.

I have some vibrations problems with the ceiling tiles but I'm working on it. Will I carpet the floor ? That I'm not sure for now. I guess I'll go with a partial carpet in order to diminish the reflection from the screen.

 

[Jim Mcc]

Nancy, I meant the brown left upper wall, that the posters are on. What is that?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings,

Dalite screen material can sometimes be had for about $5-$6 a sq feet. Material costs including a DIY frame would end up at around $400 tops.

Chances of you seeing a difference ... depends on the screen material in question.

If you wanted something like a stewart grayhawk ... a gallon of colour matched gray paint could provide almost identical results ...

REgards

 

[Leo Kerr]

That's a real nice looking set-up... I'd say that the only things I'd worry about are some bizarre esthetic issues..

...say, pull the lights back from the screen so you don't get any white spill onto the screen, and add one or two colored lights just for the screen... something in the blue-purple-red range... (probably a very deep purple or magenta, given the rest of the colors.)

Also, depending on how it's mounted, I'd put the center speaker behind the screen... but I don't know if the blackout fabric would cause any troubles with the sound or not. My stretched cotton w/ terry backing screen isn't a problem.

But the short of it is, would you get significantly better results? I kind of doubt it. Not unless you did go Stewert, and I'd hate to think how much that'd set you back!

Leo Kerr

 

[Ron-P]

My DIY screen is painted with a custom mix from Lowes, Valspar Gray Plank Interior Flat (code: 101-21.5, 107-1, 116-1). I am very pleased with the results. If you have a Lowes near by, give it a shot.

 

[Nancy Parr]

Thanks to all for your comments.

Jim, the upper part of the walls (except the screen's one) are simple painted drywall. The paint is in a non reflecting finish of course.

 

[Derek_Sutherlan]

Hi Nancy,

I love the look of your theatre...great job!

I have a couple of questions for you.

1) how do you like the Sanyo Z-2?

2) what are the dimensions of your room?

thanks, and good luck with your screen

Derek

Midland, Ontario

 

[Sami Kallio]

A big dark rug would do it. It would be a shame to downgrade to wall-to-wall carpet (from a non-HT perspective). I have carpet on my HT room and I still had to put a dark rug on it to take away the reflection.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Nancy,
I really have no advice, I just want to say that your room looks sweet, very professional looking to me.

Ron,
thanks for including the code for the Valspar Gray Plank! I've been looking for a new color for my screen/wall and as soon as the holidays are over i'm picking up a gallon of that stuff.

p.s. Just for that, i'm forgiving you for saying that my Eva Longoria thread sucked.

 

[Nancy Parr]

Thanks for the advise Sami. I'll keep it in mind.

 

[Nancy Parr]

Hi Derek.

Thanks for your nice words about my H.T. room. I made it last winter and it was lots of works. It's not easy to install 12' crown when you work alone, you have to have a good technique and a lot of patience... I leaned a lot of things building that room.

Now your questions.

Yes I really like my Z2. It's my first projector and I really like it. It’s is easy to use and to setup. One point though, your H.T. room has to be dark (no windows, or at least something to stop light from coming from it). The Z2 is a nice projector, with its 1280x720 16:9 panels it's a true HD projector and it shows when you project HD stuff (like Star Choice HD channels; or BEV or HD cable). If setup my Star Choice HD decorder to output 720p so it's a perfect pixel match to my Z2 native display. If you plan to get one I suggest you call this guy (he probably has the best prices in Canada). http://www.quebecacoustic.com/produc...ors/sanyo.html

My H.T. room is 12' x 20'. The available space was limited so if you build one and have more place I think you should use it if you plan to have more than 1 row of seats.

 

[Michael Allen]

Nancy,

Did you paint your ceiling black?

The room looks awesome!

Mike

 

[terence]

Nacy SWEET room!

 

[BrianKR]

Excellent room Nancy!

I am using blackout cloth painted with Behr Flat Ultra White. I am going to build 2 more screens and try Behr's "silverscreen" and I might try what Ron P. is using on my 3rd screen.

If you contact companies like Carada, Da-Lite, Draper and Stewart, they will send you samples to try up against your DIY. That way you can see for yourself if you want to purchase one of their products.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

Nancy I'm using blackout cloth with my projector that's a model below yours. I ended up painting my screen with a silver grey paint mix that significantly improves the image both in brightness and contrast. I also have screen samples from just about all the major players and to be honest the only screen sample that I feel offers a better image then my painted screen is the Stewart Firehawk which is $$$$$.

 

[Neil Joseph]

I had originally planned on getting a Firehawk for my room and ended up building my own screen which personally, I think would be very close in results.

 

[Brian Fellmeth]

I have tried Ron-P's valspar gray over blackout and it works great. The light gray is a big help if there is some ambient light. I also covered that with opticoat, which is kind of like the stuff that makes stop signs reflective, to get a little more gain.

 

[Ron-P]

What opticoat did you use Brian?