making a screen - what materials? (1 Viewer)

[Bret Pritchett]

I'm making a screen for an Infocus X1 which I will be getting shortly. I am thinking about using a vinyl movie banner (I have easy access to them working at a theater). I have a single sided banner, the back of which is solid white. Has anyone tried using vinyl before? Its somewhat glossy, enough that I think it would reflect the image well, but its not too shiny either.

Yesterday I took the banner into a theater (with no customers in it) and me and a co-worker held it up to the screen while a movie was running, and the image on the banner appeared to be very close to the image on the theater's screen.

has anyone here tried using vinyl material for a screen?

I will also put a black border around it - probably 5" on all sides. I'm thinking burlap would be a good material to use

any thoughts or suggestions on this potential screen?

 

[Neil Joseph]

I would use a matte material to reduce the chance of "hotspotting" especially in the middle of the screen. Out of curiousity, what are the dimensions of the banner?

 

[Bret Pritchett]

72x48, but I will be using the border around it to make the image 65x39.5

what is "hotspotting"?

 

[Todd B]

Blackout material, available in Fabric stores, is another popular choice for DIY screens. I purchased enough material for my 108" diagonal (16:9) screen for about $15.

Todd

 

[Andrew Pratt]

Bret a home projector is going to be much brighter then the movie theater projector and it will likey hotspot on that banner material. Basically hotspotting is simply a glare off the screen due to reflections. For the cost of blackout cloth you might consider going that route..works for tons of others myself incl. (though many of us have also painted it grey or silver)

 

[Bret Pritchett]

are you talking about blackout material to cover the screen? (or for its border?) If it is for the screen, what does it look like (its not really black is it?)

is there a type of paint should use on the screen - are there certain types of textured paint? (I know absolutetly nothing about paint)

 

[Todd B]

Blackout material is for the screen itself. The fabric itself is white. It's called blackout cloth because it is used behind curtains to block out light.

Do a search of this forum for blackout cloth and you should be able to pull up several threads.

There is also an excellent Forum over at AVSForum devoted to Screens (DIY and otherwise). You will find tons of posts devoted to paints.

Todd

 

[Andrew Pratt]

Read this rather long thread about the paint I used on my black out screen. To me it looks identical to my Stewart greyhawk sample.