Electric Screen for mitsubishi hc3800

[Saturnas]

Hey guys, I just bought mitsubishi hc3800 PJ. This is my first PJ and the effect is amazing, my old philips 37 lcd looks so small compered to the PJ!!! So now I am looking for electric screen. I hope u guys will help me to select the right screen for my PJ and room.

Walls are black;
Room will be completely light controlled;
Viewing distance - 2.45m (8 feet);

Currently I am looking at this screen:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/PCW120GE-120...2643272&sr=8-1

Size: 120"
Gain: 2.5

What do you think?

[Johnny-Drama]

Originally Posted by Saturnas

Hey guys, I just bought mitsubishi hc3800 PJ. This is my first PJ and the effect is amazing, my old philips 37 lcd looks so small compered to the PJ!!! So now I am looking for electric screen. I hope u guys will help me to select the right screen for my PJ and room.

Walls are black;
Room will be completely light controlled;
Viewing distance - 2.45m (8 feet);

Currently I am looking at this screen:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/PCW120GE-120...2643272&sr=8-1

Size: 120"
Gain: 2.5

What do you think?

I might be wrong but I thought higher gain was for rooms that weren't completely light controlled to make the image brighter. If I'm right, you probably don't need such a high gain since yours will be completely light controlled.

[DrNegative]

Originally Posted by Saturnas

Walls are black;
Room will be completely light controlled;
Viewing distance - 2.45m (8 feet)

Back off to a 1.0 or 1.1 gain screen since you have full light control. The screen you are looking at is glass-beaded for rooms that have high ambient light with a low lumens projector.

Your projector has 1300 ANSI lumens rating so that will be plenty, especially in a completely dark room.

[Saturnas]

Thanks for the answers.

now I am deciding between cheap ebay matte white (gain - 1.0) screen and elite screens VMAX2 Series (white max gain - 1.1) screen. The feedback of cheap ebay screen is positive, so I don't know is it worth to spend extra money on the elite screen?

DrNegative, I see you own VMAX2 Elite screen, is it good?

[DrNegative]

Originally Posted by Saturnas

DrNegative, I see you own VMAX2 Elite screen, is it good?

Just my personal opinion but I think it is an excellent screen. I use a 1.1 gain (max white) and to me its the perfect material medium for someone who loves movies and the occasional games as well. Colors turn out rich and vibrant on it and the blacks look good on it too, not to mention its good on the budget.

I had heard others also like Elite's Cinetension-Cinegray screens for movies better but I could not justify paying 2-3 times more for a 5-10% improvement in PQ. Just my opinion once again.

Oh and to answer your other question I sit about 16.5 ft away from it.

[Saturnas]

Thanks for your opinion, now I am 99% sure that I gonna pick up VMAX2 elite screen.

[MAL01]

DrNegative,
Did you ever consider a scope screen? I wouldn`t mind getting an electric but they are alot of $$$. My #1 use will be blu`s.

[DrNegative]

Originally Posted by MAL01

DrNegative,
Did you ever consider a scope screen? I wouldn`t mind getting an electric but they are alot of $$$. My #1 use will be blu`s.

I had thought about it but I also use my projector for gaming and satellite HD sports content as well which tipped the scale to a 16:9 format in my final decision. Plus when I found out the fact that Avatar (the prettiest blu yet in my opinion) would be encoded in its native 16:9 format, it was really no contest in my mind.

In actuality the black bars on scope films don't really bother me that much because the size of the scope extracted image is still large enough on 150" 16:9 screen to forget they are actually there when watching a film. However, if your primary use will mainly be blu's, then I would say get a scope screen simply because a huge majority of blu's are scope.

I decided to pay the extra cash for an electric for aesthetic reasons and because I can use my room for other things. Whenever you press the lower button on your screen remote, I must say the mouth-dropping reaction from your friends is a huge bonus point for electric screens though.

[Suntory_Times]

You should still consider getting something to black them out with as they are never pure black which means there is more light washing out your actual image area.

[DrNegative]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

You should still consider getting something to black them out with as they are never pure black which means there is more light washing out your actual image area.

I thought about doing that when having house parties to make it more presentable for a scope film, but before I did it I was thinking....if the blacks that made up 20% of my screen borders on scope content washed the picture out, then wouldn't the blacks within a full 16:9 shot do it as well?

Would your average person really notice a difference or just videophiles?

[MAL01]

How is your screen holding up? Any waves, curling or any other " negatives " that one wouldn`t have with a fixed screen?

Originally Posted by DrNegative

I had thought about it but I also use my
projector for gaming and satellite HD sports content as well which tipped the scale to a 16:9 format in my final decision. Plus when I found out the fact that Avatar (the prettiest blu yet in my opinion) would be encoded in its native 16:9 format, it was really no contest in my mind.

In actuality the black bars on scope films don't really bother me that much because the size of the scope extracted image is still large enough on 150" 16:9 screen to forget they are actually there when watching a film. However, if your primary use will mainly be blu's, then I would say get a scope screen simply because a huge majority of blu's are scope.

I decided to pay the extra cash for an electric for aesthetic reasons and because I can use my room for other things. Whenever you press the lower button on your screen remote, I must say the mouth-dropping reaction from your friends is a huge bonus point for electric screens though.

[DrNegative]

Originally Posted by MAL01

How is your screen holding up? Any waves, curling or any other " negatives " that one wouldn`t have with a fixed screen?

6 months of good use and no waves thus far. Not bad for a non-tensioned screen. It comes with a standard 2 year warranty and according to the website that is covered.

The people who experience waves is generally caused by roller-sag within the casing which was a problem with the original VMAX models, seems they lessened it with the VMAX2 design. But there is always a chance, with a fixed-frame design, you almost completely eliminate that chance so it obviously has the edge in that department I must admit.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by DrNegative

I thought about doing that when having house parties to make it more presentable for a scope film, but before I did it I was thinking....if the blacks that made up 20% of my screen borders on scope content washed the picture out, then wouldn't the blacks within a full 16:9 shot do it as well?

Would your average person really notice a difference or just videophiles?

I notice, and cinemas consider it worthwhile to do so. I can't reccomend doin it more. And yes, the image itself based on reflections washes the image out, the way to avoid this is to surround the screen with black, so that all (or at least most) reflections are absorbed. The difference this makes is huge. Colors are much more vivid, image is brighter as well as improved contrast.

[DrNegative]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

I notice, and cinemas consider it worthwhile to do so. I can't reccomend doin it more. And yes, the image itself based on reflections washes the image out, the way to avoid this is to surround the screen with black, so that all (or at least most) reflections are absorbed. The difference this makes is huge. Colors are much more vivid, image is brighter as well as improved contrast.

Currently I have the walls and ceiling already blacked out around the screen. And the screen itself comes standard with 5-inches of black masking border alll the way around.

I am just still debating with others whether or not its worth my trouble for DIY masking for black bars on scope films. If we are only talking about a slight improvement in PQ I would still hesitate. Then others have told me doing this is more for an issue with LCD projector's black levels in comparison to DLP. I have never used an LCD to compare though, I've always been a DLP fanboy.

I may try it though whenever I have some free time.

Edit: Sorry Saturnas, not trying to derail your thread.