This review is from "Shoot-out: 1080p Home Theater Projectors." Evan Powell and Bill Livolsi. I'm ignorant on what exactly the last part about reflection means, if someone could help me.


In this six-way shoot-out, we found that the AE4000 ranked # 1 in the group as far as the picture we'd prefer to have on our screen, assuming we have a darkened viewing room with no ambient light and relatively little reflection.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/1080p_shootout_2009.htm#

I believe they would be referring to light from the screen being reflected off the side walls, ceilings, and floor.

Yeah, that'd be my guess too. I guess the issue is how to quantify that.

The wall my screen will be on is 10ft x 7 ft, as I have plumbing issues. If my screen is 100" wide that will leave me with 10" on each side to the wall. I will also have around 10" from the top of the screen to the ceiling, 20" to the floor.

I've always wondered if this would turn into an issue, since I'm taking up the vast majority of my wall. Is this reflection something that the right paint can minimize or eliminate? I'm already planning on painting flat black or grey, dark carpets, and I have 0 ambient light. Or do I simply have to make a slightly smaller screen?

Reflection is light from the projector bouncing off objects in the room and being directed back into the path of light from the projector to screen. When there is light bouncing in front of the projector it reduces the quality of the image on screen. The issue is that the projector produces light and when this light reflects off the walls it gets in the way of it's own image.

For this reason I painting my walls and ceilings dark flat colors (gray on walls, black ceiling). There should be very little reflected light in my room when the theater is done. Fabric walls would be even deader.

any links or recomendations for fabric walls?

Is there a good rule of thumb, by the way, about making a screen size x big as the wall you project it onto? I mean, I've never seen anyone take up the whole wall. I"m going to be doing all but about 10" on 3 sides, and 20" on the floor, so where is that 'fine line' where I might be better off going smaller?

reflection isn't direct light from the projector nor interaction of photons of reflected light with photons coming from the projector.

All the Projectors photons hit the screen.Most are reflected back. Lots hit the back of your eyeballs, thats how you see the image. Most however hit other surfaces in your room. ie everything in your room 'glows' from the reflected light. Its the light bouncing off stuff in your room, like the walls, the ceilings, the polished coffee table etc that bounces back and hits the screen again which are the problem photons.

The more of them there are, the more that are going to end up hitting a portion of the screen that is supposed to be black. Because I screen is white, black on your screen is not the colour black but simply an absense of light on that area of the screen which only looks black to your eye because of contrast. With these stray reflected photons hitting the 'black' areas of your screen and making your white screen 'Glow' a little bit. Well there goes 'the absence of light' part of the Blacks on a White screen equation.

In other words, Black areas on screen become more grey than black.

Light reflection in a room and minimising it is so important for this reason. Its the same reason that people care so much about a Projectors contrast ratio too. Thats all about some types of projector not being able to block the light from the lamp from shining through the pixels and lighting up areas of the screen that are supposed to be black. This is similar to the room reflection thing because in both cases we are talking about unwanted photons hitting black areas of our white screen and lighting them up enough that they no longer look black but grey instead.

Back to room reflections. Ceilings and side walls are the worst culprits for reflecting light back at the screen.

I appreciate that explanation. Its all basically light bouncing around and back to the screen in a specific area (say a night scene) where I don't want light.

So here's my question. My walls, ceiling, and floor will be black. My couches are black. I"m a white guy (and Irish, so really white) so I will be the main reflecting surface in my room.

My question then revolves around how close the frame of the screen can be to the walls and ceiling without it damaging picture quality. It sounds like your explaination of reflective light says that the reflective light is not so much from the projector itself shooting 99% of the light onto my 100"x56" screen, and 1% slightly to the left and right where it will bounce off my walls and into the screen . . . but rather a reflection off of everything else (including my whiteness) as it bounces around, wall-to-wall and back to the screen. If this statement is true than I guess I can go forward with my 10 ft diagonal screen and black anti-social room with the Panasonic PT-AE4000.

I have one of those black anti-social rooms and I love it. :) Floor is black 1/2" thick foam rubber flooring, walls and ceiling are flat black paint. Sound panels and bass traps on the front wall (AT screen) are also black. I did go with a light gray for the sound panels and bass traps on the other walls, but only because wife picked that color.