.

If you need SOME ambient light rejection take a look at the Dalite High Contrast CinemaVision. It's a gray screen with a bigger viewing cone. It's not as effective as the Firehawk at dealing with ambient light, but I like it better for its other virtues.

If you need SOME ambient light rejection take a look at the Dalite High Contrast CinemaVision. It's a gray screen with a bigger viewing cone. It's not as effective as the Firehawk at dealing with ambient light, but I like it better for its other virtues.

WAAAAY to many sparkles on the HCCV. I have gone through 2 of them and both had the same issue. very disapointing surface finish on this screen. Also I found it dim. Horible screen for both the Sanyo PLV-Z4 and the sony Pearl.

Waiting for a firehawk G3, I'm hoping it will be better.

WAAAAY to many sparkles on the HCCV. I have gone through 2 of them and both had the same issue. very disapointing surface finish on this screen. Also I found it dim. Horible screen for both the Sanyo PLV-Z4 and the sony Pearl.

Waiting for a firehawk G3, I'm hoping it will be better.

Interesting. I'm using a bright projector with mine (Infocus 7210) and haven't seen any sparkles. Mine's a few years old so, maybe the newer ones are different? It's something like a 1.0 or 1.1 gain so it's not going to be as bright as the HPs, Studioteks, or Silverstars out there. But it doesn't make the colors dingy like the Grayhawk. Let us know what you think of the Firehawk G3.

I compared the ST130, UM200 and UM150 all to the Firehawk.

The ST130 didn't impress me one bit, just looked like a lighter version of the FH, and anything other than pitch blackness, still grayish looking too!



The ST 130 looked grayish to you ?

Art

grey is a relative shade of white it is not a tint of color. Anything brighter than the white you have now will make it look grey. A Vutec SilverStar would make A Stewart UM200 look grey. A brighter PJ on Vutec would make the dimmer PJ on Vutec look grey. You can do the same exact test with printer paper of various brightness units. It is a simple psychovisual fact that brighter colors in direct comparison to dimmer colors like more colorful.

If you want to guestimate gain magnitudes at your viewing/projection angles - then by all means do the direct comparison using ST130 as your reference gain.

If you want to pick the best screen for your theater - then get the larger samples and tape stretch them on black posterboard and watch them in isolation - picking one that has gain angles you need, the surface you can tolerate - and the neutrality you want.

Size also matters - but you don't get to sample at sizes you want. Put a grey patch on a white surface - it looks grey. Put a white patch on a grey surface - the white looks blownout, washedout, but the grey does not look grey.

Different gain angles and reflectivity resulting from different materials. From another angle the UM200 would look brighter. For example the Dalite High Power is it's brightest if your head is as close to the PJ lens as possible (without playing shadow puppets in the beam). The bluish tint would be because the ST130 is the only one of those ISF certified for neutrality. If you are saying the ST130 looked bluish - it is more likely the UM's were actually yellowish. This is the case for DaLite CinemaVision (Yellowish) compared to HighContrast CinemaVision (Cyanish)

What are you using to test these screens?

All ST materials i.e., 130, um150 & 200 should have very little differences is color.
It is matter of gain and he gave you all there is to it. Pick your screen based on gain and that needs to be done based on the pj and required ft-l.

^ He's right. I wouldn't pick a screen based on the slight color differences (grey vs. white is another story). Run the numbers and see what you need.


OTOH, I can tell you the ST130 is pretty much the industry standard, it's a suburb screen if you're willing to pay the premium for it. If you don't need the gain and you're set on a white Stewart screen, that's the one.

dark paint is cheaper than any screen and gives much greater ANSI improvements in your room. Of course if it results in divorce to repaint the room - then pick the best screen for the application.

If you are competing against ambient light (as in hits the walls) - the best way to improve ANSI is a screen that is high-gain on a grey substrate - which is exactly what it FH is. Go back and watch it without comparing it to brighter screens - before you say it got smoked. If you have significant ambient lite (as in lites up the screen) - the only way to get watchable contrast is with many lumens and much gain and tiny screens.

It's the flecks on the material making them all look different! Today is a nice overcast day, with no bright Sun to shine. I took all three samples outside and was able to angle all three just right so all three look 100% the same! In sunlight all three look exactly like the outside ambient light, meaning a slight blue cast. The other day when I took them out into the Sun, I was getting hot spots because the Sun wasn't evenly distributing the light being it was a clear cloudless day. But today I could see the UltraMatte 150 does have the best reflectivity properties where it can be angled more than both the UM200 and ST130 without the color shifting as much. That makes no sense. The ST130 has less gain and the rated viewing cone till half gain is twice that of the UM150, so logically the ST130 should not color shift as much when you change the angle, but it doesn't! Why does the ST130 color shift more? :confused:

Holy cow. You should stop the science experiments and buy the UM150 and be done. Sounds like it is one of your top picks anyway.