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Just received and mounted my new DNP Supernova BLADE 08-85 Screen. Pics and impressions inside.

42K views 114 replies 42 participants last post by  snyderkv 
#1 ·
Over the last 4 months, I have been feverishly researching which screen I should choose for my living room "home theater." Considering this was going to be my TV replacement for my living room, the screen had to be very versatile, since my setup was quite unique. I am also susceptible to all screen "problems" like viewing angles, sparkles, texture, hotspotting, etc. Needless to say, the 4 months I took during my screen research were chaotic. I received dozens of screen samples, drove hundreds of miles to see demo screens, and read probably every review, thread, and article on ambient-light rejection screens on the internet.


After 4 months of researching, I finally mounted my screen choice of the 100" DNP Supernova BLADE (08-85).

Research

There are only a few players in the ambient-light rejection screen category, so as you expect, I was deciding between DNP, Black Diamond, Stewart Firehawk, Draper ReAct II, and some very-high (4+ gain screens). I was able to receive samples early on for most of these screens, with the exception of DNP. What I quickly noticed was... I am going to be very hard to please. None of these samples really wowed me, with the exception of the Black Diamond. It had very good ambient-light rejection, a large step above the rest of the materials I received. I was very intrigued.


After doing some research into Screen Innovations (the maker of the BD screen), I found the Zero Edge. I was immediately in love. I was going after that 100" plasma look for my living room, so I drove 150 miles to go see one in person to make sure it looked as good as the samples.


After looking at the 92" Zero Edge, I noticed the screen's disadvantages immediately. Sparkles everywhere, extreme hot-spotting (every frame looked like it had vignetting), and the viewing angles were poor. About 20 degrees off center, the far edges of the screen become noticeably darker. Due to my living room layout, people would be sitting on the sides of the screen. There was no way I could go with the Black Diamond for my setup, as these issues were just too apparent for me. The screen itself does look uber sexy. I wanted to like it. I almost convinced myself to gloss over those issues and just pull the trigger. But.... I decided to hold off for just a bit longer...


After posting this thread , mmiles contacted me and sent me screen samples of the 08-85 and 23-23 material. I was grateful.


I had the three main materials I was looking for. The Black Diamond 1.4 G3, DNP Supernova 08-85, and the DNP Supernova 23-23.


I compared these 3 materials for about a month. The decision was literally keeping me up at night. I know it sounds crazy, but I bet most of you can relate to this... haha.


Comparing all three, here is what I found.

Black Diamond 1.4 G3

This thing is a champ at rejecting light from the side. Much better than either of the DNP material. However, both DNP materials beat out the BD in rejecting vertical light. The BD does have very noticeable screen sparkles. There is no texture whatsoever, but the sparkles are very much there, causing distraction and loss of perceptible resolution. Screen Innovations claims that the BD is a 4k screen, but even at 1080p, the sparkles were distracting enough to make me feel like I lost detail and resolution. I can only imagine this would be much more annoying with 4k.


Overall, the BD 1.4 is a great ambient-light rejection screen that has many visual flaws. Some people may not notice these flaws or care, but if you do notice hot-spotting, viewing angle issues, and sparkles, this screen has them all. If you have a lot of side-lighting or windows, the BD is your best choice, especially if your seating area isn't very wide.

DNP Supernova 23-23

My impressions with this material is only based on samples. Please keep this in mind. First things first, the extra gain on this thing stands out very well. The material itself is much lighter in shade than the BD 1.4 or Supernova 08-85. This essentially makes it a bit worse for keeping deep black levels compared to the other materials. I will say, the extra brightness was very nice, especially because of the viewing angles. The brightness dropoff when moving outside of the sweet spot is buttery smooth. So smooth it is actually hard to notice a drop at all! I did, however, notice a bit of sparkles. Not nearly as bad as the BD 1.4, but they are there. You only see them though on bright scenes. With the BD 1.4, you can see them on most scenes. With the SN 23-23, its only the bright ones. The ambient-light rejection capabilities are there, but with a bit of ambient light in the room, the screen still has a hard time keeping black levels down. The material is just too light to make a huge difference. The extra lumens coming back at you though offsets this with scenes that are a bit bright. This would be the perfect screen for sports.


Overall, I believe a full size screen with this material would be fantastic. The viewing cone dropoff in brightness is very smooth, and the sparkles aren't very distracting, and can only be seen in bright scenes (nearly white). It is, however, the worst material at keeping black levels low, as its base material is a bit lighter than the BD 1.4 and SN 08-85.

DNP Supernova 08-85

This is the screen material I ended up going with. DNP claims that there is no hotspotting, no sparkles/texture, and fantastic ambient-light rejection. I happy to report that, most of this is true!


The screen does an amazing job at dealing with light from above and below the screen. The light literally just vanishes. It really is amazing. From the sides, however, very little light is rejected. This makes my side windows a very large problem for me. In fact, the screen almost looks worse than my dark wall in the day time. Come night time though, with artificial light, this thing is outstanding. Literally outstanding.


There are virtually no sparkles. On a bright white screen, if you look really hard, you can see some. But you have to look really, really hard. I'll bet very few folks would be able to find any.


Another thing I am very happy to report is that there is literally no hot-spotting, vignetting, or viewing angle issues. None. I don't care how wide you look, you won't find a brightness dropoff. The screen stays uniform throughout. This is about as unity gain as you can get.


Overall, this material IMO is about the best you can get with ambient-light rejection. No sparkles, no hot-spotting, no viewing angle problems, no dropoff. The only issue is side light rejection, but you can't have great side light-rejection and wide viewing angles. They are mutually exclusive.



While I loved the 08-85 material, I still wanted the Zero Edge look. Through mmiles, I found out about the DNP Supernova BLADE. It is a essentially the 08-85 material with literally no bezel of any kind. Alas, I finally found the perfect screen. The look of the Zero Edge, with none of its issues.

Result

Mounted in my living room, this thing is amazing. It looks so much better in person. It literally floats on the wall.


There are two mounting options for the BLADE. You can either suspend it from the ceiling via cables, or drill it into the wall. This is the only downside. There are two holes on the top where you mount the screen to, and those whole are visible on the front of the screen. You can't seem then in widescreen material, but they do show up in 16x9, when the screen is fully lit. It isn't uber-distracting, but it is a flaw with this design. You have these regardless of which mounting type you choose.


Anwyho, enough talk. Pictures!


 
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#2 ·
As an update, my screen was actually damaged during shipping. There is a flaw with the way DNP packages the mounting brackets, and if anyone steps on the crate during shipping, these brackets dig into the screen and create indents. This happened to me. I am working with DNP to try and resolve this issue, but I did want to bring it up to make sure people are aware of this shipping flaw.


I will make sure to update this thread to tell everyone how this was resolved.

 
#3 ·
When I saw the Blade, I thought the image looked very good. Enjoy your screen.
 
#4 ·
Looks great
. What is the gain on the screen?


My screen is in a room with daytime light mostly coming from below (indirect) and a light source above (direct). There is also ambient light from behind the seated location. The room is T shaped with screen at the bottom of the T and unblocked windows at the two ends at the top (so any light on the screen is indirect). It looks like this screen might work very well for me. Do you think it might?


Somebody with AVS, please send me a quote for a 110" diag 16x9 screen. I used to buy from Jason.
 
#5 ·
I went through the same exercise a few months ago. I looked at the BD 1.4 and .8, DNP 08-85 and 23-23 and Stewart Firehawk. (I didn't get to see the DNP 23-23 in my own room though.) I guess I'm not sensitive to sparkles, so I didn't really have an opinion about them, but your other observations match mine. Like you, the BD 1.4 and DNP screens really caught my eye, but I couldn't get past the BD's poor viewing angle and the color shift (although that might have been fixable in calibration). I went with the DNP 08-85, which was a nice improvement on the Dalite High Contrast CinemaVision it replaced. If the 08-85 was just a bit better on rejecting ambient light from the side, it would be near perfect for me.
 
#6 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by krholmberg  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22455606


Looks great
. What is the gain on the screen?

My screen is in a room with daytime light mostly coming from below (indirect) and a light source above (direct). There is also ambient light from behind the seated location. The room is T shaped with screen at the bottom of the T and unblocked windows at the two ends at the top (so any light on the screen is indirect). It looks like this screen might work very well for me. Do you think it might?

Somebody with AVS, please send me a quote for a 110" diag 16x9 screen. I used to buy from Jason.

The 08-85 is .8 gain. Give Mike Garrett a call at AVS, you'll be glad you did. His contact info is listed in the post above yours.
 
#8 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kev1000000  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22450275


As an update, my screen was actually damaged during shipping. There is a flaw with the way DNP packages the mounting brackets, and if anyone steps on the crate during shipping, these brackets dig into the screen and create indents

I had to laugh. The carton is clearly marked with no-step icons, yet you can see shoe prints on the carton. This is so typical of shippers. When the lowest-paid hourly employee sees this, they have a field day. I recently received my Dalite High Power screen in a very heavy, double cardboard box. Clearly marked with do not forklift. Guess what, there were huge forklift marks all over the box and one that went into the side and damaged the screen. Dalite was kind enough to send me another screen through another shipper, but I could see they too used a forklift to lift it along the way. And anything marked fragile will get an extra kick along the way. Nice screen, good pics. (If the brackets can cause that kind of problem, why don't they just send them in another package and not risk damage).
 
#9 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by threed123  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22470340


I had to laugh. The carton is clearly marked with no-step icons, yet you can see shoe prints on the carton. This is so typical of shippers. When the lowest-paid hourly employee sees this, they have a field day. I recently received my Dalite High Power screen in a very heavy, double cardboard box. Clearly marked with do not forklift. Guess what, there were huge forklift marks all over the box and one that went into the side and damaged the screen. Dalite was kind enough to send me another screen through another shipper, but I could see they too used a forklift to lift it along the way. And anything marked fragile will get an extra kick along the way. Nice screen, good pics. (If the brackets can cause that kind of problem, why don't they just send them in another package and not risk damage).

Yep, it was very disconcerting to see those shoe marks all over the crate when it arrived. Unfortunately, this wasn't easy to unpack and inspect while they were there.


I have yet to hear back from DNP about resolving this issue, although they did say it may take up until next week to hear a response on this. I will make sure to update this thread with how it is resolved. I can pretty much guarantee this will happen to someone else if DNP doesn't change the way they ship the mounting brackets with the screen.
 
#11 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by fros1973  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22482656


Hi Kev..

what projector you use to light up dnp blade 08-85?

i plan to use with jvc, but my installer said minimum 2000 lumens. so jvc can not pair with dnp 08-85.

I am rocking an Epson 8350 for now. I am not running in Torch mode and I also have "ECO mode" turned on, so as a guess, I bet I am shooting around 1200 lumens.
 
#13 ·
I cannot give you the exact price, as my dealer does not want me to disclose that info. However, I will say it is very comparable with a Black Diamond Zero Edge screen.
 
#15 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by fros1973  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22493747


thanks kev.. yesterday i just order 10' 2.35 cinemascope stewart reflection active 170 screen. i have seen the demo, the picture was so perfect paired with jvc and the price cheaper than dnp.

dnp supernova 08-85 was best screen i have ever seen. enjoy it :)

Ahh, very nice. That Stewart screen is awesome as well. Cinemascope! If also didn't watch TV on my projector (it is in my living room after all) I totally would have gone 2.35.
 
#16 ·
Interested to know your impressions of the React ii surface. Are you located in Europe? The surface does not appear to be available in the North American market. Draper has a .85 gain surface in the North American market (XS850E) that appears to take the DNP 08-85 route (wide viewing angle, good rejection of vertical ambient light), but I've not had the opportunity to view it. Would be interested if you felt the reactii had similar qualities to the 23-23 surface but with lower gain (1.2?).
 
#18 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by dougri  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22498319


Interested to know your impressions of the React ii surface. Are you located in Europe? The surface does not appear to be available in the North American market. Draper has a .85 gain surface in the North American market (XS850E) that appears to take the DNP 08-85 route (wide viewing angle, good rejection of vertical ambient light), but I've not had the opportunity to view it. Would be interested if you felt the reactii had similar qualities to the 23-23 surface but with lower gain (1.2?).

When I went and checked out the Black Diamond, the dealer has a sample of the React II .85. I didn't spend all that much time with the React II, as I was mainly focused on the BD at the time. It definitely sparkled less than the BD, but the BD was better at preserving contrast. This setup did have side ambient light though, so with it being better with vertical, I would pick the React II over the BD as long as you control side lighting. I can't stand sparkles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tommy def  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22500049


Kev100000 I have a quick question do you see the mounting bracket right at the top of the screen I can't tell from your pics.

You do see the screws. It is my biggest gripe with this screen. Everything else is great, but there are two noticeable screws at the top of my screen. You get these regardless of which mount you choose.


In 2.35 content, they completely disappear. However, in 16x9, they do creep into the image a bit. You could go a few inches larger in screen size and shoot a slightly shorter image to make sure the image never clips these screws, and the screen will sort of create its own border for you, but I had no idea this would happen, and don't want to lose any inches on my screen... =p


In reality, it isn't a deal breaker. I still much prefer this screen over any other screen, but it is a design flaw that should be addressed.
 
#19 ·
As a quick update to my screen damage problem, DNP is sending me a replacement screen free of charge. Hopefully they pack the mounting options a bit different this time.


Kudos to DNP. Very little hassle on my end.
 
#20 ·
How visible is the texture on the 08-85? How far back are you from the screen?


I have samples of the Firehawk, Firehawk SST, Black Diamond 0.8, Black Diamond 1.4, and Black Diamond 2.7. At my viewing distance (13 ft), the texture of all of them was too noticable and distracting.
 
#21 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Magic  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22518228


How visible is the texture on the 08-85? How far back are you from the screen?

I have samples of the Firehawk, Firehawk SST, Black Diamond 0.8, Black Diamond 1.4, and Black Diamond 2.7. At my viewing distance (13 ft), the texture of all of them was too noticable and distracting.

This issue was the reason I chose the DNP 08-85. It, without any doubt, controls sparkles and texture better than any other light-rejection screen material I have seen. Bar none. Even the tiniest amount of texture/sparkle bother me. The DNP has an extremely tiny amount of visible sparkle, but only in white scenes, and probably wouldn't be scene by even the majority of HT enthusiasts. I am just extremely susceptible to all visual flaws (hotspotting, sparkle, RBE, color shift, banding, etc). The DNP 08-85 is ISF certified. I sit 12ft back.


To give some comparison, I thought the Black Diamond (all 3 materials) looked like Christmas lights with all of the sparkling I could see. It was nearly unwatchable for me. I guarantee you won't be bothered by the sparkling or texture of the DNP 08-85.


As a side note, I did notice a bit of sparkling (although no texture) on the 23-23 material from DNP. If you're highly susceptible to sparkles, stay away from the 23-23 material.
 
#22 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kev1000000  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22518346


This issue was the reason I chose the DNP 08-85. It, without any doubt, controls sparkles and texture better than any other light-rejection screen material I have seen. Bar none. Even the tiniest amount of texture/sparkle bother me. The DNP has an extremely tiny amount of visible sparkle, but only in white scenes, and probably wouldn't be scene by even the majority of HT enthusiasts. I am just extremely susceptible to all visual flaws (hotspotting, sparkle, RBE, color shift, banding, etc). The DNP 08-85 is ISF certified. I sit 12ft back.

Sounds good. Is there any way to get a sample of it? I've never been able to get a sample of it and I'm hesitant to spend thousands of dollars without seeing a sample.
 
#23 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Magic  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22519322


Sounds good. Is there any way to get a sample of it? I've never been able to get a sample of it and I'm hesitant to spend thousands of dollars without seeing a sample.

I received my samples through mmiles , here on AVS. Great guy and easy to work with.


I want to point out that, the sample doesn't really do this screen justice. The size just isn't big enough to make the decision any easier. The BD sample vs. the 92" BD 1.4 also showed major differences. I didn't notice as many sparkles on the BD sample. However, on the 92", they were everywhere. Everywhere.
 
#25 ·



Hey Kev, very nice pictures! I have three basic questions:


1. When the projector is off, how does the blade screen look in terms of color? Is the screen material white? Slightly greyish or silver?


2. Is there no black border what so ever at the edge of the screen? Perhaps like 2mm all around? Or is it simply totally homogeneous?


3. What kind of money are we talking here? Bellow 5000 dollors?



Ofcourse, if you dont like question 3 just ignore it, thanks!
 
#26 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by bonzichrille  /t/1431840/just-received-and-mounte...een-pics-and-impressions-inside#post_22554318


Hey Kev, very nice pictures! I have three basic questions:

1. When the projector is off, how does the blade screen look in terms of color? Is the screen material white? Slightly greyish or silver?

2. Is there no black border what so ever at the edge of the screen? Perhaps like 2mm all around? Or is it simply totally homogeneous?

3. What kind of money are we talking here? Bellow 5000 dollors?

Ofcourse, if you dont like question 3 just ignore it, thanks!
1. When the projector is off, how does the blade screen look in terms of color? Is the screen material white? Slightly greyish or silver?

It's gray. Depending on the amount of light and the direction it's coming in, it can either look light or very dark (near black). Obviously the darker it looks, the better contrast you will have when it is on. Even with my ambient lights on in the room, the screen looks very dark. It only looks light gray with all of the windows open.

2. Is there no black border what so ever at the edge of the screen? Perhaps like 2mm all around? Or is it simply totally homogeneous?

There is no bezel/border of any kind. It is all screen. However, you can shrink your image a bit to create a pseudo-border, as the screen material will look much darker (nearly black) when no light is shining on it. You can slightly see this effect in my pictures if you look hard enough.

3. What kind of money are we talking here? Bellow 5000 dollors?

My dealer doesn't want me to talk specifics about money, but I can assure you it is considerably below $5000. This screen was very comparable to a Black Diamond Zero Edge in terms of cost.
 
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