DIY to replace Highpower

The best you can get from paint, from my experience and what others have determined, is about 1.3, maybe 1.5. Since you have a low mounted projector with a HP screen, you are getting near full gain as a retro screen, so any painted screen is probably going to look a lot dimmer regardless of how you mount the projector. Even a ceiling mounted projector with an HP is still going to be around 1.5 to 1.8 gain for the audience, so still as bright as a painted screen. With a painted screen you might get better contrast and color, though.

S-I-L-V-E-R CAN DO IT !!!

..... and do it right.

Again, you get almost 2.8, probably around 2.3 considering your arrangement, but still, ceiling mounted and Silver will be half as bright as what you are used to--just saying...But MM's right, you won't have to worry about hand raisers and p'rs standing up during the best parts.

In every respect except gross directional gain. As far as Black levels and color correctness, it's actually better by a stretched neck.

Only if there's a light source from the same general direction as the pj.

Otherwise the retroreflectivity that gives HP its gain also better rejects ambient and re-reflected from getting to the screen, improving image contrast.

several people have replaced their high powers and been even happier with their diy screen... in brightness, viewing cone, and contrast.

it is very much possible to do a diy high powered like high gain screen... the higher the gain though, the more it begins to take on some of the retro-reflective attributes of a hgih power as well.

There's retroreflective IY screens (I don't usually visit this forum)?

If not and you're talking angular reflective, you're going to get hotspotting at higher gains.

It's easy enough to make a 1/2 size example using a 4' x 4' piece of Thrifty White Hardboard painted with the suggested Formula.

Or you could take PB's advice at it's word and "just do it".

The whole thing revolves around what Screen actually balances out the attributes of + gain against the well known negatives. If your situation allows for absolving the negative aspects of a High Power, and you simply want/demand a "Torch" of a Screen, well yes, the much more expensive Mfg Screens can offer you that. It would seem that with your comments about how much you do like the HP, it is perhaps a moot issue.

However....that isn't always the case. People can change their minds, or take a chance for the sheer pleasure of "what may come..." Especially if the "Chance" doesn't involve spending any large sums of cash. So if you want a blending of attributes, without losing much if any desirable traits or gaining undesirable ones, and get it all at 1/4 or less the cost, and most importantly...the satisfaction of having "Done It Yourself", then that should be your intent, and the purpose of your posts. This is...after all, "The DIY Screen Forum".

Everything else is simply "Tit-for-Tat" between advocates of the DIY / Mfg Screen camps, with nothing getting accomplished but speculation or dismissal. The entire reason for the DIY Screen Forum is to separate the two warring factions so that peace and prosperity can reign supreme amongst all who frequent these hallowed Forums on either side of the Screen Universe.

Amen