Hats off to Da-Lite!!

Thanks for the report, Seegs108.

For the record -- I think that's my photo you linked to above and to be fair: it had its contrast drastically boosted to show the striations. It only shows up in brighter scenes with less detail (sky, clouds, sand, all video games, etc.), but when it does show up, it's terribly distracting. Just looks like you're viewing through a dirty window or something.

But your report seems to suggest it is possible to make a non-banding/dirty HCHP screen

As I mentioned in the other thread, I decided to give Draper Contrast Radiant a try. Their screen tensioning system seemed to make more sense anyway (no snaps).

But when comparing samples of Contrast Radiant to HCHP, HCHP appears to have more gain (despite the Contrast Radiant being rated as having a higher gain of 2.7).

Really don't know which'd be better... but I'll report on the Draper Contrast Radiant once I receive it. My dealer told me he asked Draper for a good quality check before shipping it out, so as to not waste everyone's time!

Glad things worked out for you. Will keep you updated on my end. Cheers.

WooHoo your gona love it, just got me a 110" 2.8 for $300 but had to mask it off due to room and projector issues.
Removable masking on a 110" Model C with HP 2.8

If you screen is used, you may want to clean it first before you compare anything.

Doug-- I like your idea of the two lights in the corners, appearing to shine upward? What are those/how did you do that?

I'm amazed the HP 2.8 screen isn't lighting up your room (walls & ceilings)-- maybe b/c it's only 78"?

I thought I heard somewhere that they went with smaller beads when going from 2.8 to 2.4 b/c of HD resolution... is that not true? Does the bead size on the 2.8 not interfere with 1080p resolution?

I can't seem to find any 2.8 material for sale on eBay. A member here had a 133" HP 2.8 for sale for $650; 133" was just too big to fit anywhere in my home.

Still waiting on the Draper...

That would depend on the size of the screen, which determines the absolute size of each pixel.

I can say that on my 128" wide HP 2.8 that it's not close to being an issue; not only are the pixels clear, so is the thin gray line between them; I have a JVC RS10.

Strange but true, but even if you found it, it would cost more than a HP screen of the same size.

Wow. $100. Yeah. Extremely lucky! Even a black case! Wouldn't mind having a pulldown one in front of my fixed-frame one for 3D. The HP 2.8 would likely have considerably more gain than whatever HCHP/Contrast Radiant I (hopefully happily) end up with.

Those are 2 cheap plastic "Up lights" google it. Then on top I have about a 3.5' piece of rigid white drainage pipe. They have small wattage hallogen spots in them and they are on dimmers. Used to shoot straight up when I used the portable screen out in the hall, but even with the velvet shadow box it was spilling a bit on the center of the screen, so I bumped them over to lean in the corner.

Yes, if the image is up another 10 inches on the screen it lights up the ceiling and if it was at the top it would be real bad.

I don't know how a .05mm bead is going to mess with a pixel I can see at plain as day when I walk up to a 78" screen. The change was for lower cost and just maybe a brighter off axis image. less beads means more plain old white and more light scatter.

2.8 has been out of production since 2010 so it is no surprise there isn' t any on ebay..

Like I said, the one I got is 6 years old... and I have been monitoring Criags list since 2010.. this is the first one..

Ding Ding Ding Ding! Even if the screen is to big, buy it if the price is right, you can make a fixed frame out of the fabric if you are careful with it!

Any Da-Lite Silver Lite screen (with 2.5 gain) users here?

Wish I lived in Nashville about now... would probably make an offer on the 133" 2.8 HP fixed screen currently on craigslist.

Looked at the sample and would not buy that for any home use. Order the Dalite samples and compare them all..

indeed. i have a 119" model C 2.8. i have not used it for about 2 years. it sat in heated storage for about 1 year. then 50deg'ish heated storage for the other 1 year.
the result was that it has now gotten dirty/stained/idk. i would clean it, but i am afraid of making it worse. and when i lense shift down and top mask, the line cannot be seen anyways.

Well, no issues cleaning.. just takes a couple of passes and non "Green" Denatured Alcohol.
Don't have a before, but there were spots that were wiped and drips of something.. also some black marks.. Flash photo after clean.

man. how can you watch a movie with all that stuff in the way

It was in an early post in this thread. http://www.avsforum.com/t/1455184/hats-off-to-da-lite/0_100#post_22899983
Removable masking on a 110" Model C with HP 2.8

yeah. but you are still going to have light reflecting off of all that stuff.

a tube TV , really ?

No damaging reflection the back or the TV is Black and the HP sends the light back to the projector, it look great from where we sit. If it was a bother it would be covered with velvet.
Yes, a SD CRT TV. For what my wife watches during the day, that works just fine. Most of the time she is using the laptop for other things while she has that on the food channel or METV watching TV shows from the 60's. You would also be surprised how good a calibrated CRT can look with a quality FIOS input signal. I just did a calibration on a guys XBR960 last weekend and it turned out great when done.
Edited by airscapes - 2/4/13 at 5:19am

well, if you are happy with it, thats all that matters. fyi, i have had great luck with black felt. it just eats the light. even when i project directly on it.

Dylan,

Just wanted to ask you how certain you are that, and to what extent, your replacement HCHP screen from Da-Lite is free of texture? Is it just 'mostly OK', or is it really completely clean? No lines/banding anywhere?

Often I'll find on these screens that if I stick up one of those sample Da-Lite screen patches (that have one-line of sticky tape on the back), and pull it off, that sticky area will pull off a bunch of the dirt-- the result being you'll have one small rectangle, of the same size/shape as the sticky area on the back of the sample patch, that's now brighter than the rest of the screen!

I should also report back on my Draper experience: it was extremely poor. The screen was at least as bad as, if not worse than, the Da-Lite HCHP screen. Banding/striations everywhere, dirty, etc. On top of that, it was ridiculous to assemble those tension rods! I hurt my hand & cut my finger :-P However, on the bright side, the tension rod system ensures no ripples. So at least they got that right, despite it being ridiculously difficult to assemble. Da-Lite's snaps are much easier, but, as I mentioned earlier, I got some ripples due to uneven tension.

Below is a video that'll hopefully help you see what the banding/texture looks like. I embedded some red arrows in the video here & there to point out banding; however, by no means are those arrows comprehensive. You should be able to find even more patterns/banding. The banding looks worse in real-life than in this video, but, again, is mostly only visible with low contrast or bright content, with smooth on-screen content. Here's the video:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/17192883/DraperContrastRadiant-Texture_1080p_20Mbps.mp4

I'm returning the Draper b/c they didn't even seem willing to QC a screen before shipping it to me. Da-Lite seemed more willing to work with me/my dealer (David Nash over at www.thefinalflick.com: fantastic & helpful, by the way). So I'm getting the whole HCHP screen/frame replaced (latter b/c of the ripples; maybe button were not optimally aligned). Also, trying to constantly swap out the material on the Draper would be a nightmare b/c of the extremely difficult assembly process. Given my experience, I simply cannot recommend the Draper Contrast Radiant screen, despite its superior tensioning system.

If after 2-3 more tries with HCHP, I may just go for the HP material, as there appear to be relatively fewer complaints. I wonder, though, if that's because this banding/dirtiness was a quality control problem with the beads at the factory? If dirty beads show up every now & then and get sprayed onto the surface, the material that gets sold more may have these dirty beaded screens 'diluted' simply b/c of volume of production... who knows. I have no idea what the actual problem is, so, it's anyone's guess.

I do wish that someone at Da-Lite/Draper would investigate this issue though.

Cheers.

Here's one image that showcases all the problems with HCHP/Contrast Radiant screens:

Full-Size Image: http://cl.ly/NEsV/HCHP&ContrastRadiant-Dirtiness.jpg

1. Note the large oval smear (circled in blue) near the bottom right of the attached image of the screen. That's what happens when you try to clean the screen. There's some residue being spread around.
2. Note the rectangles all over the screen that are brighter than the rest of the screen (2 such rectangles are circled in red). This was from taking the Da-Lite sample patches that have one line of sticky tape on the back, placing it on the screen, then pulling it off. That process clearly removed some of whatever residue is coating the screen & making it darker than it should be (note: if you place a HCHP sample patch on top of the actual 110" HCHP screen I bought, the actual 110" screen is considerably darker than the sample patch... presumably from whatever residue is coating the screen that is not coating the sample patch of the same material).
3. Furthermore, I enclose (in a black box) one of the obvious vertical streaks that shows up as a darker vertical band during content viewing. Many more of these are obvious during viewing, but are difficult to capture in a photo.
4. Finally, I circle in magenta a region where you'll find a diagonal rectangular region that's brighter than the rest of the screen, due to the same procedure of attaching/removing the sticky tape from one of the Da-Lite sample patches on the screen. I strategically placed the tape across a darker horizontal band (leads to 'banding') to see if this process of 'cleaning' could get rid of the 'bands'. As you can see, though the tape lightened that region of the screen (presumably from removing whatever dirty residue is on the screen), it did not remove any bit of the horizontal darker band. In other words, I really have no idea where the banding (dark horizontal/vertical streaks) is coming from in the manufacturing process.

Da-Lite/Draper do not even seem to be aware of this problem. So, if you have it, please call up & complain. Fiberglass-based screens should have texture/sparklies, yes, but not the artifacts enumerated above.
Edited by sarangiman - 3/2/13 at 10:45pm

I'm currently on my third 119" HP screen from Da-Lite.

The first screen had dark horizontal banding problems (your magenta), quite distracting in vertical pans.

The second screen had even more distracting vertical streaks (your black), they were easily spotted even on still images with single color fills. Definitely the worst screen of them all.

The third screen is a mix of both, a few dark horizontal bands (not as apparent as the first screen) and much lighter vertical streaks than the second. Da-Lite had enclosed a special quality check report with the third screen that stated Reason for inspection: "Stripes in VA" - Inspection findings "Fabric looks good". Currently I'm leaning on keeping this, it's not that easily visible, the horizontal bands can be see on on animation material with vertical pans and the vertical stripes are occasionally slightly visible in horizontal pans of regular movies against a light sky for example. I would otherwise want to swap it but Da-Lite doesn't seem to see the issue and changing the screen won't end up with any better result. If I was buying a completely new screen, I probably would not pick the High Power.

It's a shame Da-Lite changed the HP screen from the 2.8 to the 2.4 with the clearly inferior material.
Edited by Gagorian - 3/4/13 at 10:07am

Thanks Gagorian.

And that's your experience with the HP, not even the HCHP?

That doesn't bode well at all. Even my $120 Optoma GrayWolf screen didn't have these issues!

Do other owners who don't complain about the HP just not see this issue? I'm confused. I thought Zombie10k has a HP (newer) screen... & I'm pretty sure he has a really good idea & would've caught these sorts of issues.

I"m waiting for my replacement HCHP screen from Da-Lite. Wondering if I should just return everything & go back to my GrayWolf screen.

Yes, it's a new 2.4 HP screen. I received my first screen during the first days of January and my latest screen was manufactured/assembled in February after the OP's post so it doesn't seem to be a just bad batch issue either.

Zombie has a 2.8 gain screen which as far as I know doesn't have any of these issues. Even my dealer has an old 2.8 HP at home and he says he can't see any problems with it, yet he noticed the issues with my 2.4 from my screenshots.

Have you guys considered EluneVision screens? http://www.elunevision.com/

They have two materials both labeled as 2.4, and both are retroreflective. I can't find much info on them, but I wonder if perhaps they have better QC.

EDIT: I emailed them about the difference in materials, and how they compare to Dalite, this is their response, very interesting:

"One is a high-end screen, and one is extremely low end (and basically
discontinued, we are selling off the last of the stock). The Vivid-Pro
Cinema white has quite a bit of texturing, glittering/colour accuracy
issues, hot-spotting, it is not cleanable and it will severely downscale
your resolution compared to a Reference PureBright 4K screen.

The PureBright 4K screen material is a bit more colour accurate, and is much
flatter than the Da-Lite's High-Power, really meant for more high-end
projection theaters vs Da-Lite's which is more closely aligned to the
mid-range."
Edited by plissken99 - 3/4/13 at 3:43pm

Well nevermind, this was their next response when I asked about a screen sample and price quote for a fixed 150in 16:9 screen.

"We do not plan on making material samples available, but it’s not radically different than the 2.4 material from Da-Lite, if that’s not something you aren’t satisfied with. In the 150” size, shipping would be prohibitive, as that’s a completely custom size that we don’t plan on carrying, so it would have to be air-shipped to you from the factory overseas. It would be $1500 + $550 shipping. Since it’s a custom build, the sale would be final."

Looks like Dalite is still the only real option.

http://www.elunevision.com/pbfixed-features.html#performance

Thanks for the heads up about the EluneVision screen. I don't know; if you look at the website above, it looks a lot of marketing hype. For example, the image showing the 'sparklies' in their material vs. their competitors-- no way that's a real photo. That looks entirely simulated, as does the hot-spotting photo (looks like they just overlaid a vignetting mask on top of the original image). The resolution shot also looks simulated; no way my HP/HCHP screens lose that much resolution next to more Lambertian-like surfaces. I could quantitate the actual MTF... but to my eye the resolution looks no different between JKP Affinity & HP patches. Of course, that may just be the case for my size/resolution/viewing distance. Might be different for 4K.

The real question is: is EluneVision's material actually different? Or is it sourced from the same manufacturer? Seems to me Da-Lite & Draper source the same material for their HP/Radiant & HCHP/Contrast Radiant screens. Just package it into different frames.

Weird if they're not willing to send samples. Did you specifically ask about banding?