DNP vs. challengers

Any ideas of what these cost? We know DNP and BD are expensive.
I don't know anything about the costs of producing those screens, but I would hope that more competition would start driving the price down.

Vutec SilverStar would fit into this category. I've compared it to BD and unlike the BD, it does not exhibit color shift.

These are very interesting indeed.

Elix, will you be getting some samples?

Not IMO, as it has no design features to overcome ambient light other than its intrinsic gain.

They claim that it's viewable with lights on, has a gain of 3, and a 180 deg viewing angle; those can't all be true.

I've been looking at the ISIS too. I'm waiting for some samples. As far as i know the price for a 100" 16X9 ISIS is around 1500$. Thats for the "film" only, not frame.

I've been sent some SkyLine sample material (All three types), so when it arrives I will let you guys know what I think compared to the DNP sample I've seen. I'm hoping it'll be as good, or close, as it's a lot cheaper

ader,

Also ery interested in what you find.

What other screen materials will you have to compare it to?

I don't have any other samples to compare to at present. Last year my very kind dealer lent me a few samples to look at, these included a Black Diamond sample (not sure what version or gain), a DNP 23-23 sample and a few other white screens.

To me that Black Diamond sample was a mess of sparklies and poor viewing angle. They may have better material now. The various white samples produced an image no better than a very cheap slide projection screen or a white painted wall to me.

The DNP 23-23 though, was I thought very impressive; and the only one of them that I would consider spending money on.

I'm moving house soon and will need a screen with a high gain (think white walls and wood floor). I want to trial the new Draper React II against Skyline material and DNP if possible. Hopefully I can take the Skyline samples round to my dealer to see what I can test against in same room/lighting if he is amenable. I expect the DNP to outperform the React II (it does cost more so I would expect it to).

How about if once I've viewed the samples I post them to Elix and he posts them onto Noah_Katz and maybe they come back to me eventually?

That would be great!

If you are looking for a 3rd, I'd be more than happy to participate as well... Very challenging environment (light walls, windows all around), have a 2.8HP, a bright projector (x10), a higher ANSI contrast PJ very soon (runco LS-1) and a decent camera setup for pics... Local to Mr. Katz as well, so no post necessary

No, but I'm in the UK and they said they were posting out last friday from Italy, so I expect to receive them this week. Fingers crossed.

nor does Elix; maybe you guys are close.

Elix, how big is the sample?

Hi all,

Well the samples arrived

They sent 1.2, 1.8 & 2.5. The samples are roughly A4 / US Letter size .

I had a quick look last night.

First off, let me describe my room/set-up. It's 18' x 30' room, I project onto the 18' wall, typically an image 120" wide with my JVC DLA-X3/RS40, and sit 14' back from the wall, so effectively use half the room as a living room/projection area. The ceiling is white. All walls are magnolia. The carpet is cream.

Currently I just project onto the magnolia wall. For what it's worth when I got the X3 I went through the Disney WOW disc and ended up with my projector settings being as per out of the box settings.

When I have the lights all off and curtains close on a night the room is very dark. Once I turn the projector on however, watching a movie, there is quite a lot of light bouncing around and the room is a lot brighter in general. Not bright enough to read a book, but not far off. But to be honest, to my non-expert untrained eyes, the image is currently actually pretty good (I probably don't know any better).

I'd like less light bounce back into the room to make viewing more immersive though, and if there's a way of using the projector with some lights on so others in the room can read or work at a Mac whilst I use the projector that would be great.

Between the projector and the wall there are over a dozen 50 watt halogen recessed in-ceiling lights. Obviously if I have all these turned on the 2d image is totally ruined, and if I watch 3d material then I need lamp in high-power mode and can't have any lights on.

So, on to the screen material.

I fixed the three samples to the wall with blu-tac whilst I had the lights on.

Straight away I could see that the material (especially the 2.5 gain) actually did what it was supposed to. It made the image watchable with all the lights on. Now when I say watchable, I mean that there was much more contrast and colour vibrancy. However, I do think the image looked a little bit washed out ( I suppose you can't have everything and remember there was 14 x 50 watt ceiling bulbs on between screen and projector). The image also looked a little bit "fake" or "processed" and less natural. I think I would say it gave the image a bit of a blue tint, which it might be possible to eradicate with calibration. I would say that the black floor had been raised (blacks were less black than with lights off) but colours, contrast and pop remained. All things considered, if the lights are on then the image looked best with the 2.5 material (out of the 3) and better than the image just onto the wall.

When I turned the lights off, I would say that the blacks stayed black and the colours and brightness were still given a lift. However, the image still looked a bit processed to me, and I kind of preferred the image on the wall (i.e. without the material) when the lights were off.

Now remember, this is only a small sample of material not a full screen. So if I had a full screen of the material the image would likely look different, as there there would possibly be less bounce back into the room? So I might actually prefer the material to the wall with lights off if I had a full screen of it.

I know you guys will be interested, so I would mention that when I viewed the screen samples last year the DNP SuperNova really wowed me. I do not remember thinking it had a tint, I don't recall thinking it looked washed out with the lights on. But memories are fallible, I really want to see both side by side.

My next step however, is going to be creation of some sample static images to project that has a repeating image in a grid system so I can more easily compare different samples. Unless someone knows of something like this that already exists? I'll do that today and review again tonight.

Lastly, the Skyline material is flexible material, and so if not totally flat suffers from wrinkles/shadows (same as any flexible screen material). To me this is a big positive of the DNP SuperNova aluminium-backed screen (fixed frame screen). Though to be fair, all screens should be flat as flat on a flat day in flatsvile so not necessarily something to consider?

I'm not making a final decision yet as I am buying a new house and that room will be different (darker floor, but it will be wood, and possibly even lighter coloured walls).

Elix/Noah_Katz pm me your postal details for the round-robin if you like.

ader, thanks for sharing your interesting results.

As you say it's hard to gauge what's going on with the a small sample when the rest of the image is illuminating the wall and scattering light.

Maybe you could make a scale miniature of your room out of or cardboard or paper the same color as your walls to see how much light the sample sends to the sides.

Actually retroreflective screens do not show waves except under extreme circumstances.

Okay I took some snaps of the Skyline material last night with my iPhone 4s. Picture quality isn't awesome and gets worse but hey I've not taken photos of my projected images before and I ain't charging ya.

First off the close ups with a £2 coin and A4 white paper:

A4 white paper and Skyline 1.2 gain


A4 white paper and Skyline 1.8 gain


A4 white paper and Skyline 2.5 gain



Next we have the samples as I put them on the wall. Top left is A4 white paper. Top right is 1.2 gain. Bottom left is 1.8 gain. Bottom right is 2.5 gain.

First with with the lights on (17 x 50watt halogen bulbs between projector and wall). Remember this room has magnolia walls, cream floor carpet and white ceiling.





and now a close up at center showing all four materials (includes A4 paper).



Now with the lights off:

A4 paper


1.2 gain on right


1.8 gain


2.5 gain




Now some closer pics:

A4 paper


1.2 gain


1.8 gain


2.5 gain




Now a view from further back showing all four:




Next we have another black and white test, this time with lights on



a4 paper


1.2 gain


1.8 gain


2.5 gain



And now a 1 x pixel test with lights on

All four materials


a4 paper


1.2 gain


1.8 gain


2.5 gain

And now for some colour/color

Red


Green


Blue


White


Black


Test pattern, all four materials


A4 Paper


1.2 Gain


1.8 Gain


2.5 Gain

Still with skyline material, now a few snaps from the Disney WOW DVD (lights off)










and a few snaps of some tiled images

Lights on overview


Lights off


Lights on


Lights off


Lights on


Lights off


Lights on


I'll try to get some less blurry pics, doh.

Hopefully DNP samples to compare with will arrive soon.

ader, thanks for the huge effort!

Were all of the pictures taken from the same angle?

I'm puzzled by the many of the first ones because the paper appears brighter than the samples.