White, Grey, or Silver - A Review! - Page 5

I didn't mean to imply you need some lighting. Obviously the lower the lighting with any screen the better the results.

Now at 3 gain some people might find sitting in the dark with this kind of foot lamberts coming back at your eyes too much. In this case, some mild bias lighting would be great. Since the screen is solid, just a small light behind the screen is all you need. This will shut down your irises a bit, add a little indirect ambient light to the room and allow for a very enjoyable image and viewing. Check what bias lighting does for percieved blacks.

You get all the detail and image from higher gain, excellent percieved blacks from the bias lighting, accurate colors and whites and all the viewing angle you need. hmmmm

Gordon, I wouldn't say it exacerbates it. This would imply it makes it worse than normal. What is normal? If a white screen is normal then yes I think you can see the screendoor more on grey screens as shown in the illustration in the initial post. I use a D-ila so there is virtually no screen door anyway. I don't even think about these things like screendoor. Had I taken this picture with a DLP things would look much worse. LCD, you guys would run and hide

Also, what you see at the screen is not what you see at your seating positions.

No, this material doesn't violate the laws of physics it just takes it to a new level that we are not familiar with. Yes the viewing cone is twice what the other high gain screens are and it is a very smooth transition. All the other screens seem to go to about 20 degrees max then drop off very noticably and rapidly.

I really got my curiosity up tonight when I was pondering why this screen really only measured about 3 gain. Had they sent me the 4.5 gain material? Well I busted out my samples of 6 gain and 9.5 gain and put them up to the screen. Lo and behold...It's definately the 6 gain material.

The 6 gain material seems to be the sweetspot for this material as the dropoff rate is so slow and smooth it's almost not noticable even when projecting white only. If you notice the 9.5 gain material actually drops off fairly rapidly(yet smooth) and it's about the same as the 6 gain material at 25 degrees. As we get out to 50 degrees the 6 gain stuff still looks great and the 9.5 gain stuff is no longer reflecting much light.

This is probably why they have decided to just manufacture the 6 gain stuff. Definately a winner for home theater.




Michael, I thought for sure it must be the same viewing angle in both directions but just to make sure I tipped the 6 gain sample on its side. Yes the viewing cone is slightly smaller in the vertical direction. How? I have no clue. Just looking at the surface material it looks identical from all directions. However after testing the sample on its sideit's not quite as wide (a little smaller). This definatley makes sense to have the wider cone on the horizontal plane. No worries though, when you get your screen if you have your 16:9 screen installed vertically you should recognize something is wrong right off the bat

This stuff is amazing

OK no more pictures of white screens...It's making my D-ila look bad. I need the Shading Wizard! Mark?

Yes, the 9.5 material probably isn't for home theater. It's too extreme and th 6.0 stuff seems to be a great fit. Might be good for some commercial applications though like in a walkway at an airport. Bright, probably rejects ambient light good and if your walking straight on at it, it would be a great advertizing board for a projector. Just speculation.

D_B_0673, I hope you have viewed a single chip DLP projector before you purchased. You may be in for a big surprise! Dan, don't let me rain on your parade as I'm sure the Virtuoso is a worthy projector. I just don't tolerate one chip projectors. I will say when darinp brought over his calibrated HT1000 he put it in eco mode. The projector went silent. The image got a little dimmer but still very satisfying as the screen is ~3 gain. I must say, a nice little combo...and probably for any higher end DLP. I did however see rainbows all over the place.

Actually, I was thinking if Sony was smart they would send me one of their new SXRD projectors. I'd be happy to review it

For those that are interested in this screen maybe Alan could set up a powerbuy and make owning one a little easier.

I think the obvious answer to this is call AVS. My curiosity just got the best of me so I did. I highly doubt anyone else could beat their deal. It was way below what I expected. Nice work AVS!

If you are interested in this screen I suggest you call em.

Dan, won't this hurt you neck always looking behind you to watch your movies? I recommend putting this screen on your front wall. Search for "bias" lighting.

Gordon, I really wouldn't worry too much about about this "scattering" effect. Very very very low on the picture inprovement priorities list. You would have to have an extremely well tuned system to even notice it.

ALAN,

Hey you really threw me with your post so I forgot to thank you for the compliment.

I was thinking... What the hell is he thinking saying this should be in a magazine? Alan, don't you know by now that AVS crushes any magazine? The fact that you got exclusive rights to my work is a testiment to how worthy I think this communication medium is. Sorry to those who haven't found AVS yet. They'll have to just rely on the opinions of marketers.

Alan, maybe you should raise the AVS bar one notch higher by offering a yearly award to the most informative post. This would reduce the nonsense chatter, save on server bandwidth and probably pull in some of that Grey Matter we have lost over the years. I'd love to see some of the old brainpower return to AVS. BTW, $1000 award would definately raise my level of blather.

Yes, even DLP looks good on the SilverStar.

Thanks again for the compliments and you should definately pick one of these things up for the showroom. I continue to enjoy it's benefits. There is probably a stigma to the SilverStar that it's just too expensive. All I can say is I've seen a lot of products bought over the years that are much more expensive, and purchased on hype alone. What I can say about this product is it will likely be the best upgrade to the final image you'll make. Here's to delivering the image that you never knew was there!

VideoGrabber

here is the Kodak Website or you can do a google for kodak pictures, should be first at top

Randy Mathis,

I would not recommend this screen for dogs , noses, children etc. Generally dont touch this surface. I don't know if it would be vary receptive to cleaning as I don't want to do it and find out... unless I have too.
Get something the dogs can total and you'll laugh about it, not cry.

Christer, why would you hire a painter when you can do all that? If you have an air compressor use an HPLV gun and have fun. $50 at Harbor Freight tools

raoofsyed, I don't know about CRTs. I suspect it would be fine but you never know. Last night I watch Vanilla Sky and was just giddy about the performance. After the movie I was tired and wanting to go to bed, flipped off the DVD and Joy Ride was on HBO in HD. The picture was so stunning I stayed up another 2 hours watching in awe. This thing is fun

This thing actually makes my projector look like a super bright CRT. More depth, contrast, and has that slight softness that CRTs exibit. Very immersive! I wish there were some more veterans to come check this out as I think they would be impressed.