HIGH POWER a Review! Part 1 - Page 123

I had a bad day yesterday. I have a 139x78 highpower mounted in my theater. i was pulling it down and one of the straps holding it up broke. The screen wadded up on the floor. Now I have spots all over the image. I will have to buy a new scree. I was going to mount the screen in a fixed frame. I still want to do this and remember when I bought this screen a model c was cheaper than just the fabric. Is this still the case and if it is, why? Yhe case has to add quite a bit to the cost. Is there any way to purchase the material cheaper?

My 2.8 HP is 7 foot tall and has seam 1 foot from the top. Yes it is visible on solid white but I rarely notice it during a movie. I think the important thing is where the seam is positioned, if it's out to the edge of the screen then it's not really a an issue but I would imagine if it was across the middle of the screen than it would be unacceptable.

Buying the material in a pulldown model is the cheapest way. I looked into it recently and it's still the way it was years ago.

I have a 133" electric Cosmopolitan. It has a few waves but nothing that affects pq. I imagine if it was a fixed screen it would bother me to see it, but during movie it is a non issue. Not sure if that helps you any...

Does that screen have extra masking at the top or is it just the normal couple of inches? Just asking because part of what I'm wondering is if having more of the lighter-weight masking material up top, with the heavier-weight screen material below might make things better/worse in terms of waves.

You could try washing the screen but it's not easy, it takes a bit work to get a streak free finish.

My 2.8 HP has a join at 6ft because it's 160" 16:9 and when it arrived it was immediately obvious that the top 1ft piece was brighter looking than the bottom 6ft piece. I couldn't send it back because of my location so I just put up with it, fortunately it wasn't that noticeable during normal viewing so I didn't worry too much.

Recently however a large bug mark turned up on the bottom half and had to use a mulitpurpose cleaner to get it off as it was very stubborn. I tried water and then soapy water which was recommended but neither worked. What I noticed later when watching a movie was that the section I cleaned was now brighter then the rest of the screen.

Of course the only solution now was to clean the whole thing from top to bottom with the same mulitpurpose cleaner and hope that it would all look uniform, fortunately after many goes it did. I no longer have a bright patch where the bug crap was and the top and bottom pieces are identical looking in gain and brightness.

My conclusion is that the bottom section of the screen and possibly to a lesser extent to top piece aswell had some kind of residue on it which reduced the gain of the surface. Cleaning it off increased gain but it also improved colour aswell and it reduced screen texture. I now find the screen texture on my High Power to be much harder to see and this has had a positive effect on the image. I think in general the picture is better.

The striping and smudges that some people report I suspect is that same residue although I'm not really sure.

So the way I cleaned the screen was to basically wet it from top to bottom in one go with the multipurpose cleaner(I used Ajax spray n wipe 5 in 1), then let it sit for a few mintues and then wipe down with a damp cloth, repeating this a second time. After the second go I had to wipe it down about 10 times with a bucket of warm tap water and a cloth to remove all of the soapy residue left by the multipurpose cleaner. If you don't do this you will have visible streaks. It's a pain to do and it took me awhile but I did eventually get a streak free screen.

There may be a better cleaner for this type of job, something less soapy perhaps but it was the only stuff I had that actually cleaned the screen without scrubbing and harming the screen fabric. You have to be careful you don't use a chemical that is too harsh or scrub the screen too hard as it could damage the facbric obviously. If you are going to try this you might want to use a test piece first to be safe.

I have posted this in the past but things get lost in this thread.
The below was done several times on a classic 2.8 screen but not tested on the new 2.4 which is different. I see no reason why this would not work on 2.4 but you should test a sample or area of screen along the edge/bottom first if you can.

Denatured Alcohol on a NEW CLEAN micro fiber cloth will allow you to clean the screen, with no streaks and very little dry time. Apply and wipe with one cloth and wipe dry with another. A hair dryer on cold can aid in almost instant dry time. Work in small over lapping areas wiping in one direction helps to prevent missed spots.
When utilizing the above method, it is very helpful to turn on your projector and display a white screen from the setup menu if you have one. This way you can see what is clean and what is still streaky and or missed.

WARNING~ Denature Alcohol ,it is HIGHLY Flammable! Be very careful and have some ventilation and no smoking or open flames in the room!
If you have bug spots, hydrogen peroxide helps greatly as it acts as a bleaching of the bug gunk. Apply to the bug and let it sit for a few minutes, reapply if the area drys, then clean as above.

Water and other cleans work to but as you have read, it can be a pain to get all of the detergent off and then you must wait a few day of dry time before you know the final outcome.

Yeah I probably did it the hard way although I'm not sure if one could safely clean an entire 160" screen with Alcohol, it's a very large surface area but I never tried it so I can't really say. Also you would have test it to see if it removed the screen residue I talked about. If it did and you could do it safely then using Alcohol sounds like a much better solution. Too bad I didn't know about that earlier.

That sure would be a long and painful job.. you can only work about a square foot at a time with alcohol..

Thanks for all the input everyone!

My replacement screen (number 3) in nearly perfect. It looks much brighter as well. Probably because the reflective coating is applied more consistently or there's less dirt on the screen.

The only downside of this one is that there is a small spot (less than an inch square) near the middle of the screen, but is hard to notice during normal viewing - but is clearly visible with a bright white screen. Has anyone else tried cleaning a small spot on a 2.4? If so, what did you use. I'd hate to make it worse.

Scroll back 3 posts or so.. If you have a sample test the whatever you use on it first.

Yeah, I saw that. I just wanted to hear if anyone had tried that procedure on the new 2.4 fabric. The directions on the dalite website say you can use denatured alcohol so I'm assuming its still okay.

I still have the screen that had the horizontal streaks so maybe I can test on it to make sure. Otherwise I'll request a sample to play with.

OK, just to make sure we're on the same page. Denatured alcohol being that stuff you find in the paint aisle used for cleaning brushes?

Yes, used to thin shellac and make fire.. so be careful comes in quart cans in the paint aisle
http://www.sunnysidecorp.com/product...chemicals.html

To update with my experience trying to clean my 2.4 HP screen... I used the denatured alcohol and found no negative or positive difference. It looks like the mark I'm seeing on my screen isn't dirt, but instead an issue in the actual beads or coating. Since this is my best screen yet of the 3 I suppose I'm going to deal with this problem unless anyone had other ideas I can try.

Going forward Da-Lite really needs to address their quality issues with the HP screens. Their customer service is very helpful and willing to swap out the screens, but it's been such a huge pain and waste of a lot of time. Taking time off work to both accept the screens and return the old, snapping new screens in place, disassembling and boxing up old screens. Ugh.

I find it very interesting that there are all these quality issues.. When they replaced the old 2.8 they (sales manager) told me the new screen would correct a lot of quality issues they had with the 2.8.. looks like that was BS!

I'm looking forward to getting my 100" diag (49x87) HP 2.4 screen. I'll be matching it up to the Optoma HD33 projector.

I take it AVS doesnt ship to the UK ? These screens are not cheap in the UK.

Got a question on the "Updated Da-Lite HP Screen Gain Calculator".

I'm planning on a 115" wide 2.35 screen. I was thinking of the Stewart ST-130, but the sparklies make me nervous, so I'm looking at the HP 2.4.

I'm using the calculator for the HP 2.4 screen and the gains that I am getting are left = 1.30, center = 1.38, right = 1.54. My question is how noticeable is the brightness variation across the screen with the gains noted above and what differences in gain are noticeable? These numbers reflect someone located closer to one edge of the screen.

Thanks,

Has anyone sold their Dalite HP screen?

I have a 106" 16:9 Dalite HP 2.8 gain Model C pulldown screen that I want to sell (bought a 119" HP screen) but I'm wondering where I can try to sell this. I would think this would sell since the 2.8 gain material is excellent and is no longer sold.

Shipping would require freight and I'm sure it would be expensive.

I sold mine by listing in the AVS Classified's. Fortunately I had saved the original box and packing, and though it was a hassle shipping it, it made it just fine all the way across the country.

Thanks! I think I still have the original box stored for this screen in the attic as well. I know the distance matters in shipping cost but if you don't mind me asking what a rough price was on shipping something of this size?

Don't remember explicitly, but I think ~ $200 (CA to GA).

Have you tried a sample of the Stewart? I use a hp in the showroom because I have a lot of underpowered projectors come in but a Stewart130 would be my preference. I saw aa full 1.7 at ces in the jvc booth and it was also a good screen but did have some sparklies.

Thanks! I figured it would be very costly to ship.

I don't have a projector yet........still investigating. The demos that I've seen show these sparklies on the ST-130. One place that I've gone has 4 theater show rooms and he exclusively uses 1.0 gain screens and I love the smoothness of the image. The problem is twofold: I don't have a bat cave, so it will light up the room (one thing that I noticed) and as the bulb ages I will be too dim (under 12 fL's).

That's why my question on the HP 2.4. Any experience with noticeable brightness non-uniformity across the screen from off-axis viewing (35°)?

Thanks,

The new HP 2.4 has a 20degree viewing cone. Do to being retroreflective you have to setup ideal to reap the benefits. No ceiling mount. You will find that everything is a compromise.

I had the exact same problem with a Model C 2.8 159" screen that I just bought a few months ago. YES Da-Lite still have a few of them in stock. I got mine 5 months ago drop shipped directly from them. Well after about two weeks I started to notice that about 1/5 of the top of the screen had developed a dark shade stretching all the way across the screen horizontally. Man was unhappy and just thought that I had a defective screen and that I would just live with it then take it down, ship it back, install new one, blah blah blah. This thing is BIG and HEAVY and a pain in the neck to install.

Well yesterday I noticed that another dark shade (a few shades lighter then the first) developing about 2/5 down ! What in the world is going on here. There is no way I can live with this. I was just about to call Dalite but then I thought I should check here first! GOOD OLE AVS Forums to the rescue! After a quick search I found the quotes above.

Well I cleaned the top half of the screen just as described by Mystify and WOW what a difference!!! It looks a 1000 times better then before. It looked so good that I could see the dirt on the bottom half of the screen that I never noticed before. So I just cleaned the whole screen and I'm just speechless. The screen looks incredible. MUCH better then it was even brand new out of the box.

Just wanted to let you guys know to CLEAN your HP SCREEN!!!!!

I am a dealer in ontario. Kind of depends. If you get the fabric with the binding and snaps it still takes more time to make the a pulldown. You do not need the binding for a diy project.

The 2.8 high power is no longer a sku.

The new 2.4 high contrast and standard high power do not glass beads.

The case for a pulldown is just a stamped punched metal. If you are going to do a diy frame for the material I get my customers to order it with an extra black top they can just roll it out on a clean surface and cut it.

Dalite extruded aluminum screen frame with the velvet and snaps called the cinama contour is a bargain.

Talked to the dealer where I bought my first screen. She is really awesome. Told her I needed fabric but not the casing. She talked to Dalite and the model C is cheaper than the fabric. Shipping was going to be $114. She called and asked if they could cut the fabric out of the casing and just ship it to save shipping. The guy had to ask and call her back. Someone else at Dalite called her and this guy said I just needed to order a replacement fabric. They actually have a part number for the fabric only. I ended up getting a 139x78 Hi Power replacement screen for about half the price of the model C.

Wondering if anyone has had any problems with keeping the manual screen rolled up most of the time. My wife wants to get a flatscreen in our TV room, which would be
watched most of the time, with a rare movie (1 or 2 per month). I was looking at a 119" diagonal model c manual pull down, but I'm concerned with waves (or other problems?) after being rolled up for so long. With 2 very young kids I don't get much of a chance to watch movies anymore!

Thanks,

Darren A.