HIGH POWER a Review! Part 1 - Page 124

2 1/2 years and no waves. We pull it down about 3 times per week.

Thanks! It should work out well: my wife gets a TV for normal viewing
(it's in a bonus room with lots of windows), and I get a larger screen!

Darren A.

You are going to love it!

I have had mine for a few weeks now, but have had not issues with it so far. It is not perfectly flat, but you can't see any issues with it while watching movies.
I picked mine up on the recommendation of a forum member as well as Mark Haflich of the AVS sales team.
I am so glad I finally took the plunge and went with a real big screen. Mine is right at 133 diag. Could not be happier. Give it a chance, I think you'll like it.

I've got a Dalite Hi Power screen (2.8) with my JVC-RS2. Its 106" diagonal with the projector mounted 16.5' from the screen, almost dead center with the screen (no offset). The seating area is about 14' from the screen and the viewing eye level is about 2' below the projector lens. I'm thinking of upgrading to the Epson 6010. Would the 6010 be too bright with this screen?

I have a very similar configuration (and Epson 6010), but with the projection beam only about a foot over my head. Especially for 3D, it's amazing. The lamp will dim, or you can filter it. Either way, "too bright" is not a problem.

I was going Yo get the epson 5010 and a 159" high power screen. First row is 15' from eyes to screen and second row is around 21 feet from eyes to screen. Do you think the 159" is to big? Or should I go with 133"

Will I lose picture quality if I go to 159"

Hi power screen is the way to go. Geez I miss my hp screen. I even had the 2.8 gain. Loved that screen till me and my son were goofing around and he knocked over a speaker and scratched the screen. Had black marks from it breaking the glass beads so now it just sits in my basement on the floor under stuff. Now I'm back to my matte white screen and everyday miss the hp screen

159" is not too big. Never such a ing as too big. I've moved up from a 106" to a 120" now I have a 140" motorized screen. It works but eh still miss that pop with the hp and now with all this talk in this thread about 159" it might be time to move on up Again. Gotta upgrade the Epson 8100 though. Thing is a dinosaur !

I'm siting 12' from my screen and the projector is ceiling mounted directly over my head and I have 8' ceilings. There is no way I can drop the projector to near eye level so I'm not really expecting much gain from the HP but I'm thinking of getting it because of the reports that the HP material is smooth and doesn't have waves.

Would this setup be okay? I'm concerned that I may get some of the gain effect but it won't be even over the whole screen. Does the gain drop off uniformly over the entire screen?

Conan
You can,t bend all the things you want and expect the HP to conform. Your head needs to be very close to the light source. What you describe is thats not the case.
You need an angular reflective material to fill your requirements, simple really

Regards
David

Not going to be any better than a 1 gain screen. You may see the waves since you will not be viewing the image on axis. The screen does get some waves and wrinkles but you do not see them do to the way the screen works when set up properly. Buying this screen with you setup is not a good idea.

OK thanks guys. Was hoping that the HP was a thicker material and less prone to waves or wrinkles. I'm actually not getting for the gain as I know I won't really benefit from it anyway. What pulldown screen would you recommend for having the least amount of waves/wrinkles.

Has anyone here ordered/using a Model C High Power w/extra black drop top/bottom? I have an Epson 8350 and was hoping to have them make me a custom 2.35:1 screen with extra black drop top/bottom (essentially giving me a 16:9 screen with a 2.35:1 "window") but when I had an online chat with the Da-Lite reps, they mentioned that this could result in a "ladder effect". Basically, they heat seam the black drop to the High Power material, and that seam creates a slight ridge which, when the screen is rolled up, can cause a slight indentation in the High Power material every 10" or so. This would presumably lessen when the screen is down for a few days, but mine won't be, as I'm looking to retract it when not in use.

So now I'm leaning towards giving up on that idea and just going with the standard 16:9 screen (same width as what I would have been doing above). This will mean that light leakage in the black bars will be more noticeable and TV viewing will be bigger than I want it to be (I'd prefer that to be smaller so as to maximize my projector brightness and minimize the obviousness of the over compression of my cable TV HDTV content).

Still, before I completely give up on the idea, I figured I'd post here to see if anyone else had a screen with a significant amount of extra black drop and could comment on this "ladder effect" issue/non-issue.

Sorry for the double-post, but I'm hoping someone can help me out. Here's the latest update on my saga...

So I just got finished chatting (again) with a Da-Lite rep. He told me that even the standard black borders are heat seamed onto the High Power material now. If accurate info, I'm assuming that this change coincided with the introduction of the newer 2.4 gain High Power material, as my older 92" diagonal 16:9 Model B w/High Power 2.8 gain material appears to have a painted-on black border.

As such, this would seem to indicate that the "ladder effect" would be a potential issue on any High Power roll-up screen, regardless of whether it has extra black drop, or just the standard black borders.

Again, if true, I suppose the "good" part of this news, is that I should be able to get many of you 2.4 gain High Power Model B/C owners to confirm this (you should be able to feel a ridge between the screen and the black border/masking) and for those of you who frequently roll your screens up when not in use, if you could tell me if you see any signs of this "ladder effect" I would greatly appreciate it.

I currently have a Sony VW85 using a 106" - 1.3 gain screen. I am looking for a brighter image.
Would the HP 2.4 screen be too bright for this projector? We watch movies in a light controlled room with all lights off.

I really don't think so, but I don't have that projector. I run an Epson 8100 in eco mode on a 106" High Power and it is not too bright. Just looks like a giant Plasma

Just adding a data point here. The 110" HCHP screen I recently received has quite a distracting texture. Hard to show in pictures, but it shows up as horizontal & vertical streaks:


Also, I snapped the material onto the frame exactly as the instructions describe (start at the corners, etc.), and yet I still have these ripples on the upper left & bottom right of the screen (yes, shows up in viewing):


Swapping out is such a ridiculous pain & waste of my time. Anyone have experience with Draper screens? They have a Contrast Radiant which is similar to the HCHP; wondering if it *doesn't* have texture/streaking issues. Also, Draper uses a tension rod that spans the entire length of the screen, so it seems better to me than this snap system that is creating these ripples for me.

I'm on my fourth HP 2.4 screen and every single one has had a different issue. I got so sick of swapping them out only for the replacement to have issues of its own.

The fourth screen that I'm on now had some sticky residue in the lower left corner when it arrived. I cleaned it off with denatured alcohol and I think some of the beads underneath are messed up as it's duller in that spot. It's also not tight light a drum in placed and sags a little in the bottom middle. I don't notice those things when I'm watching normal content as they are at the bottom of the screen, but for the price you pay (especially in the Cinema Contour frame) I'd expect much better.

I will definitely not buy another DaLite screen in the future when I move. Nothing by problems and a waste of my time and money. Buyer beware, for sure.

I believe that with this frame, there are mounting points at the bottom in which you stretch the frame (after it is hanging) and then screw it into the wall. This should help with the wrinkles at the bottom (although they are invisible during viewing due to the nature of the screen). Otherwise it is basically impossible to get the screen material attached, which is certainly a feet in itself as is.

With regards to the sticky residue, that is unacceptable and I would send the screen back... again.

Jeez NNate; seems you & I are in the same boat! Problems with our Sony projector AND our screen(s). Home theater setup is fun until you keep getting crappy products; then it's just a waste of time.

Researching projectors by features, quantitating contrast, selecting screens based on their material properties -- that was all cool & fun. But then you make a decision and then end up with the actual products you've decided on... you affirm that you made the right choice from a technical standpoint... except the product itself is out of spec b/c of poor/non-existent QC.

Makes me a sad panda.

The ripples I have on my Cinema Contour HCHP screen cannot be removed with any downward pressure whatsoever. Maybe sideways pressure. Yeah those last few snaps weren't fun. Actually the 4th snap was the worst, since they ask you to snap the 4 corners first. The others are relatively easy. But sometimes I think some of the snaps exert too much pressure, causing the rippling.

I can actually see the ripples in viewing when there's skies and featureless shots on screen.

Aint it funny how a manufacture has something that everyone is happy with (mostly) and they gota go and change it.. A real shame..
I keep my eye on craigs list for a HP 2.8, don't care if it is to big or manual pull down.. will store it till I have a bigger house and will make my own fixed frame out of it. before I buy the 2.4.

Sorry to hear the problems you guys have had.    I had to return my original (110x62) HP2.8 screen because my AVS salesman wrote down the wrong dimensions.    Then when I replaced it with a larger (144x72) HP2.4, it came without the light-absorbiing material on the frame; this was Dalite's mistake.    In both cases, though, Dalite airefreighted out the correct screen within a day.     

 

I never had any problems with the screen material itself, nor wrinkles after snapping the material to my DaSnap frame.     In both cases I was extremely pleased with the screen after the above corrections were made.

I couldn't agree more. It's felt like one problem after another with this home theater experiment. On the other hand, if you can make yourself look past the flaws, it doesn't get any better than watching a nicely mastered Blu-ray on the big screen.

By which you mean 'The Dark Knight Rises'

Also, I can't un-see crap... therein lies the problem.

And seriously, no excuses for:

(1) Really bad focus non-uniformity (http://www.avsforum.com/t/1436740/sony-vpl-hw50es-focus-nonuniformity):


(2) Dirty screen/texture in a new $1200 screen:


(3) Ripples in a permanently tensioned screen upon assembly:


(4) Lamp flicker (video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJcbfPkaMlo

The youtube transcoding made it hard to see the flicker in the latter 2 scenes, unfortunately. I personally uploaded a higher quality video for Sony to see.

I guess there's some solidarity in shared suffering here :-P
Edited by sarangiman - 1/10/13 at 11:47pm

Sorry to hear your issue, but thanks for posting these.. I will avoid Da Late and move on to Carada BW for my 1st screen..

Since it's related to this thread, here's my report on Draper's 'Contrast Radiant' screen, which is essentially the same exact (AFAIK) material as Da-Lite's 'High Contrast High Power (HCHP)':

Issues with Draper's 'Contrast Radiant' surface


All the issues above also apply to the previous Da-Lite HCHP screen I had.

Read a more detailed description of all these issues here:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1334832/new-high-contrast-high-power-discussion-thread/390#post_23021074

Sadly, I don't know how to proceed. I want a retro-reflective screen with a very narrow viewing cone (to maintain projector's native contrast by avoiding side wall/ceiling reflections). Surely someone must offer an option without all these issues? Apparently the old HP 2.8 didn't have these problems-- isn't there some company out there still making a material like that? Why did Da-Lite regress so much?

Nice bokeh

Haha. You should see the f/1.4 shot :-P Of course, only like half a ripple was in focus...

What does the texture of the HP 2.4 gain material feel like?

I ordered an HP 2.4 screen, and I was expecting the material to be gritty like sandpaper or something, but it's very smooth. I'm wondering if they shipped me a matte screen by mistake. It's my first screen so I have nothing to compare it to.

Would appreciate any guidance from those that have the screen.

Thanks