2.35 custom rear projection - Page 3

More progress.Installing the screen not an easy task. The mirror assembly has to go first. Then the glass itself has to put in from behind the masking frame,so it goes in next. Then the masking frame and finally with serious lifting using "Suction" glass handling tools the glass is installed in the frame. DPI projector on its way as well.
Pictures attached.

The client wanted to see the screen from a popular breakfast/dining area. Without any interference from the primary seating. We raised the screen a few inches to accommodate his request. The original design put the door and screen pretty close in height as I recall.
There is going to be a "window covering" over the screen when not in use. That may help hide the height differences when not in use anyway.
Not to far from displaying video on this bad boy.

Actually I was reminded that the door is going to be an "invisible" model. It will blend into the wall finishes. No hardware on the front etc. I will certainly post some pictures of it as we get further along

We had to replace the "glass" a small scratch was not repairable. Stewart graciously offered a replacement.Long story,but it must have occurred during the handling at the factory? A small defect is big at this price point.
Moving around 600 lbs of glass not much fun,my back muscles can still feel it!
Things are starting to look pretty good however. The drywall patching and sanding is completed, so we brought the rack over. Perhaps next week we set up the projector? The finish of the room is going to be a ways off,but the client may want to drag some chairs in and catch a flick or two?
I attached a couple of pics to show the progress. Note the new door for access to the equipment and projector.Should "disappear" with the right paint treatment.

Getting close now.Here are a few progress pics. We hope to be watching a movie by Friday. More pics when I get things finished up.Note the picture with the access door closed. It pretty much disappears.
The customer had the whole room faux painted. Upon seeing the results made a change to wallpaper.Actually it seems like the right move! Starting to look pretty nice

Bigger Pics this time!!

Busy day today. We got everything working. The client is coming home tonight. It is ready at least for some test runs. Plenty of tweaking to do. Did not get a chance to take many pictures of the projection system in action,but the attached image is one of the set before we adjusted the image to fit the screen.
We have both the Hi Contrast and Hi Brightness lenses for the DPI to play with. After trying both of them I wish I had the best of both combined in one. The Hi Contrast is just a little dim and the Hi Brightness could use a little contrast. The drapes and blinds have not been installed as yet however. There is a fair amount of glare from the windows on the "Glass" surface. With some light control it is going to be awesome!
You lose some light output with the anamorphic lens as well. I am glad I got the HD500 anything less would have been too dim.
These giant mirrors can be difficult to get the geometry right. It took us quite a while to get things "square".The rear mirror is about 8 feet wide. The middle sags ever so little at the top. Pretty long span of metal.The anamorphic tends to exaggerate the sag. It has other geometry issues as well.
It would easy to see the advantages of a zoom and focus model like the Barco. Eliminating the need for the additional lens.
More tweaking on Monday as the DPI rep is going to be in town for the final set up.
Overall everything is working out pretty well. The audio really compliments the big picture. This system has the best bass of any of our installed systems.
Fun!!

The rep is not getting here until tomorrow.We are going to try both lenses and then calibrate with the winner as it were.
I did take a couple of precalibration shots. The Starglas is not perfect with lots of ambient light,but we are planning on integrating motorized shades in the next short while.Glare is the biggest issue I would say.
More pics when calibrated.

Interesting Day. The rep had just received an email from the president of DPI indicating that the Hi-Brightness lens was preferred with the HD500. Sure enough we measured the Hi -Contrast lens at around 400 on his meter. After we installed the Hi-Brightness the reading was over 1100! Way brighter.
The high contrast sucks up too much of the value of the double lamp system. It makes more sense on a front projection system with the HD250 for example
We also centered the anamorphic and tried to keep the image in the middle or highest quality part of the lens.Some focusing helped as well. I will say although the final video results were great, the focus on this lens on a lens is not very impressive. A zoom and focus approach would be worth considering. Some geometric distortion on the extra lens too
A small grayscale tweak by eye made a nice difference. I am going to calibrate with my Eye one when the lighting is better. Overall the video on this bad boy is unbelievably good! Even with tons of light. The increased brightness with the new lens was just the right amount. It is very hard to stop watching!
I will try to get more pictures as the room continues,but my expectations are being exceeded at this point.
A few pics attached

It is the Starglas 60. It is better in high ambient light conditions like this room. More horsepower needed however.
We did drop the bulb output to 80 percent of maximum. Should increase bulb life somewhat. Plenty bright with this "economy" setting.

It has been awhile since we specified Starglas for this installation,so I do not recall the details,but Stewart's website indicates the 60 is "ambient light resistant" while the 100 is intended to be beneficial with "edge blending" when using multiple images to make one big one.
I do note when displaying a gray scale ramp pattern on this Starglas 60 ,the darkest sections are easily discerned. Even with all the sunlight blasting in from nearby windows!
I would say it is ambient light resistant to say the least.
It still makes a lot of sense to shade the windows for critical viewing,but as the pictures show it is pretty darn usable under bad lighting conditions


http://www.stewartfilmscreen.com/starglas60.html

Finally got around to calibrating. Black levels were reduced to proper levels. I used the "Trim" setting under "Global" in the DPI menu to rough in the gray scale. Mark from DPI finds "trim" a quick way to put things "In the ballpark"
I then used the parametric gray scale on the Lumagen Radiance to fine tune. Really came out beautifully. There was even plenty of light output at 10 IRE for my not so light sensitive "eye one" to get an accurate reading.
This is a killer set up!
One might hope so for the money,but as mentioned it is beyond my expectations!
Attached are a couple of not so good photos after the calibration.

I only notice the light drop off in the pictures? When viewing from 12 feet there aren't any hotspots or weakspots in the image.
No different than a front projection system I would say.

Thanks Joe!
There is a Mitsubishi front projector with a retail of around $15,000 that is specified for around 5000 lumens. That would be a giant savings compared to the DPI we used. Have not seen one as yet.

TorArtle has a nice situation with a very deep projection room. No expensive mirrors required. We had a very limited depth requiring two expensive mirrors.

Dalite,Blue Ocean and others also have less expensive screens than the Starglas we used. Although Starglas is probably the best overall material on the market?
I am not sure if we ended up with 50 foot lamberts? It is plenty bright.

I am running the two bulb system at about 80 percent output.

Our client is really enjoying his new system!

Thanks again to everyone for all the input during the design and construction!