The official SeymourAV center stage screen thread! - Page 3

Ned -

I never said it was "retro" reflective. It is reflective, or angular, but of such a high diffusion that it is closer to being a "scatter" screen like unity gain (1.0) screens are. Ceiling mounted projectors perform better with this fabric.

Cheers,
Chris

Either way will work. You could also build a frame and build, "feet" for it and have the whole thing sit on the floor. There are several ways to do it.

Building a frame out from the wall would be the most uncluttered look from your seating positions, but would most likely make it harder to setup or access speakers placed behind the screen. Hanging the screen from the ceiling with eyebolts is the easiest method, and would also look less cluttered from the sides of the room. I hung my DIY SeymourAV rolldown screen from eyehooks in the ceiling, and the small chains and eyehooks don't bother me at all. You could even paint them black and the hardware would blend in even more. It really gets down to personal preference and the need for unencumbered access behind the screen.

I have spent a couple of days viewing the Seymour Center Stage screen material with the JVC RS1. Bear in mind that I am not videophile but do know how to recognize certain artifacts. I was primarily looking for moire. I put of a few test patterns and watched two movies one HD-DVD, "Dead Silence," and one regular DVD, "Nomad." I tried zooming the image from about 110 wide to down to about 80 inches. I could not detect ANY moire. Also I spent a couple of hours evaluating the sound quality of the material. Personally, I think it is excellent. At first, I heard a slight bit of comb filtering with the material very close to the speakers, about 2 inches in front. However, moving the material to about 8 inches eliminated the effect I was hearing completely. This material is a winner. I am very pleased with it. As some of you may know from the DIY screen forum, I am building an electric screen. The decision to change motors to a Somfy motor has caused a delay as I have been waiting for parts from Somfy which are enroute via UPS. I used some stands that I have that have holes in the middle and ran a metal rod between them. To view the material, I just unrolled it between the stands and wrapped around the bar . This was the only method I had to view the material at the moment. Even with such a compromised set-up, the performance was still great.

Another observation I have made is that even hanging on a bar, I see almost no waves with this material. There is a very very slight wave in one area but even that is hardly noticeable. This is markedly better performance than the other material that I was using. I expect that when it is mounted, it is likely I will have no waves even without adding tension to the screen. "Nomad" is a good movie to view because of the pans of the large open plains in which the movie is set.

You might have previously mentioned Bulldogger but since you were testing for moire do you have your material tilted at a 15 degree angle?

Glad to hear that it performed well none the less...

No tilt and no moire.

I've a chance to play with a sample today. Interesting material with no moire at all. I'm using an HP right now even thought with my ceiling mounted PJ the Center Stage is significantly dimmer than HP.

Chris, anyway you can increase the gain on this screen?

Very soon. We had several screens come through last week and will have to be finished up this week - four of which are tabbed and will be photo-worthy.

Also been crunched recently with CEDIA prep and some operations planning.

Cheers,
Chris

Hi Ned -

The gain of the fabric couldn't be increased without paying other costs to the image. To have a gain equal to the HP, such a fabric would have to have even higher gain on the threads due to the loss through the holes. Cranking up the gain that high would decrease viewing angle, increase color shifting, reduce color and brightness uniformity, and lay fertile ground for sparkles since it's series of threads and not a sheet of vinyl.

The HP was designed for business use and isn't really appropriate for home theaters in my opinion. There are many great screen fabrics out there that I would happily cheer for, but I have to say I don't understand the HP's popularity for HT use.

I have some groundwork for other screen materials, but chasing after >2.5 gain screens isn't on the list.

Cheers,
Chris

Chris what is your address from where you ship from I can do a Fedex quote myself to Canada with the zip code. I recieve an e-mail from you about a screen already.

Thanks
Phil

Hi Phil -

PM and email sent.

Cheers,
Chris

Thanks Chris for the fast reply. I too have done as much reading on AT screens what I can and have decided that SeymourAV has my business when the time comes. For those of you who don't know I will be shipping this to Canada via Fedrecks and hope that it will arrive safe and sound for the distance it will be coming. I called them today and the cost of shipping alone is over $200, but for the product and the very reasonable costs I think I will be getting a as good or better product than I can in Canada at a better cost.

I am looking at getting a 109" diagonal screen for infront of my plasma and like most of you I have some speakers that will be covered, 5 to be exact. My main question is, do any of you have the electric screen without the case? I am going to case it in with a wood structure anyway and if I do not get the case I can save the cost of shipping basically. Or do you think that getting the case is just a better way to go with the screen? Any input would be greatly appericiated, maybe I'll give Chris a call.

Thanks
Phil

That is what Chillinintheoc did. Here is his thread
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=747487&page=2

Check out his pics in post 42 it shows how he did the screen in soffited enclosure.

Pictures being worth a few words and all, here is a snapshot of what a caseless screen looks like. The first picture is of the motor side, which mounts in a custom rubber mount that keys inside an L-bracket that ships attached. The rubber mount must be keyed inside the L-bracket for robustness, but the L-bracket can be unbolted and rotated to any 90 degree side you want to bolt to the vertical or horizontal surface.



Note that this screen doesn't have all the tabs, the tensioning hardware or weight bar installed yet. The cables just roll up nicely with the roller bar, but I'll post more pictures of tensioning system seperately.

Here is the passive axis side. On this L-bracket is the keyed ball-bearing. It just slides off and on, being a cylindrical axle through the matching round hole.



The mounting screw locations can be +/- 1" due to the wide slots in the L-brackets. I'll post more detailed dimensions on the site soon, but if you plan on the mounting locations being the same width as the case, you'll be fine. The standard orientation is for the tabs, or ears, of the L-bracket to point out. If you need otherwise, please make sure you let me know; it's only an issue on the motor side.

Cheers,
Chris

Thanks Chris,

That is exactly what I was looking for, the pics help very much. I think that would work for my application. Now just one other question, can a screen be made without the tab tensioning hardware? If so what it the preformance or wrinkeling effect without it as opposed to with it? Just thinking I may not need it if the material is heavy enough with the weight bar alone. That is if this is an option that is avaiable.

Thank you
Phillip

I am in the process of planning a theater. I had plans to be in Iowa and contacted Chris at SeymourAV. I was able to stop by his place for a demo and see his facility. Chris was incredibly helpful, and I am extremely impressed with his knowledge and willingness to meet customers needs. I look forward to doing business with SeymourAV when I am ready to purchase.

Good luck to all with your theaters.

Jerry

Has anyone tried putting a subwoofer behind one of these screens, along with their front and center channel speakers? My first thought would be that it would rattle the screen too much, but I think real theaters have their subwoofers behind the screens and I just got my theater chairs in and positioned and I have far less room than I planned on having for a sub in the back of the room

Yep. In fact I have two subwoofers behind my screen, and even with the subs cranked up to +3-5 dbs I have never detected any noticeable screen movement. Many people have subs behind their screens, and as long as there is plenty of "breathing room" around your screen you should not have a problem.

Jerry -

That was great fun. "The Weight" (ala The Last Waltz) and the apple pie were thoroughly memorable. The only thing I think we lacked was ice cream... (sorry)

When you're ready, a DIY fixed-frame kit would be the perfect solution. Let me know when you're back and needing some progress on that new room.

Cheers,
Chris

Hi Danny -

The air permeability of the material is high enough that subs behind the screen are rarely an issue. If you park a part of the sub where you can feel a breeze (e.g. a port), up near the screen then you could vibrate the fabric. Generally 6"-12" or so is enough airspace so that only the most insane subs can move the material. It won't resonate with room modes or pressure waves. In fact, being acoustically transparent, it's more immune to room acoustics. I have an infinite baffle sub that pressurizes down to around 12Hz and while the windows are visibly flexing, the retractable screen doesn't.

Cheers,
Chris

Hi folks -

As an update, I wanted to give you the angle on what we call tilting.

I've only had two customers that have experienced moire by using the fabric in the typical non-tilted fashion. Both were using LCD projectors, which are more prone to artifacting with AT fabric due to their lower fill ratios and more defined pixel structures. By typical non-tilted fashion, I mean constructing the screen with the image cut from the material roll with the threads oriented as such (for scale, this is zoomed in, the piece measures appx 1.6" wide):


The fix for using this fabric with non-Panasonic LCD projectors is to construct the screen by cutting the material at an angle with respect to the roll. While there are a few other perfect angles, the one that results in the least waste is 15 degrees. The screen surface would then look like this:


I wanted to post these two pics and try to explain first what is meant by tilting the fabric. You aren't tilting the SCREEN in any way, or cutting anything other than the perfect rectangle for your image. It's just tilting the fixturing used to cut the screen. It's more difficult and wastey, but we went back to some projectors that didn't moire and determined that it still improved the image quality. Even though moire didn't exist (DLPs and Panasonic's smooth screen are the most immune artifacting), angling the material's thread directions reduced pixel structure, screen door effect, and smoothed out the image overall.

Having had to replace the unacceptable NON-tilted screens, we then only have positive reasons for tilting ALL screens. While it's an incremental cost increase, it's an incremental improvement for the quality of all images and neither consumers nor friendly manufacturers enjoy replacing product. Win, win, and win.

Happy holiday week!

Cheers,
Chris

Thanks for the update Chris...good to see this as a standard feature.

I also have an infinite baffle sub setup behind my screen and I've only once been able to move the screen. That was when I was trying really hard with a really low frequency sine wave turned up way too loud. I have never once noticed any movement at all at sane volume levels listening to music or watching movies.

Thanks for that. I've been wanting to ask a question and the word "tilting" has inspired me:

As many here, I'm suspicious of electric screens i.e. if rolled-up 95% of the time can they possibly unfurl smoothly and "flatly" long-term. I have a 60" RPTV that I want a 2.35 maybe 120"er in front for movie spectaculars. If I constructed a screen with an aluminum frame, such that it would be hinged at the ceiling and rotate up-and-against the ceiling when stowed, should the fabric be supported underneath so that "sag" doesn't bow it long term?

We HT geeks are worry-warts, but you know that! Clearly for me the electric screen would be ideal, I just dunno about rollup/tensioning. Also cost is something of an issue for me.

Chris,

I also appreciate your update on moire and tilting the screen material. We are still really enjoying our 2.37 Center Stage AT screen, it is one of the best things I ever did in my HT room. With the speakers correctly placed behind the AT screen the movie soundtracks can synch perfectly with the video presentation, which results in an incredibly immersive movie watching experience. I am constantly amazed at how precisely you can match up the audio to the video on screen with just three speakers up front.

It is good to hear that the Panasonic smoothscreen helps eliminate any potential moire problems. I am very pleased with my Panasonic 900 projector, so when I upgrade in the future I will be taking a pretty hard look at the Panasonic 2000.

We still like our DIY screen made with your material, but someday want to buy one of your electric "tilted" screens. Once I make the move to 1080p I want to be sure to maximize PQ, and it appears from your work that tilting helps do that even if moire is not an issue.

Keep up the good work,

Mike

I would support it. Not in the center so it doesn't get in the way of the center speaker, but at the 1/3 width lines. The fabric doesn't stretch much, just over 1% parallel to the thread directions, but that's still a large enough piece that you'd struggle to get it flat otherwise.

If you end up trying this approach, it should go in the DIY forum.

Cheers,
Chris

Thanks for your reply Chris. I'll admit tho I'm leaning towards your electric at this point, the (F)ilm ten-footer. Two questions:

1. I know the cord gets hidden by the enclosure, but any chance the motor can operate from the right vs. the left? Naturally, my pre-wired box is at the right side of my ceiling!

2. Is the optional backing "loose" or is it somehow mated to the fabric to provide added "stiffness"? Acoustic transparency is not a feature I need btw--maybe you have another material in mind for a future option? (sorry, that's 3 questions)

Hi Laserfan -

1. Yes, the motor and cord exit can be ordered on the right side (as viewing the screen). It's a nonstandard option, but it isn't rocket surgery, (which is hard.)

2. If you don't need a retractable screen, they are never a better solution because of their retractability. Unless there's value in getting the screen out of the way, fixed frame screens are the simpler solution. Fixed frame screens from any company are always flatter, simpler, and less expensive a product than electrics.

3. Similarly, if you don't need acoustic transparency, then the visual portion of the screen's performance is never better due to being AT. If it were my money, I'd buy Carada's Brilliant White. The top surface out there is the Stewart Studiotek 130.

Of course being an audiophile, I absolutely cannot stand to compromise my sound and accept the acoustic distortion that solid screens impart. Too many people reduce their fidelity by not using identical speakers for their center channels, because they often can't and they follow that up with further unwise decisions on how best to compromise. Too many are using horizontally-aligned redundant drivers in a center channel (e.g. MTM or worse: MMTMM, WWMTMWW, ... they exist).

If you are using a smaller image size, can use speakers that are identical models across the front, with all their drivers aligned vertically as line sources, and don't mind the soundfield originating from below the image, then go non-AT. Or if you listen to your HT through headphones; that'd be OK.

Sorry if that sounds soap-boxish. But it's true that with only respect to your vision, AT never helps a screen's performance.

We won't be be abandoning acoustics for any future screen material options.

Cheers,
Chris