How important is a black theater room with the new brighter 1080p dlps?

I was thinking the same thing, however my new room will be black screen wall, black ceiling with the other 3 walls painted a deep burgundy. Trim will be in dark tan color. I think this will work for me since I wont have light issues.

Newer projectors have better contrast. This is just thrown away if the room is light and reflecting back to the screen. So seems even more important.

But if you always watch with lights on and don't mind not having full black blacks then the brighter bulb will help and the room won't matter so much.

Any improvement on white will be noticed. With a light colored room you will get less that 100 ANSI CR. I assume you machine is capable of over 500. Big difference.

Go as dark as you can then fire up you PJ with a pure white screen. You will see 3 main areas of reflection. 1 above the screen and 1 either side. Wall hangings or panels will kill these. Before you do that invest about $20 and get some 8ft hardboard panels and paint them black. Tape them in these areas and see the difference. They will also kill secondary reflections as they are the primary source of those. If this improves the performance (which it will) either get hangings or wood panels in these locations.

That fact is, however, that even the equivalent of a mid color will give a huge improvement over light. This improvement is actually bigger that that between a mid color and black. Once you go above mid tones you have achieved most of the gain

I have a purpose built annexe that is fully darkened on all 6 surfaces in the main viewing room and that then throws up the lighting issue. You will need plenty of spots and watts, but that can be zoned and tied into a control system and used to dramatic effect.

Hope this helps, and good luck with the project.

Dark greys work pretty well. Just be sure to use flat paint - don't use egg shell finishes !!

My new HT room was white eggshell two weeks ago (prior to my paintwork). Now that I've painted in a Clay Red Suede (very flat paint) the image appears to have far better contrast. It feels as if I've added a new bulb.

Important. One thing that many people don't realize is that with front projection, you have to have it dark in the room for optimal performance. Black is not a color, but the absense of color (light). In order to achieve it, one has to have a dark room.

Now that isn't to say that a bright projector won't be easier to see in a light filled room (vs. a less bright projector)...but, even a light cannon cannot make the image look as good as it would be with lights off.

In the beginning I was very reluctant to go with dark colors. My HT is also my living room.
The first concession I made was to paint the screen wall black. I also built a 10' shelf out of 2x4s that went a foot below the screen to hold the speakers, also black.
The rest of the room was painted Behr Oakwood Brown. That color was picked up from a large painting that hangs on the left wall. The last item was to hang acoustical panels on the first 3 feet of ceiling over the screen. The rest of the ceiling is left white. (Thank you Bud)
Tomorrow I'll hang the black-out cell shades that have been sitting in the corner for the past two weeks.
Every part of the process seemed to add to the picture quality and richness. Blacks improved.
Surprisingly, the darker colors do not give the room a cave atmosphere. It also does not make the room look smaller which was my initial worry.
Don't be afraid to experiment. Paint is cheap.
Tony

I think many people think of "dark" as black. You can go with darker tones of many, many shades and still aid in overall appearance of the image.

My wife was at first horrified that I wanted to paint the ceiling black. Actually you may be surprised at how it looks. I pointed out to my wife that many of the upscale restaurants we frequent have black ceiling tiles. If fact, that's the most common ceiling I see in the newer ones. Then when I painted the ceilng of the theater black, she really liked it. My walls are more of a milk chocolate color. I would not like black walls so my wife does not have to worry about that. The ceiling was at first dark gray which was an attempt at compromise. The black turned out to actually look much better. I used a Ralph Lauren color, Bone Black, that I got at Home Depot.

bulldogger, show pics

Enjoy!

Any specific recommendations for the black paint for the ceiling?

I've found that dark cotton velvet works better than paint. I've not seen a flat black that doesn't have some reflection. Curtains on the screen wall as well as 3 feet or so onto the side walls and fabric covered panels on the ceiling the same distance out does wonders. However, a solid black wall with no delineation around the screen can make the screen look smaller. Darkening the walls and ceiling beyond 4 feet out from the screen has diminishing returns.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the comments. As an experiment for the last couple of months, I did in fact pin up (ver tightly) a piece of black cotton fabric across my ceiling (~13 ft wide) that extended ~ 4 ft out from the back wall (to which the screen, 126 diag 9x16 HP, is attached). And BOY, did I notice now much nicer things looked. It was like having a 'black hole' out over the screen.

It was this positive experience that has led me to consider painting the whole ceiling black. For where I see the present black cloth end, the (off while) ceiling really is lighted up. I thought about extending the fabric another 3 ft, say, but then my wife thought it would look neater--and I agreed--just to paint the whole ceiling black.

But now your comments suggests that there is no flat black paint that doesn't have some sheen to it. I agree that black fabric would be a better light absorber, but it's really not feasible (in my case) to cover the whole ceiling with it.

So my question to this group: does everyone agree with mill1899's comments above? Is there really no flat black paint that would cause the ceiling to 'disappear' when the lights go down? Thanks for any feedback/suggestions.

I painted my ceiling and walls the blackest flattest black I could get. It still is visible and reflects some light. Black velveteen walls and ceiling will be my goal for HT 2.0. However, I think flat black paint is well worth it - the cost/install time vs payoff is great.

The two smartest things I did when I set up my HT were to paint the walls and ceiling a very dark color (Dunn Edwards Refined Green, about 4% above true black) and install a nice Carada brilliant white screen. I would highly recomend this as the first step for anyone using front projection.

The ceiling IS the most important. Paint, of course, is but one solution. (Vaulted ceilings,if you have them, work wonders).
Be creative and let the Mrs have a hand in the decoration.

"I would highly recomend this as the first step for anyone using front projection."

Couldn't agree more.

Texture always works better, but with that the WAF gets harder and harder.

If you were to put curtains on each side of the screen you could create a "valance" with thin plywood covered with fabric. I've done it with straight sections on the side and a middle section that curves out in front of the screen. If it comes down 5- 10 inches, it does not need to go so far out into the room to be effective. It creates a theater stage appearance. (I've done it with a curved "stage" beneath it.) If you think about it, you can probably remember being in a commercial theater that looks something like this. It's done for more than aesthetic reasons. I've found that some people respond to darkening the whole room too much as creating a "cave". Because the "stage" deals with the majority of the reflection, it allows for a wider selection of color choices on other surfaces without compromising the picture as much.

mill1899: Thanks for the suggestions. I do have some extra black fabric, so think I will try some version of your suggestions for my room. Thanks again--great thing about the forum, to get good ideas for others.

For an example of an all-black theater (with a dash of red to highlight the steps) using velvet, check my link...


Mark

Lots of great info here. Did not think a high power screen would benefit so much but it looks like it does. I've gone with a nice burgundy for walls and have some black velvet coming to drape over top to take up a few feet or so from the white ceiling. Improvement was already noticeable and the ceiling is still a few feet above the screen so that will increase the process.

Now with the walls a flat nice burgundy, not sure if the side black velvet curtains will really be needed. Guess that three feet on each side will just need to be tested.

Thanks for everyone posting their comments here.

I don't have the link but I found my black in this forum. The color is a home depot Behr paint in the Disney colors. It was either Mouse Ears or Micky ears. I painted around a 180 sqft ceiling (ceiling tiles) and installed small halogen lights. I love my ceiling now that it is black. also now i can even have a few lights on and still a great picture. ( panny aeu1000 )

do a search on mouse/micky ears and im sure you will find it

Here are a couple of threads that should be helpful
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/searc...archid=7224281

When painting for black I always use:

http://www.flints.co.uk/acatalog/Bol...nic_Black.html

This is the paint you (don't) see in use at theatres behind the scenery to black out non-scenic stuff. It's very matte and very black. Ideal for cinema use.

Problem is, the above link is in the UK - you'd need to find a similar item in the US.

Mark

I'm yet to 'see' a flat black paint that disappears completely with a fair amount of light hitting it. As Jason said, texture (surface area?) really makes a big difference. On the other hand, there are diminishing returns on blacking things out. The difference between a flat black ceiling and a black velvet ceiling is minuscule at best. While flat blacks work best, I've found anything beyond flat medium hues to not make all that much of a difference.

In an ideal world we would have black holes for theaters, but dark greens, chocolates, burgundies, etc. look so much better and offer almost as much performance as flat black paints.

Very interesting discussion. Thanks everyone. I am using my living room for my home theater...so I am considering a variety of colors to compromise entertaining with home theater use. Hummm...flat black cieling? Is it really wife approved? Deep burgandy walls would be fun though.

I am considering an upgrade to a 1080p PJ (likely the Mits 6000). But it looks to me like light control will be very important.

Marcus

"The difference between a flat black ceiling and a black velvet ceiling is minuscule at best."

As one who has had both I don't agree that it is minuscule. My walls and ceiling were all flat black up front and later on I tried hanging black velvet on the walls/ceiling and the difference was large. I could always see the room light up from the screen with the paint. With the velvet the room just disappears when the lights go down. As always YMMV.

Shawn

To a certain degree I agree with you Shawn. I should have prefaced by saying doing the entire room in one verses the other, the difference is minuscule at best. But, you're right... if you're able to treat the first few feet from the screen with black velvet (or similar treatments), there is a noticeable difference on how much light makes it back on to the screen. The benefits diminish rapidly after you get out a few feet when you're comparing flat black paint and velvet.