Black Diamond from Screen Innovations? - Page 12

Thanks for the info, i hope to have a word soon also, its a 1.4 gain

Yep, picked mine up today...and just got back in from a softball game. So no time to put together. But I plan to detail out the specifics with the install and performance in real world settings. Funny thing is that I already saw my screen as they were doing some QC demo and had some other engineers in the room checking it out as I showed up...so technically I know what it looks like.

On the gain issue. I do have a light controlled room with a dark flat brown ceiling and dark walls. I wanted the BD to help with light scatter with lights off and to have the rear lights on when guys are over to watch games and not have to sit in the dark. I was thinking that the lower gain screen would be what I need. I have a Panasonic AE 2000u 1080p. Any thoughts or suggestions?

h00kemh0rns: what is the gain of your screen? 0.8?

Yes sir.

h00kemh0rns: According to what others are reporting the 0.8 gain is the reason why you actually received your screen (I am really glad for you). Which projector will you be using? When do you estimate you can give us some feedback?

Damn! I was hoping someone would review a 1.4 already!!

Same reason I am interested in the BD, light scatter. However, I am thinking the 1.4 gain because most projectors don't seem to have the horsepower to make a picture 'pop' with less than 1.0 gain. I know my present HS-20 wouldn't. I am wondering though that without the light scatter, perhaps lower brightness is all that is required to get a real good image. Thoughts anyone? What would be the advantage of the .8 vs 1.4 and vice versa.

We're showing the .8 in our showroom with a BlackwingIII projector (tweaked JVC Pro Dila). I think the 1.4 will be overkill with a solid projector given the demo's i've seen on the BD. However our screen is shipping today so we haven't yet tested it in our theater room. We'll see soon!

Since this screen probably works by reflecting light from within certain angles and blocking the light coming in from sharper angles (like from the top and bottom), it may not work better with rear lighting than something like the Firehawk. Once somebody who can test which angles it reflects (has to reflect in a range where a projector can be placed) and which it mostly rejects we should have a better idea about the situations where it will work best. With this screen you might be better off using lighting that is more forward than rear lighting.

--Darin

I look forward to hearing your review. Something else I have been wondering is if the 1.4 gain controls the light scatter as effectively as the .8 gain does. If not, the added gain (in a light controlled room) might not be much benefit as far as image brightness is concerned.

I am very interested in the BD due to solving the light scatter in my theater without turning it into a bat cave. Oddly enough, I was thinking of a new projector and my wife actually commented that she thought I should buy the BD first (she really doesn't want me to turn my theater into a bat cave ). After thinking about it, I am likely to get more mileage out of my HS-20 (now on bulb #3 and still under warranty until Christmas) and projectors just keep getting better and cheaper so the longer I wait the more I will get for my money. My concern with the .8 gain is that it might limit my projector choices down the road so I am eagerly awaiting reviews on the .8 vs the 1.4.

Just heard back from Shannon and she said the BD 1.4 should be shipped in about 3 weeks

First, thanks to all of you for your interest in SI's Black Diamond screen material. It has been years in development and we are very proud of the results. Based on what we've seen on this thread, I decided to post. Hopefully this will clear things up a bit regarding deliverables on these units.

Our new Black Diamond fixed screens have begun to ship. The incredible levels of excitement, enthusiasm, and pre-launch orders we have received have been phenomenal. As should occur with any completely new technology, the first production runs are being heavily scrutinized to insure optimal quality. This extra attention to the manufacturing process will limit production capacity for a short while. Both gains are being independently analyzed and may deliver at different paces. We appreciate your patience while we get ramped up to full capacity.

Since I am heavily focused on the launch of this product, I am not on the Forum daily. Feel free to reply to my post or PM me with questions, but please understand that my response might not be immediate.

Thanks again.

Hi Aaron, will screen samples of the 1.4 gain be available?

"Something else I have been wondering is if the 1.4 gain controls the light scatter as effectively as the .8 gain does."

Higher gain means more directivity so whether light scatter effects are better or worse depends on where the light is coming from (its angle from screen perpendicular).

Aaron,

Glad to see you here.

Could you tell us the gain vs. horiz/vert angles for both the .8 and 1.4, and more info on the sizes/availability/price of the electric versions?

Thanks

I have the panasonic pt-ae2000u for my projector. The plan is to get the screen assembled tonight and this weekend is the beginning of the pro-install of my media/HT room. Not sure if it will all be done this weekend or not but first thing I wanted to get done is get the screen built up and do a quick demo in the room. Hope to have that done by no later Sunday...barring anything unforeseen.

Aaron good to see you on here. And thank you for the level of support you've provided... From what I see so far SI has the makings of something really big.

Oh, and I'll get you my feedback asap just as soon as I get everything installed. Hoping this weekend to get at least the screen/projector viewing.

After a little bit of a delay we were finally able to pick up the BD on Tuesday at around 11am.

Please keep in mind that we are still doing window treatments to the windows to the right side of the screen. This room gets a tremendous amount of light from those windows. I took these 2 pictures with my iPhone at about 2pm.

This room is very bright until the sun goes down. Look at the top left hand corner of the screen and notice how dark it looks compared to the rest of the screen. At 2pm with a ton of light in the room, the top left hand corner looked phenominal. The entire image across the screen was watchable from the DLA-HD100 in High lamp mode. The projector was mounted at 13'.

I know that I am not really being all that descriptive and I am sure there will be a lot of questions but I was truely blown away by this screen. At night it looked as good as any screen I have ever seen with no hotspotting. The image looked only marginally better with the room totally dark at night as opposed to having the lights full on.

We will begin using the Black Diamond in ALL applications from here on out.


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avdesignshouston: Thanks for the post. Is this a 0.8 gain or a 1.4?

It's the 1.4

So, they did ship out some1.4's. I can't wait to hear more from you. Are those things on the side and bottom of the screen in-wall speakers? They look pretty cool asthetically. When you get a chance, can you post some pics with the projector on? What size screen do you have? Thanks in advance for your response

THANK YOU for the pics, looks really good!

I didnt have a good camera with me nor the time unfortunately to take screen shots. I also purposely did not take pictures of it with the projector on with my iPhone because I'm sure people would complain that the screen is terrible because th pictures look so bad, it's out of focus, etc.
The things on the sides and bottom are the Martin Logan Voyage inwall speakers. We used the Dynamat Inwall kits to create enclosures in the walls for them. They sounded AWESOME and they look pretty cool too compared to your conventional inwall speaker.

The holes above and below the speaker on the right where where we had to cut and re route an 1.5" vent pipe! It kinda sucked since that was the only place for that massive speaker to go.

Does it have any sparklies/texture?

avdesignhouston;

Any thoughts that a .8 might have given better blacks? now that you are using it ...

BTW - great install.