Guys, I am planning a theater with the 5050 or 6050 and I have 5 questions for you:
1. Will either Epson handle a 160” diagonal 2.39 screen? The primary use is for movies in a dark, light controlled dedicated theater. The screen I’m planning is the Screen Innovations in the Slate 1.2 gain fabric. This is an ALR fabric, which I had planned to utilize for sports watching with some ambient light, but the primary use is for movie watching in a dark room. I would say sports watching is maybe 5-10% of overall use. I could switch to their pure white fabric if that would really helped the brightness, and just accept some compromises when having some ambient light in the room for sports parties.
2. The projector calculators I’m looking at say I should have the throw distance at about 22 feet. Closer than that puts the projector into a wide angle setting. Does that look right?
3. Would the 6050UB vs 5050 make any difference in image quality or brightness, given some of my challenges? I’ve read the 6050 has higher quality lenses, would this or anything else help my brightness challenges?
4. I’ve read about the noise on this projector and I’m planning on having to do a hush box since I’m assuming it will run at least in the medium brightness setting. Would running it in high full time be strenuous on the projector? Or does that just wear out the lamp sooner?
5. The 6050 comes with a mount. Is it a good one? How flush to the ceiling does it get? I was toying with the idea of mounting it to the ceiling and then building the hush box around it, but to make this work the mount has to get the projector pretty tight to the ceiling.
1.
Before getting any screen it's very recommended it be used on a wall for a few weeks to see what works.
An 160" 2.39:1 screen fits inside a 169.3" 16:9 screen. Square surface for this 169.3" screen is 85.08 ft².
16:9 needs to be used for calculations since this is the format the projector outputs and brightness goes to the black bars as well.
These measurements are taken with 100% zoom.
Zoom Lens Light Loss. Going from the widest to the full telephoto setting on the 2.1x zoom lens resulted in a little more than 28% loss of light in any given color mode.
With the current setup about 50% of zoom is used, so 14% of light loss.
To calculate the fL the lumens of the present and lamp mode needs to be divided by the square surface.
Example:
Natural preset in Eco lamp has 1438lm. 1438/85.08=16.9fL
Now take out the light loss: 16.9 x 0.86=14.53fL
After this add in the gain of the screen.
Can't remember if the Slate 1.2 actually has 1.2 gain, but let's assume that it does.
14.53 x 1.2=17.43fL
15fL is recommended for SDR, 30+fL for HDR.
Lamps loose around 25% brightness after 500h, after that the light loss is linear until the estimated hour rate of the lamp, which is 50% of it's original brightness.
The closer a projector is, the brighter it will be.
That being said, for this type of fabric and ALR's in general, in order not to experience visual artifacts a minimum throw range of 1.5x is recommended. It;s very likely that even at this throw range some artifacts will be visible with bright images. A throw closer to 2.0x would be better suited.
Throw range is calculated by the width of the screen. The width of this screen is 147.6"=12.3'.
22'/12.3'=1.78x
It's unknown how much the image will be impacted by artifacts at 1.78x throw range.
Can the projector be placed further back?
You can get the screen and try the projector at different distances, with smaller images.
What are the color of the walls?
The ideal setup is a room without any reflections and a white screen. Some users are unhappy with the image of any ALR screen, without any obvious artifacts like hotspots or sparkle. But you might not notice.
While an ALR screen is good at combating ambient light, a white screen, one with maybe a bit of gain would be better. The workaround is the light should not hit the screen directly. Recessed lights in the viewing are and not in the screen area.
And for only 5-10% of sports use I would just get a white screen and manage the lightning in the room.
As to what white screen you should get, make a thread or read some of the other ones here:
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/23-screens/
Of course a simple Silver Ticket/Carl's/Elite white fabric would do well.
If you want a screen with some ALR properties without the downsides, and increase the contrast of the image certain paint mixes can be used:
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/110-diy-screen-section/
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/110-diy-screen-section/1311989-official-silver-fire-v-2-thread.html
To read more about projector use in ambient light, check out this thread:
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/68-d...msrp/3101870-projector-use-ambient-light.html
A general discussion on white/grey/ALR screens:
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/23-s...screens-vs-gray-screens-color-pop-whites.html
2.Use this calculator.
https://www.projectorcentral.com/Epson-Home_Cinema_5050UB-projection-calculator-pro.htm
3. I don't believe there is any significant light output difference between the 5050 and 6050.
4. The lamp will wear out quicker if used on a higher setting. But they are not that expensive.
There is an increased thermal stress when using the projector in a higher lamp mode, but I don't know how much that will actually affect it's lifespan. If it's going to be used 5 hours every day for 10 years, that might cause some components to fail quicker. I'd say don't worry about it.
5. The mount the 6050UB is great.
Not sure how flush it gets.
Please consider treating the room for wall reflections.
Demonstration:
https://www.facebook.com/projectiondream/videos/1692721894385217/