[jefny]

I am about to buy the Infocus SP 5700 from a local dealer and am wondering what is the best screen for this projector.


I am using our famly room (21 foot by 15 foot) and hope to get an 8 foot wide screen (110" diagonal) that is not a pulldown but fixed. I expect to have fairly good light control (when my wife finishes the heavy dark green curtains.


My seating area is 13.5 feet back and I expect to mount the projectot about 18 feet back from the screen.


Any suggestions will be appreciated.


John

 

[Carl Brinkman]

If you look in the screen forum you will find more threads on this topic than you have time to read. I'm firmly in the Stewart Firehawk camp but the opinion is by no means unanamous.

 

[ZedZ]

For the 5700, I'd reccommend the grayhawk over the firehawk if you are going with Stewart. The 5700 could use a little help with the contrast and is bright enough to overcome the lower gain on the grayhawk. Plus you get a wider viewing cone.

 

[bowguy]

My first view of a 5700 was WOW, and it was on a firehawk screen!


I bought a carada Brilliant White 110" screen instead and love it, and yes it is still a WOW. My sitting is between 12 and 16 feet from the screen with the PJ at 17 feet. It looks great. Carada is a great company to do business with, the cost is a lot less.


If you are in the Spokane area, come for a look see.

 

[krasmuzik]

You should not exceed 8' for that viewing distance - that is right on the Infocus recommendation for screendoor vs. sharpness.


Certainly a grey screen - I have an 8' wide FireHawk, and had to dim down with a ND4 filter to achieve move theater level brightness of 16ftL. My demo 5700 is unusually bright - but this model seems to be trending brighter than the 7200. I would suggest a grey negative gain screen combined with a filter. If you have narrow light walls - then go for the higher gain greys to avoid wall reflections - get a more intense ND6 filter to combat brightness. The cool thing with filters is you can take them off for the shades open lights on SuperBowl party and really lite up the room.

 

[krasmuzik]

Did you say you were in Seattle - how did you come up with jeffNY as a login? I have almost the exact same dedicated room setup if you want to drive down a few hours and check it out for throw/gain numbers vs. reality!

 

[leckian]

Grey screens provided a service when they were first introduced and CR of the projectors were 300 to 1. Now the CR of the projectors are good right out of the box and the grey screens are no longer needed. If you look at just the effect a grey screen has on black levels you will see a benefit, but the grey screen have a negative effect on colors and whites. This was an acceptable trade-off when projectors had weak contrast but it is no longer. You are better off with white whites, purer colors that are projected onto a white surface and slightly elevated black levels.

 

[krasmuzik]

Grey screens and gain screens are more of a benefit to improving ANSI contrast of the room than the on: off contrast of the projector. This has been discussed before on the screen forum. Their use is still valid even with improved contrast ratios - and on a bright projector like the 5700 they can still be used to improve absolute black.


Properly implemented screens should have no more effect on white than a properly implemented neutral density filter. The eye is adaptive - the brightess white it sees is what your brain calls white. Sure if you compare a page size grey screen sample next to a white screen - the grey screen will look dingy and grey.


Just like headlites left on during the day look dingy gray - they do not look that way at night when they are the brightest light source and thus become the white reference.

 

[leckian]

I would rather not have to trick myself into thinking something is white when it is not and relative to a white screen a grey screen has a negative effect on the purity of colors.

 

[krasmuzik]

You are not tricking yourself - it is the way your eye/brain works. The eye/brain is not a linear device like some projector purchasers seem to think!


Same deal for colors as whites - if you follow the HSV color scale a grey screen reduces the value of the color as much as it does white. It does not change the saturation or hue.


Yes indeed medium red becomes dark red - but as all things are relative one will not notice. This is no different than turning the contrast control down on your TV!


Now indeed there are reports that the FireHawk is shifted blue, and the popular DIY paint shifts green. But those are not truly proper grey screens.


Anyways that discussion belongs in the screen forum.

 

[jefny]

Thanks for the input. The dealer did recommend a Da-lite grey screen with a kind of velvet frame but he was askng about $1,300 which I thought was a bit much. My biggest problem was to actually see a 5700 in action but none of the local dealers has one set up. I did find one with a 7200 to look at.


As for my room, I have a dark green ceiling with the walls two-tone-dark green and off white. The carpet is also dark green as are the curtains so I don't believe I will have a problem of reflection.


Too bad I don't live near Seattle-I live in Long Island, New York. JEFNY is my initials plus NY for New York.


John

 

[leckian]

jefny

If you are uncertain contact Dalite and they will send you samples and you can conduct your own tests. It is worth a little extra time for you to make a decision that is right for you and that you won't regret later.

 

[ATDahl]

If you check the screens thread, you will find that no Carada owner has had any complaints and I believe that the send free larger than average samples of their 2 types of screen material. For me, Carada was hard to beat for the price.

 

[John Schuermann]

I would suggest a grey screen for the 5700 unless you are a brightness nut and black levels are not the most important thing to you. In DaLite the HC DaMat will render the deepest blacks, the HC Cinemavision will be a brighter overall picture. In Stewart I'd definitely recommend a Greyhawk and only a Firehawk if the ambient light is an issue. If you want to save some money and go with the Carada, use their .8 gain grey screen.


I've done several shootouts with the 5700 and these recommendations are based on my perceptions and those of the guests as well.


Good Luck!


JOHN

 

[leckian]

It is very hard to believe with today's modern high contrast projectors that grey screens are still being recommended. It just goes to show that old ideas and ways at looking things die hard. It appears that grey screens muddy whites and destroy color purity all in the name of slightly lower black levels. With CR of over a 1000 to 1 common in today's projectors a grey screen is a bad choice. One of the things that promoters of grey screens like to point out as a benefit is that grey screens help mask screendoor-well if grey screens can mask screen door just think of all the other details in the picture that are going to be masked-and they will be.

 

[Scott B]

leckian,

Gray screens do nothing for on-off contrast, but they do help with ANSI contrast. This will be true regardless of how high contrast ratios get with digital projectors. The only reason why a grey screen would mask screen door is because the ft-lamberts with the grey screen are lower.

 

[John Schuermann]

Quote:

Originally posted by leckian It is very hard to believe with today's modern high contrast projectors that grey screens are still being recommended. It just goes to show that old ideas and ways at looking things die hard. Ii is indisputable that grey screens muddy whites and destroy color purity all in the name of slightly lower black levels. With CR of over a 1000 to 1 common in today's projectors a grey screen is a bad choice. One of the things that promoters of grey screens like to point out as a benefit is that grey screens help mask screendoor-well if grey screens can mask screen door just think of all the other details in the picture that are going to be masked-and they will be.

Interesting - in the last Parker shootout everyone commented that the Greyhawk made the screendoor MORE visible! I've NEVER stated that grey screens mask screen door. In fact, one of the reasons I went from a HCCV to a Firehawk is because it brought out textures and detail in the dark areas of the picture with the 7200, which I thought overpowered the HCCV (which is very very light grey). When I put the BenQ up on it, though, the Firehawk darkened the image so much that I much preferred the HCCV or white screen material with it.


We are talking about the 5700 here, which is an INTENSELY bright projector. If we were discussing a BenQ, Sharp, SIM, or Marantz, I would suggest a white screen. There is no one screen that is the perfect match for all projectors. My recommendation is based (as I said before) on the subjective impressions of the 5700 that were obtained with four different shootouts.


Please check out a 5700 on a white and grey screen before just telling me I'm "wrong." If I'm wrong, then so is Bob Williams, who designed the thing! He recommends the exact same Dalite screens that I mentioned above.


As krasmusik pointed out, a proper grey screen will NOT alter hue or saturation.


I can agree totally with your statement that anyone trying to figure out which screen to use should order the samples and make up their own mind. That is always the BEST advice I can give.


JOHN

 

[krasmuzik]

leckian,


watch the screen forum as Michael Grant has promised to bludgeon us with his grey screen treatise. He promises to put Trygs screen reviews to shame. Feel free to comment further with him over there - he has a preliminary bout thread out. But you will not get very far claiming that grey screens only exist because some projectors are lousy - the fact is that the majority of rooms (including six-figure high performance rooms) can benefit from a grey screen.

 

[leckian]

Quote:

Originally posted by krasmuzik leckian, But you will not get very far claiming that grey screens only exist because some projectors are lousy - the fact is that the majority of rooms (including six-figure high performance rooms) can benefit from a grey screen.

As long as what I say are claims and what you say are facts there can be no argument. Furthermore I don't appreciate having words put in my mouth since I never called any projector lousy. Those are YOUR words and you need to own them.

 

[krasmuzik]

So if you go to the theater and you see 12 ftL at its brightest illumination - do you say it is grey compared to the whites of your plasma running at 100ftL in your living room?


Does a 200 Lumen projector have grey whites compared to a 1000 lumen projector whites? Of course in a side by side presentation a 100% IRE on the 200 lumen projector is the same brightness as 20% IRE on the 1000 lumen projector (disregarding nonlinear gamma...) I have yet to hear of any owners of such dim projectors complain about grey whites! But how is that comparison any different than a white vs. grey screen comparison?


You seem to have an absolute definition of what brightness white is, can you tell me what it is? I know from psychovisual science that white is the brightest thing that your eyes see. Saying that grey screens produce muddy whites is indeed an "opinion". I do not know what you even mean by "muddy" in factual terms. If you are refering to a specific manufacturer that you have experienced let us know - I do know that the FireHawk has sparklies and sheen that allows one to see through the movie to the screen surface. But that is not due to the grey - it is due to the high gain. All a grey screen does is change how bright that white is - just like a dim bulb, or filter, or sun glasses, or small vs. big screen.


Prove to me with color science that a proper grey screen muddies whites and destroys color purity. Then I will change my "opinion"