[RobertWood]

I've owned an uncalibrated DILA for almost a year now.

I've never been all that impressed with the picture

when compared to the picture my CRT projectors give

me and I've expressed this more than once. I now must do

an about face.


Today I made a change which resulted in pretty dramatic improvement.

Up until today I've been using high gain screens

with my DILA because they are always what I prefer to use

with my CRT projectors.

I've had a motorized Draper Targa with the perforated

screen material lying around here since last year but

never had used it. Today I installed it and wowee

what a difference. I now realize that the

1000 ANSI output of my DILA on an only 80" wide

high gain screen was causing my contrast and blacks to go straight south and made whites way too hot and sparkly.

With the decreased reflectivity of the microperf it's like

another image entirely. Everything has improved.

I'm now more anxious than ever to try a gray screen.


Bob Wood



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~~The Sultan of Cheap~~

 

[Mark Hunter]

Hi Bob,


Thanks for posting that! I was wondering what might be happening with your D-ILA, as you have mentioned many times that it wasn't performing well.


Good to hear that you've found the reason!


Tweak it a bit and feed it something nice, and you might actually like it...a lot.

 

[KBK]

Hey, Bob... are you anywhere near KennyG? maybe youcan try a shot at a custom screen, using my product,a nd have KennyG spray it for you. I am just finishing up the last touches on a grey screen formula. Perhaps it can be done in the next week or so. Give me an e-mail if you are interested.


You seem to like the best, and you have the 'Sultan of Cheap' bit at the bottom, and this fits both categories.


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goosystems.com


Ken Hotte

[email protected]

 

[kenliles]

Bob-

I'm sure it doesn't compare with KBKs product, but I use a grey formula of paint and shoot the picture right on the wall. It looks fantastic; has from day one. Then I got my G11 calibrated by AVS and it dramatically improved yet again (higher contrast, even deeper blacks without loss of lighted areas, eliminated posterization completely). It looks significantly better than theaters (yes I still go to them a lot) and I can longer tell the difference from a CRT picture. I'm still waiting on the Panamorph and I'm concerned there's not much room for improvement - we'll see.


ken


[This message has been edited by kenliles (edited 05-11-2001).]

 

[RobertWood]

It really did make a remarkable difference, Mark.


Ken and Ken,


I really would like to see DILA with a gray screen.

But it took me six months to hang the Draper. Can

you imagine how long it will take me to make a gray

screen? http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif


Bob


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~~The Sultan of Cheap~~


[This message has been edited by RobertWood (edited 05-11-2001).]

 

[Art Lloyd]

Robert,


Some time ago there was a thread in which several people touted super reflective screens with G11 and G15's. I was confused. Going from a highly reflective screen that I used on a dim LCD some years back to a 1.2 screen produced what I think is a much better picture with my G15. Now if the Greyhawk screen material could be traded for the white stuff in my Vutec....Art


[This message has been edited by Art Lloyd (edited 05-12-2001).]

 

[Art Lloyd]




Also. Just love the pictures. Have to get one. Robert Wood has this James Dean thing going. Art

 

[kelliot]

Bob,


As cheap as you are, I'd figure that you'd make a beeline for Home Depot to get a quart of gray. Just make friends with a local painter and trade a sixpack for a sprayed-on quick screen.


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Ken Elliott

 

[RobertWood]

Art,


I cannot understand either how a highly reflective screen

can be desireable for use with a DILA projector. Maybe

it would work with a projector which has received

calibration but I would have to see it to believe it.


Ken,


KennyG's going to help me make a gray screen.

I'm just trying to decide whether to use KBK's paint or

an off the shelf paint. I can say that Kenny used KBK's white formula to make his CRT projector screen and he's very happy with it.


Bob


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~~The Sultan of Cheap~~




[This message has been edited by RobertWood (edited 05-12-2001).]

 

[KFung]

Yeah, I gotta say, unless you've got an absurdly large image a high gain screen on a digital projector is rather detrimental. There IS such a thing as too much brightness (but we're talking 40-50+ ft-lamberts), cuts from dark to daylight scenes can make your eyes hurt if the image is really bright (because the room is so dark). You also get problems with hotspotting. The high gain will also increase your absolute black level. On the upside, it will perform much better in high ambient light conditions...


Regards,


Kam Fung

 

[kromkamp]

Robert,


I think a more accurate statement would be that you dont want to be throwing a super-bright (>20fL) image with an uncalibrated DILA.


If you have a large screen size and need a high-gain screen just to get a decent amount of light output, then IMO it wont aggrevate the basic fact that an uncalibrated DILA has a low contrast ratio.


Andy K.

 

[kenliles]

Bob and others-

I got some e-mails asking about what paint I used, so I thought I'd post it here. My goal was to get the best picture with an 'off-the-shelf' mix for my G11. The screen size I'm shooting is 92" wide. I played with different base types (flat, semi-gloss; makes like glidden, Sherwin-Williams); different wall textures (smooth, slight rough, heavy rough); and different gray levels. I did this work with an uncalibrated, but well tuned G11. I ended up with what I judged, an excellent image - much better than a white screen, which I also tried. Following this, I had my projector calibrated by AVS (Cliff using William's software) which produced another 20% improvement that took it over the edge of CRT imagery in my opinion. I mention this because it relates to the image effects I saw with different paint conditions. With the gray paints, I was able to negotiate the blacks deeper without losing whites, Although, it does lose some brightness. The calibration deepend the blacks, while increasing the lighted areas against them and remove the posterization. The combination of calibration on the gray screen gives it look that I can't distinguish from CRT. I'm waiting to see what the extra brightness of the Panamorph brings.


The Paint Project:

I started from some work others had done and posted the results somewhere on the AVS forum long ago. From this base, I did some additional tweaking with various paint bases and amounts of black tint. My wall is a sheetrock wall with slight rough texture finish (not the heavy rough texture). I found there was very little difference in the smoothness of the wall, but a slight roughness gave the best result. There was more difference in the color tinting and the actual base used. To make a long story short, I ended up with the following:

Base

Glidden Evermore Interior Latex Flat

HD-9000 Pure White

126 oz (2 oz short of a gallon)

Tint Proportion

Lamb Black 2 oz 24 drops 0 half drops


You can get this mixed at any Home Depot. They carry the Glidden base. It's one of Glidden's top end interior paints with a 20 year warranty. They will reference the tint mix formula as follows:

Tint.........oz 48 96

Lamp Black....2 24 0

In the mix vinacular 48 means full drop, 96 means half drop;


Hope that helps


ken





[This message has been edited by kenliles (edited 05-13-2001).]

 

[RobertWood]

Thanks for that, Ken. It helps very much.


Bob


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~~The Sultan of Cheap~~