[richieroro]

Just received my Epson 5050UB projector and will be getting the home theater room (15'x17'x8') together soon. Looking at screens, I've seen a lot of great reviews for the Silver Ticket screen. The room will be completely light-controlled, i.e. no windows, dark walls/ceiling, and dark carpeting. Planning on 120" 16:9 for the screen size, and I don't need any fancy features like motorized or acoustically transparent.

$250 seems like an excellent value for a highly regarded screen. My question is: will the Silver Ticket screen do justice for the Epson 5050UB in faux-4K HDR? Is the white screen the best choice for mostly watching movies / Netflix in the dark? Or is it worth it to spend more on a higher end screen?

 

[bud16415]

You will get many replies for this or that. IMO you will be very happy with the white silver ticket screen and I would give your chances of wanting anything more 1 out of 100 odds.

Sounds like you have done it all correctly and if you want a CIW setup the only thing you may want to have is some masking panels for scope 2.35:1 movies and the popular 2.00:1 Netflix is using for a lot of their shows.

 

[rekbones]

I agree with Bud, the silver ticket should do just fine. There are better color neutral screens but cost upwards of 10x the price. If your that much of a perfectionist spend your money on professional calibration instead of a screen. Some will recommend a ALR screen for more HDR punch but at 120" in a bat cave the 5050 should be bright enough without adding all the cons of an ALR screen like hot spotting and sparkles.

 

[Dave in Green]

If you haven't already read it, this is the conclusion of one veteran AV reviewer:

After 90 hours building (and painting) screens, watching content, measuring image quality, and comparing them side by side, we think the Silver Ticket 100″ is the best projector screen for most people. It’s easy to assemble and available in a variety of sizes, with a relatively neutral surface. There are screens that are better, or cheaper, but none match the Silver Ticket in that perfect balance of better and cheaper. In fact, measuring it against my own $2,700 screen made me wish I’d gotten the Silver Ticket instead.

thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-projector-screen/

 

[Low Profile]

I purchased a Silver Ticket 16:9 (150"d) screen earlier this year and have zero regrets. Even worked up some horizontal masking for aspect ratios north of 1.78:1. I've got a thread for that below in my forum signature if you'd like to see a couple pics of the screen in action.

 

[Porknz]

Looking to purchase the same 5050UB in the next few days and a silver ticket screen (haven't decided where I am with 120" vs 135" vs 150"). I don't know what this horizontal masking is. Wondering if you can elaborate on that more? One reviewer of the projector on the Best Buy website said, "If you buy a CinemaScope wider screen (maybe 200/300 bucks) the motorized lens will allow you to eliminate annoying black bars at top and bottom in movies such as Avengers." I'm assuming this is related to the 'horizontal masking?


Thanks for the clarification.

 

[bud16415]

Looking to purchase the same 5050UB in the next few days and a silver ticket screen (haven't decided where I am with 120" vs 135" vs 150"). I don't know what this horizontal masking is. Wondering if you can elaborate on that more? One reviewer of the projector on the Best Buy website said, "If you buy a CinemaScope wider screen (maybe 200/300 bucks) the motorized lens will allow you to eliminate annoying black bars at top and bottom in movies such as Avengers." I'm assuming this is related to the 'horizontal masking?


Thanks for the clarification.

Masking is just something you can add to your screen like black velvet that stops almost all light from reflecting back to the viewers. It can be made removable in the form of panels so when you say watch a 2.35:1 scope movie on a 16:9 screen you don’t see the gray bars top and bottom. When a projector tries to project black (no light) a little always makes it way to the screen and makes gray bars.

What a projector has that no TV has is the ability to zoom to a larger or smaller size. Many people use projectors with Zoom, Focus and Shift that can be programmed to watch different things at different sizes. This is what I do. One method is called CIH constant image height and is what you were told about. It lets scope movies be more immersive as the director intended. For the last 75 years commercial theaters have been doing this method. Now we have other even more immersive movies like Aquaman that was shot with some of it in scope and some in IMAX. A few of us are now allowing even a larger presentation for these movies.