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This is a follow up to my Previous Post where I've asked for suggestions on the best screen for a brighter DT-500 in an absolute dark room. With some of the proposed sugguestion I did the following test to see which was the best for my setup:
I painted a test screen with 4 methods, MMud with Silver Metallic, Neutral Gray, Neutral Gray with Silver Metallic, and Neutral Gray with a coat of Matte Poly over it.
I split the screen into 4 quadrants for each type. In the upper left is the MMud with SM, In the bottom left is Vaspar (Lowes generic) flat base with 22 shots of lamp black 'Neutral Gray', in the bottom right is Neutral Gray with Behr #780 Matte Poly, in the upper right is Neutral Gray with 1:5 Silver Metallic. Out of curiousity I included two samples from Da-Lite which are the two smaller squares in the upper left corner. The one on the left is their High Contrast Da-Mat, and the right one is the High Contrast Cinema. The HC Cinema is almost identical to the MMud w/SM. I really liked the HC Da-Mat, it had deeper blacks and bright whites.
I took screen shots with the following conditions: Absolute dark room, Sharp DT-500 projector in Movie2 mode, (econo, iris engaged ~1000 lumens), 110" screen. All settings on the projector were set at '0' except where noted. I set my lens to its sweet spot of 60mm with an apperture of 5.6. The shutter was set at 1.3 seconds and the ISO was 100.
My Wife and I definitely agreed that the MMud with Silver Metallic produced the best image with the most punch and most accurate colors especially with skin tone. The Neutral Gray's deepened the blacks a little, but they definitely took away from the whites giving a very flat image. It dimmed the image to the point of making it look like I was using the LT150 again. The poly helped the Gray some, but not like I expected from comments in the forum. I tried a second coat, but didn't notice a difference. The Metallic in the Gray made the blacks darker and kept the whites the same as the other grays so for me it was the same if not better than using the poly. If I had to choose between the two I would definitely pick the Silver Metallic. It had a better effect and didn't 'blur' the image like the poly. Overall the gray screens looked like they were dirty and needed cleaning. In the screenshots it might look like the MM section is washed out or overblown, but this was not the case - the screen shots of course do not capture the punch of the MM over the gray.
The following are the screen shots. I tried to use images that everyone should have access to.
Google with white screen:
200 level gray:
150 level gray:
50 level gray:
IRE Bars:
Color Bars:

I painted a test screen with 4 methods, MMud with Silver Metallic, Neutral Gray, Neutral Gray with Silver Metallic, and Neutral Gray with a coat of Matte Poly over it.
I split the screen into 4 quadrants for each type. In the upper left is the MMud with SM, In the bottom left is Vaspar (Lowes generic) flat base with 22 shots of lamp black 'Neutral Gray', in the bottom right is Neutral Gray with Behr #780 Matte Poly, in the upper right is Neutral Gray with 1:5 Silver Metallic. Out of curiousity I included two samples from Da-Lite which are the two smaller squares in the upper left corner. The one on the left is their High Contrast Da-Mat, and the right one is the High Contrast Cinema. The HC Cinema is almost identical to the MMud w/SM. I really liked the HC Da-Mat, it had deeper blacks and bright whites.
I took screen shots with the following conditions: Absolute dark room, Sharp DT-500 projector in Movie2 mode, (econo, iris engaged ~1000 lumens), 110" screen. All settings on the projector were set at '0' except where noted. I set my lens to its sweet spot of 60mm with an apperture of 5.6. The shutter was set at 1.3 seconds and the ISO was 100.
My Wife and I definitely agreed that the MMud with Silver Metallic produced the best image with the most punch and most accurate colors especially with skin tone. The Neutral Gray's deepened the blacks a little, but they definitely took away from the whites giving a very flat image. It dimmed the image to the point of making it look like I was using the LT150 again. The poly helped the Gray some, but not like I expected from comments in the forum. I tried a second coat, but didn't notice a difference. The Metallic in the Gray made the blacks darker and kept the whites the same as the other grays so for me it was the same if not better than using the poly. If I had to choose between the two I would definitely pick the Silver Metallic. It had a better effect and didn't 'blur' the image like the poly. Overall the gray screens looked like they were dirty and needed cleaning. In the screenshots it might look like the MM section is washed out or overblown, but this was not the case - the screen shots of course do not capture the punch of the MM over the gray.
The following are the screen shots. I tried to use images that everyone should have access to.
Google with white screen:

200 level gray:

150 level gray:

50 level gray:

IRE Bars:

Color Bars:
