[stieger]

Hi,


I had the Studio Experience 13HD - 1100 ansi lumens and 700:1 contrast ratio, but I sold it because it was too loud.


Now, I'm considering the sanyo plv-z2, but it has less light output - roughly 800 lumens, and a 1300:1 contrast.


I have a 92" 16;9 Stewart Grayhawk screen.


Is anyone using the Sanyo with a grayhawk (or a .95 gain screen?)


Does this projector put out enough light to work? I have controlled lighting - no light from the room at all - but still concerned this PJ may not put out enough light.


Please help!

 

[leckian]

It will work but your whites will be off-white and your colors will definitely be muted. The GrayHawk was desgined for projectors that had 2-300 to 1 CR. Projectors have evolved greatly since the introduction of the GrayHawk. In my opinion this screen should not be used with any of the current crop of HT projectors.

 

[canscape]

I use a 92" DaLite PermWall High Contrast DaMat with a .8 gain and it suffers from none of the problems that leckin mentions. I started out with a DaLite HC cinema vision with a 1.1 gain and sent it back for the HCDM. The 1.1 gain was too bright for me when there was a lot of white present and the black levels were not great. My room is no way light controlled and the .8 is fine with the back lights on low. The only regret I have is not going for the 106" screen

 

[leckian]

Quote:

Originally posted by canscape I use a 92" DaLite PermWall High Contrast DaMat with a .8 gain and it suffers from none of the problems that leckin mentions. I started out with a DaLite HC cinema vision with a 1.1 gain and sent it back for the HCDM. The 1.1 gain was too bright for me when there was a lot of white present and the black levels were not great. My room is no way light controlled and the .8 is fine with the back lights on low. The only regret I have is not going for the 106" screen

If you compare your colors and whites to what you would see with a white screen it will not be a pretty sight. With the lamp set to low and iris turned closed the whites are not too bright at all IMO.

 

[Trepidati0n]

Leckian,


Could you please explain to me how going from a gain of 1 to a gain of 0.95 can cause drastically change brightness? Going from 1 to 0.95 is only 5%.


Also gain reduction should not improve true contrast but rather change the black level and thus you may perceive a higher contrast but it is not real. The only way what you say can happen is if the screen is a variable gain over different IRE levels.


If i'm wrong...i would really like to be enlightened, because this is how things were explained to me and also how the math appears to work.


-tReP

 

[darinp2]

Quote:

Originally posted by leckian It will work but your whites will be off-white and your colors will definitely be muted. The GrayHawk was desgined for projectors that had 2-300 to 1 CR. Projectors have evolved greatly since the introduction of the GrayHawk. In my opinion this screen should not be used with any of the current crop of HT projectors.

Gray screens are really for helping the reflections off the walls. Otherwise you could just use a neutral density filter. The main reason for not using a gray screen is because your projector isn't bright enough. A Grayhawk could still be a great fit with a 1000 or 2000 lumen projector even if it had 100,000:1 on/off CR because the gray screen would increase the ANSI CR the viewers see. There is no projector CR at which a gray screen becomes unuseful.
Quote:

Originally posted by Trepidati0n Also gain reduction should not improve true contrast but rather change the black level and thus you may perceive a higher contrast but it is not real. The only way what you say can happen is if the screen is a variable gain over different IRE levels.

And no screen discussed here does that. It is the fact that each reflection off the walls gets decreased a little more by the gray screen that is the real key. Secondary reflections have been reduced twice, etc. So, the gray screen can help ANSI CR.


Whether this screen will be bright enough with the Z2 is really up to you, but I would guess that it would preclude closing the iris and putting the lamp on low.


Also, as far as 1.0 gain vs 0.95 gain, I think the main difference is that the Grayhawk has a gain curve. So, it may be 0.95 gain in the center and 0.8 gain toward the sides. It could also reduce the viewing cone where you will think things are bright enough.


--Darin

 

[canscape]

Quote:

Originally posted by leckian If you compare your colors and whites to what you would see with a white screen it will not be a pretty sight. With the lamp set to low and iris turned closed the whites are not too bright at all IMO.

Having had the two screens mentioned in my post side by side I can say that the picture IMO is everybit as "pretty" and "suffers" from better perceived black levels. My iris is closed and fan is on low.

 

[leckian]

Quote:

Originally posted by canscape Having had the two screens mentioned in my post side by side I can say that the picture IMO is everybit as "pretty" and "suffers" from better perceived black levels. My iris is closed and fan is on low.

Both of the screens you mentioned are gray. Did you compare with a neutral white screen? Gray screens will lower your black level but there is no free lunch. The costs are relative whites instead of true whites and colors that are muted relative to how they would look on a white screen.

 

[darinp2]

Quote:

Originally posted by leckian Both of the screens you mentioned are gray. Did you compare with a neutral white screen? Gray screens will lower your black level but there is no free lunch. The costs are relative whites instead of true whites and colors that are muted relative to how they would look on a white screen.

The exact same thing could be said about putting a projector bulb on low instead of high and yet people don't tend to make that claim. If you could put two identical projectors side by side with one on high and one on low the whites wouldn't look white on the dimmer side. That is because white is relative. A white screen will also have gray whites when placed next to a High Power and a High Power would when placed next to a higher gain screen, etc.


If none of this were true then you could never get white after your bulb aged a little bit and dimmed, but you can.


White are always relative as there is really no such thing as "true whites" other than perception. Is 20 ft-lamberts "true white". Not next to 30 and 30 isn't next to 40, etc. I do agree that there isn't any free lunch, though.


--Darin

 

[evilal36]

You may also want to look into the SE 2HD in stead of the Z2 you get SE's wty in place of sanyos

 

[leckian]

If you you eyes get a taste of whites on a white screen it is hard to accept what passes for white on a gray screen. What is worse however, in my opinion is how colors look on a gray screen. Colors look dirty on a gray screen when compared with a white screen and this is true even for bright projectors like a PLV-70.

 

[darinp2]

Quote:

Originally posted by leckian If you you eyes get a taste of whites on a white screen it is hard to accept what passes for white on a gray screen. What is worse however, in my opinion is how colors look on a gray screen. Colors look dirty on a gray screen when compared with a white screen and this is true even for bright projectors like a PLV-70.

Screens that aren't neutral or have problems like visible sheen can be a problem, but I bet if I set up something without letting people know the screen type or projector they could not figure out whether the screen was gray or white from the images with any real confidence. That is, unless they brought a piece of reference screen material to help.


One reason is that if they didn't know the projector or bulb setting they wouldn't be able to tell whether 15 ft-lamberts was because the bulb was on high with a gray screen or on low with a white screen.


I played this game once. I made a screen with Carada gray material that was maybe 50" wide and didn't let anybody see the screen in a room with normal lighting around (in a black velvet room without white walls or other things as a reference it is hard to tell whether a screen is gray or white). After they had been there maybe half an hour trying different projectors I told them it was a gray material. I don't think anybody had guessed.


--Darin