Front Projection Screen

[xilpaxim]

Im looking into buy a front projection system, but the thing that i cant seem to find any real information on is the screens themselves. could anyone give a good suggestion of what screen properties i should be looking for? i apoligize if this is further down the forum, posting from work and dont have lots of time to search.

[Bam!]

...well there are quite a few screens avaliable......and it goes by your room...ambient light or not....and the type of projector you have....

[Brandon B]

In other words, give us an idea of the environment you will use the screen in and we can be a lot more helpful.

BB

[xilpaxim]

well, im not sure exactly what the room its going to be going into is going to be like right now, im moving in this weekend. how about just some general information on screens, like what the differences are between them. ive read something about matte, electric(at first i thought that this was an electrified field or something, then realized that it just had a motor in it hehe) and glass beading. but im still a little confused as to what all this means. thanks

[Bam!]

...well it's pretty endless....but let's talk generally speaking....if I may.

For a dlp projector...since the blacks are not too much of a problem compared to lcd projectors.....I would say you could go with

A matte white screen with 0.8 or 1.0 gain....giving you a pretty true picture...with nice blacks

You could also go with a High Power screen that has a 2.8 gain giving you an easier time with ambient light.....but your blacks do suffer a bit....

For an LCD screen high contrast is nice because that is where the weakness is for lcd screens....
some use matte whites with 1.0 gain and are very happy also....it really depends on your set up....

[xilpaxim]

cool. thanks. actually, to narrow it down a bit, reading on these boards, im definitely leaning towards the infocus sp4805(i think thats the right one). with all the rave reviews about, and the price, i cant pass it up. hopefully the magnolia hi-fi here in town will have it up to show. ive been thinking a little also about the size, and im thinking that i will probably be getting one of those 45x80 screens. i do think that in the day there will be some ambient light coming into the room. so i will look into the high power screens. hopefully they are not to expensive, i think im on a budget of around $2000. well, re-reading this, i guess i had more info to give than i thought!

[xilpaxim]

oh, one more question. what is viewing angle? is that from looking directly at the screen to what angle you cant see the image clearly anymore? so, as a point of reference, about what would a tube tv have for a viewing angle, and what would the non-hd big screen tvs have for a viewing angle? thanks!

[Bam!]

oh, one more question. what is viewing angle? is that from looking directly at the screen to what angle you cant see the image clearly anymore? so, as a point of reference, about what would a tube tv have for a viewing angle, and what would the non-hd big screen tvs have for a viewing angle? thanks!

Viewing angle for a FP is very wide.....usuaally you talk about viwing angles of around 30 degrees on RPTV's.....CRT's type.....

You could even bigger by the way than the screen you say...as long as you are 1.75x the base of your screen you shouldn't have any screen door effect on a DLP like the 4805....great FP by the way////apparently there are almost NO rainbows at all with their new color wheel...

[Dean McManis]

And as a background primer:

http://www.dalite.com/education/guide.php