[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Hi There,

This is my first hesitant steps into projection but after visiting TLC Broadcast and seeing the JVC HD750 in action I've decided that this now has to be my next purchase

Its going to have to go in my living room I'm afraid so the screen would have to drop down infront of my Plasma, I was wondering where the best place to buy a 100" electric screen would be and is there a specific make I should look at which is considered the best.

Also the screen will come down infront of my centre speaker which is wall mounted above the plasma, will the screen muffle the sound atall or can you buy any screens that accomodate this set up better.

Thanks.

[KelvinS1965]

Wow, a JVC HD750 as a first projector.

You can buy acoustically transparent screens to allow your speaker's sound to pass through otherwise it will sound muffled. I'm not sure if they do them as pull down/electric versions though, you may have to do a bit of searching.

Is your room very dark? Not just able to block out light, but dark walls/ceiling too as if it is the typical light walls/white ceiling then you will be losing much of the HD750's contrast and it won't look a bit like what you saw in the demo room. You could use a grey (AKA 'high contrast') screen as you are planing 100" diagonal, the HD750 should have no trouble giving a bright enough image as it has adjustable iris settings to balance brightness (at the expense of ultimate contrast), plus you can use high lamp mode too as the lamp ages and gets naturally dimmer. I don't know whether you can get a grey screen that is acoustically transparent though. Having just gone from a grey screen to a matt white one, I've had to make all sorts of room treatment improvements to get my blacks back to where they were before.....if the new screen hadn't been so expensive I would have gone back to grey again, but my missus would probably kill me if I asked her to help take it back down after the struggle we had putting it up!!.

There are a number of sources recommended on these forums:

I use CVSMedia myself, though there are others, such as:

Ivojo

I'm sure other members can recommend more places too, but bear in mind that what you are after is more specialised and you will probably have to ring/email them for information and quotes. You might also like to consider a 2.35 or 2.40:1 format screen if you have plenty of width in your room, but that's another can of worms. I happen to like worms so that's what I have, but it can be a devisive subject (not unlike Marmite ).

Hope that helps a bit.

[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Hi Kelvins1965,

Thank you for the reply, its all a bit daunting at the moment but I thought I'd start researching now ready to purchase in a few months.

As for my room being dark, like you say its a normal living room but as we love our films we've got black out blinds so it goes pretty dark but it has got a white ceiling, will this affect the picture quality? I think it may take some convincing to get my wife to allow me to paint the walls and ceiling black

[Graham N]

Hi Vipers,

Just speaking from my own experience. I changed from a Sharp XV-Z10000 to a JVC HD750 and I think the reflections off the white ceiling are more noticeable since the change of PJ. I am going to make something to blackout the ceiling when the PJ is on. (If possible something retractable)

The rest of the room is fairly well light controlled.

Cheers,

Graham

[KelvinS1965]

Originally Posted by vipers

Hi Kelvins1965,

Thank you for the reply, its all a bit daunting at the moment but I thought I'd start researching now ready to purchase in a few months.

As for my room being dark, like you say its a normal living room but as we love our films we've got black out blinds so it goes pretty dark but it has got a white ceiling, will this affect the picture quality? I think it may take some convincing to get my wife to allow me to paint the walls and ceiling black

As Graham says, the white ceiling will effect the PQ as will light coloured side walls. I tried out my removable 'tent' last night and it took my lowly AE3000 to a mucher higher level (the best I've seen in my room) in terms of blacks within the picture. When it fades to black there is little difference, but they are fairly few and far between compared to scenes with a mixture of light and dark. To get what I mean, try pausing a scene on your TV and turn up the brightness control and you'll see how washed out it becomes; this is similar to the effect of the light reflecting back at the screen. If you then put on some sunglasses it might give you an idea of how a darker screen will help this 'washed out' image....just don't get caught doing it!

While I need some more work to come up with a quicker and more practical setup, the 'tent' gives me the effect of a black walled cinema, plus the light wall colours when it is being used as a living room.

I can't double post the same pictures, but you can see what I'm on about in this thread and read other's suggestions for improving the viewing room. Some are more permanent and less likely to get wife approval, but they may give you some help. It might seem a little excessive, but TBH if you can't do something like this (or just paint the walls a deep colour) then you may as well save at least £2,000 and buy the HD350 or save even more and buy either an AE3000 or the Sony **10 model (can't remember the exact model number).

Maximising image contrast.

Welcome to the wonderful (and frustrating) world of projectors.

[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Thanks guys,

I can see this is going to be far more involving than I first thought, I'm glad I've started my research early

I was checking out your setup earlier Kelvin, have to say, its awesome very impressive, I can now see what IWC Dopplel was talking about at the weekend when I met him as I'd never heard of using black velvet before, I love researching new Av kit and it looks like this should keep me happy for a while, I'll speak to my wife tonight and luckily she very accomadating when it comes to AV, I sense some re-decorating comming on, here is a thread about her last creation :-

http://www.avforums.com/forums/plasm...headboard.html

As you can see from the pics the walls are fairly light, when I was a teen I used to have a totally black room, Mmmm, I wonder

[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Hi guys,

I've got another couple of noobie questions, I'm sure these have been answered 100's of times.

1, At the moment I do all my movie viewing on a 60" plasma and according to ISF guidelines some kind of ambient light is recommeded to help combat eye strain and fatigue, I'm guessing that when using a projector this will be a big no no as from what I'm piecing together here is that the room needs to be as dark as possibe?

2, I understand that the bulb in the projector will need replacing at some time as its strength will diminish over time, how will I know when this is, is there some way to measure the bulbs strength?

Thanks.

[nobby]

hi mate

me personally i like it as dark as possible, i have blackout curtains and blinds to ensure no natural light leak, only light i have is off my kit and around the door ... but thats it ... u just don't want natural light invading your screen at all.

when i last owend an lcd pj ... i did not notice a noticeable performance drop until the bulb was about to go ... not sure about these new pj's. look at what pj u have/thinking off and do a search and check for optimum run times people are saying before seeking replacement ... your service menu will tell you how many hrs you have used etc ... i would also think it is down to your own eyes, the material you are viewing, powering on and off etc. all these variances will be applicable to you and not for everyone else. if you notice a decrease in image quality this may be a factor ... i did on my old sony back in the day

Originally Posted by vipers

Hi guys,

I've got another couple of noobie questions, I'm sure these have been answered 100's of times.

1, At the moment I do all my movie viewing on a 60" plasma and according to ISF guidelines some kind of ambient light is recommeded to help combat eye strain and fatigue, I'm guessing that when using a projector this will be a big no no as from what I'm piecing together here is that the room needs to be as dark as possibe?

2, I understand that the bulb in the projector will need replacing at some time as its strength will diminish over time, how will I know when this is, is there some way to measure the bulbs strength?

Thanks.

[John7]

You may also wish to consider adding a UPS (uninterruptable power suppy) to you projector to guard against bulb damage due to power failure, especially if you live in an area prone to regular power cuts

[Neil Davidson]

It is worth noting that that there are screen options designed to offer maximum image contrast in light coloured rooms or even under surprising levels of ambient light.

Retractable screen - Supernova Flex

The Flex is a motorised drop down screen using the supernova fabric that is pretty much designed for these applications. It certainly isn't cheap but also means you don't need to build a tent in your room.

You can see a video of me explaining how it works here AVForums.tv video

The guys from JVC use a Supernova screen for all of their demos and I believe that it should be in action at the Bristol Show this weekend along with the anamorphic system.

[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Hi Neil,

Thanks for your reply, great video and it looks like the Supernova Flex is exactly what I've been looking for as if you look at the link above in one of my posts you'll see my setup and that my centre speaker is above my plasma and I didn't want to muffle the sound, looks perfect, but the million dollar question is How Much?

I'll be looking for 100" and do I buy direct or is there somewhere else I can buy from.

Thanks.

[KelvinS1965]

Originally Posted by vipers

How Much?

I'll be looking for 100" and do I buy direct or is there somewhere else I can buy from.

Thanks.

I don't know where you'd get one in the UK, but a quick google turned up this review and they quote 100" at $7,740. I'm not even sure that it's acoustically transparent either, so wouldn't be suitable for your centre speaker setup.

I'd build a tent if I were you.

[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Wow, big bucks, thats a shame as I really like that idea, I reckon I could perhaps go to £2000 for the right screen, I've found a couple of company's in the UK who sell the Flex so I'll get intouch with them for a quote.

[KelvinS1965]

It's worth getting a good screen as it will see you through many PJ upgrades, but $7k is maybe a little excessive unless you're a lottery winner. It'll be interesting to see what your UK quotes come in at.

[warbie]

Does it mention the gain of that screen anywhere on the site?

As other people have suggested, Vipers, it's worth spending time darkening the room. Otherwise maybe go for a cheaper projector? Part of me cries thinking of an HD750 and a brightly decorated living room. It's like having a really nice curry with ketchup

[nobby]

let us know how u get on ... buying screens in the uk is a minefield and pretty expensive too

Originally Posted by vipers

Wow, big bucks, thats a shame as I really like that idea, I reckon I could perhaps go to £2000 for the right screen, I've found a couple of company's in the UK who sell the Flex so I'll get intouch with them for a quote.

[Neil Davidson]

Hi Guys,

We are UK distributors for the Supernova series screens. If you need any data, pricing or a dealer contact, just let me know.

The screen has a gain of 0.8.

You can see me in the video I linked to earlier explaining just why this is such a special product. There is no screen in the world that has the looks, technology and performance of the Flex.

[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Originally Posted by warbie

As other people have suggested, Vipers, it's worth spending time darkening the room. Otherwise maybe go for a cheaper projector? Part of me cries thinking of an HD750 and a brightly decorated living room. It's like having a really nice curry with ketchup

Hi Warbie,

After spending a week looking into this, and all this talk of velvet tents in my living room , I started to go a little cold on the idea of a projector in my living room so I went back over to TLC at the weekend where they have a 350 and 750 next to each other so you can compare the picture of both as they can both be powered and set to display the same picture and its just a matter of covering the lense so you can see the difference in picture quality immediately.

Now what suprised me more than anything is that TLC's walls and ceiling are white and the picture looked stunning, I found the picture on the 750 to look far more pleasing and natural compared to the 350 so I guess even in a room with white walls the quality of the 750 over the 350 still shines thru.

So its game on again now all I need to do is find a price for the Flex screen.

[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Another question I have, its not easy this projector thing is it but in the back of the JVC catalogue it has the distance chart and it says for 100" picture the projector distance is '3.01 mtrs Wide' or '6.13 mtrs Tele'

What is the difference between Wide and Tele? I'll only have a distance available of 3mtrs from projector to screen, will I be able to achieve a 100" picture?

[IWC Dopplel]

Vipers, Hi

Sorry I missed this thread. The throw ratio on the 750 is very similar to the HD100

Check this out Projection Calculator Classic - Throw Distance and Screen Size


You will be close but on the limit at 3m

[Vipers @ Zinc-HT]

Hi IWC Dopplel,

That's an interesting chart, cheers, I'm wondering if I should go down to 92" as that should definately work, more of a portable compared to your 134"

[IWC Dopplel]

Originally Posted by vipers

Hi IWC Dopplel,

That's an interesting chart, cheers, I'm wondering if I should go down to 92" as that should definately work, more of a portable compared to your 134"

Vipers, Hi

I did end up close to the THX recommendation for viewing distance on a 92" thats just over 9' viewing distance for a 100" that works out at 10' viewing distance

If I could squeeze a 100" diagonal screen in I would try personally