Originally posted by buns
dark is def better...... if you cant manage any more, just try the wall behind the screen a dark colour. This should decrease the reflected light but may not actually improve your percieved contrast ratio (the reasons for which id need to refer you elsewhere).
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Buns,
I disagree (naughty I know

). If there's one wall you want to be bright, Persil white it's the one behind the screen. Let me explain.
The true level of your blacks is set by the brightness projected by your PJ, and the amount of ambient light falling on your "black" areas (also the shade of your screen - grey, white, hi gain - has an effect). Obviously the more ambient light that hits your screen the worse the wash out of your black level is.
Now the only wall which can't bounce light directly onto your screen is the one behind it.
On the preception side, your blacks will seem darker for a given true black level if your eyes can also see lighter areas outside the screen area. So if you had that persil wall reflecting alittle stray light from the PJ, then you just got yourself the best of both both worlds, especially if the rest of your walls are darker, to reduce the overall ambient light level.
The only case in which this wouldn't help is where you have dim projector which otherwise has superb dark blacks. In that case you want a dark wall either side of the screen to boost the whites, but we're in the non-CRT forum here, so were generally trying to lower the percieved black level. Yeah?
Hope that helps, and by all means lay into my argument.
Martyn