Help with room colour?

[grant1sc]

After looking at many of your own setups in various threads I am looking for a bit of advice. When im using my projector the whole room seems to be filled with light yet when I look at yours all around seems pretty dark?

My first problem is that I have cream walls? I do like the colour of them but I am now considering channing to see what improvements this gives. Its in my bedroom so I have to be able to live with but in generally i am pretty open to ideas.

Thanks in advance,

Lee

 

[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).

also dont forget that cameras play a large part, my room looks dark when photographed but is nowhere near as dark in relaity

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[kid rock]

Lee I have white walls either side of the screen but I have hung black curtains on each of these walls whch can be moved back and forth to my convenience.I can say with these curtains drawn there is a massive increase in my perception of picture quality compared to having just a white wall -where there was too much loss in contrast.


All the Best

Kid Rock

 

[RTFM]

Lee,

A good way to judge how your various walls, floor, and ceiling are affecting your picture quality is to project a 100 IRE white field, stand in front of the screen and look back towards the projector.
You will then see how much light is kicking back onto your screen from the various surfaces.
If you decide to paint any surfaces, it would be a good idea to use neutral tones like a mid grey.
The parts of walls, floor and ceiling nearest to the screen will have the most profound effect when darkening as will the far wall behind the projector as this reflects light straight back onto the screen.
Hope this helps.

 

[The Nightfly]

Just an idea for judging the amount of light washing back onto the screen in comparison to the image brightness: How about zooming down the picture slightly so as to expose a non-illuminated border on the screen around the main image. If you can clearly see this border area when projecting a normal image then what you are seeing is a reasonable representation of the quantity of light, for any given image brightness, washing back from the room and lowering your contrast ratio.

Allan

 

[Rattus]

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

 

[buns]

I was aware of this arguement Martyn, a (now banned) member who i talk with introduced me to the idea and i can indeed understand its merits. In my case however i find it makes the room alot brighter and it mans i can see my speakers clearly and anything on the front wall...... so basically it is my preference to have things dark so that i get as close as possible to only being able to see my screen image.

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