howieeb
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For anyone who's interested, I finally got some Stewart screen samples yesterday and spent much of last night comparing them with other samples from Beamax, Carada, and diy paint samples. Warning, I have no measuring tools or knowledge when it comes to doing this properly!
First of all, the Studiotek material looks great. I told myself i'd never spend this kind of money on a white screen (it's just white! how hard can that be?) but now have doubts. If I had no plans to move in next 10 years and had a nice caved room, this would in the post right now. Brightness wise it is clearly and rather considerably brighter than the Beamax 1.5 material and the Carada BW. Infact, the Beamax material next to it looks like grey screen material. If the 1.3 gain reading for Studiotek is accurate - which apparently it is - then the other materials i've 'tested' are certainly less. Oddly enough, my current diy screen - cheapo primer - comes closest to the Studiotek in brightness. I also noticed the material surface vanishes completely with the Studiotek. It's hard to explain how this differs from the other samples - I can't see the material with these either - but when side by side with the Studiotek I don't get the sensation that there is no surface being projected on (possibly due to the extra gain?). All in all, very nice (which it should be for the price!).
Now for the initial reason I ordered the samples - Firehawk G3. I've wanted to see this stuff for years as it's always seemed like the holy grail of screen materials - better blacks, contrast, and still white whites. Later, after visiting this and other forums, I learned there were trade-offs (but still secretly wanted one). After spending ~ 4 hours with just this material (OCD much!) i'm so completely torn. The improvement in black levels and contrast with my HD1 - in a half caved room (black walls and grey ceiling) - is staggering. On many scenes it's like having an A4 sized 3d window cut into the screen. The brightness drops off considerably when moving to the right or left of the sofa, but as all viewing is done on the sofa this isn't an issue. All good so far.
But it's a grey screen, so the colours/whites must by dingy? Which compared to the other white screen samples, to varying degrees, is true. Not as much as with other grey materials/paints i've tried (both screen goos, BW, Carada and Beamax HC options, Grayhawk RS etc), but the colours aren't as vibrant. This particularly shows up next to the Studiotek but doesn't differ much, for example, from the Beamax 1.5 material. In short, this is the first grey screen that I could happily live with in terms of colours and whites. Hotspotting may be an issue, but it's hard to tell with an A4 sample. What is an issue - and now we get to the trade-off - is the visibile screen surface. It sparkles! I'll be watching a stunning 3d like scene, the camera will pan back revealing a blue sky, and suddenly it doesn't look quite right - almost like a heat haze - and the image flattens on a portion of the material. It may only last for a second or two, but it's there. I suspect this won't be as much an issue on a properly tensioned screen and without other materials near by for direct comparison, or even in 90% of movie scenes, but it is a negative, and a negative from a screen that costs over 2k is hard to stomache! Poo. Still, the positives are significant enough to make this a serious contender. I doubt whether a projector upgrade, given room condtions etc, would yield as positive results for as much of the time.
The Grayhawk RS material I don't see the point of. Black levels aren't much improved (the Firehawk slays it in this regard) and the colours/white levels dingy. I'd rather have a cheap white screen or BW diy.
Screen Goo i'm not at all impressed with. I've tried every flavour and could only live with the plain white (which is poor value for £200).
Black Widow is the second best grey solution i've seen, but for my projector/room combo it doesn't work for me. The colours take too much of a hit and there's a loss of brightness/pop. I also noticed the screen surface with BW, but that's likely to do with my poor spraying efforts. It's not really fair to compare BW to a Firehawk giving the HUGE difference in cost, but the black levels and contrast with the Firehawk are considerably better, the whites whiter and the colours more vibrant. Then again, BW doesn't lose all it's brightness when you move 1 meter to the right/left
So after two years of looking for the perfect screen i'm torn between a diy fixed white screen (still need to try that laminate Mech recommends) and a Firehawk G3. Beamax and Carada fixed screens are also possibilities and look great for the price, but don't seem to be better (to my eyes anyways) than a carefully constructed diy effort. A Studiotek screen would be lovely, but 2k+ for a white screen!? It just seems wrong
First of all, the Studiotek material looks great. I told myself i'd never spend this kind of money on a white screen (it's just white! how hard can that be?) but now have doubts. If I had no plans to move in next 10 years and had a nice caved room, this would in the post right now. Brightness wise it is clearly and rather considerably brighter than the Beamax 1.5 material and the Carada BW. Infact, the Beamax material next to it looks like grey screen material. If the 1.3 gain reading for Studiotek is accurate - which apparently it is - then the other materials i've 'tested' are certainly less. Oddly enough, my current diy screen - cheapo primer - comes closest to the Studiotek in brightness. I also noticed the material surface vanishes completely with the Studiotek. It's hard to explain how this differs from the other samples - I can't see the material with these either - but when side by side with the Studiotek I don't get the sensation that there is no surface being projected on (possibly due to the extra gain?). All in all, very nice (which it should be for the price!).
Now for the initial reason I ordered the samples - Firehawk G3. I've wanted to see this stuff for years as it's always seemed like the holy grail of screen materials - better blacks, contrast, and still white whites. Later, after visiting this and other forums, I learned there were trade-offs (but still secretly wanted one). After spending ~ 4 hours with just this material (OCD much!) i'm so completely torn. The improvement in black levels and contrast with my HD1 - in a half caved room (black walls and grey ceiling) - is staggering. On many scenes it's like having an A4 sized 3d window cut into the screen. The brightness drops off considerably when moving to the right or left of the sofa, but as all viewing is done on the sofa this isn't an issue. All good so far.
But it's a grey screen, so the colours/whites must by dingy? Which compared to the other white screen samples, to varying degrees, is true. Not as much as with other grey materials/paints i've tried (both screen goos, BW, Carada and Beamax HC options, Grayhawk RS etc), but the colours aren't as vibrant. This particularly shows up next to the Studiotek but doesn't differ much, for example, from the Beamax 1.5 material. In short, this is the first grey screen that I could happily live with in terms of colours and whites. Hotspotting may be an issue, but it's hard to tell with an A4 sample. What is an issue - and now we get to the trade-off - is the visibile screen surface. It sparkles! I'll be watching a stunning 3d like scene, the camera will pan back revealing a blue sky, and suddenly it doesn't look quite right - almost like a heat haze - and the image flattens on a portion of the material. It may only last for a second or two, but it's there. I suspect this won't be as much an issue on a properly tensioned screen and without other materials near by for direct comparison, or even in 90% of movie scenes, but it is a negative, and a negative from a screen that costs over 2k is hard to stomache! Poo. Still, the positives are significant enough to make this a serious contender. I doubt whether a projector upgrade, given room condtions etc, would yield as positive results for as much of the time.
The Grayhawk RS material I don't see the point of. Black levels aren't much improved (the Firehawk slays it in this regard) and the colours/white levels dingy. I'd rather have a cheap white screen or BW diy.
Screen Goo i'm not at all impressed with. I've tried every flavour and could only live with the plain white (which is poor value for £200).
Black Widow is the second best grey solution i've seen, but for my projector/room combo it doesn't work for me. The colours take too much of a hit and there's a loss of brightness/pop. I also noticed the screen surface with BW, but that's likely to do with my poor spraying efforts. It's not really fair to compare BW to a Firehawk giving the HUGE difference in cost, but the black levels and contrast with the Firehawk are considerably better, the whites whiter and the colours more vibrant. Then again, BW doesn't lose all it's brightness when you move 1 meter to the right/left
So after two years of looking for the perfect screen i'm torn between a diy fixed white screen (still need to try that laminate Mech recommends) and a Firehawk G3. Beamax and Carada fixed screens are also possibilities and look great for the price, but don't seem to be better (to my eyes anyways) than a carefully constructed diy effort. A Studiotek screen would be lovely, but 2k+ for a white screen!? It just seems wrong
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