Choosing a Screen …more options this time!

The right projector screen for your viewing environment may be slightly different from your neighbors’, but essentially when it comes down to a matter of perfection it almost doesn’t matter. What this complex sentence above is trying to say is that most manufacturers of projectors and projector equipment know that when they give you the specifications on a projector, they imply the projector is being used in an optimal environment. Sony recently came out with a new ChromaVue projector screen that is ultra dark grey and reflects only certain wavelengths of light to optimize contrast. Well, if you were to optimize your home theatre set-up and view your movies in a dark room, you wouldn’t have to worry about buying a particular screen that would suit your projector. Whether you owned a projector that displayed 1000 ANSI lumens or one that shot out 2000 ANSI lumens, it would be hard to tell the difference.

When a projector is spitting and image onto any surface, it projects light into areas that require more light and tries to prevent light from slipping into areas that are supposed to be dark. Higher end and thus more expensive projectors do a better job of controlling contrast and black levels to this degree. A projector that displays dark grays instead of blacks may require a little more help from outside sources, such as a certain grade of projector screen.

When shopping for a projector screen consider the “Gain� . The “Gain� is the number that attributes how much light is reflected by the screen. Typically you will see a gain of 1.0, which means that there is more light reflected than what is being directed towards the screen. The screen is able to amplify the light, so to speak, by focusing the light towards the center of the screen therefore creating a warm zone in the center. Unfortunately, the sides of the screen are obviously going to be compromised, but not by much.

If a projector is equipped with a less powerful projector lamp and therefore can only output a small amount of lumens, incorporating a screen with a high gain might increase your brightness, but you will lose a little around the edges. Lessons learned are to really try your best to either build a nice set-up with as little light as possible, or compromise your image and try not to think about it too much. This topic will continue as always, so keep your head up!