Thanks!

[DougMac]

I wanted to offer my thanks to all who gave me advice here, especially Mech.

Here's some photos of the HT, including new ones of it finished. There's no screenie yet, I'll add one this weekend.

For anyone who hasn't seen my other threads, the screen is painted on the wall using a Pratt & Lambert paint that matches Sherwin Williams Grey Screen.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dougbrucemac/HomeTheater

Doug

[chas]

When I saw the pics over at the Ascend forum I didn't realize it was a painted screen...how do you like it?

[mechman]

Doug,

The room looks fabulous!

I'm jealous!

[DougMac]

chas wrote:

When I saw the pics over at the Ascend forum I didn't realize it was a painted screen...how do you like it?

I love it! Friends and family have been bowled over. I guess my calculations on screen size was right. I don't feel overwhelmed by its size. Also, there's no visible pixels at normal viewing distance.

I have a limited point of comparison. I've only seen a few other projected images in stores under less than nominal conditions. Anyone out there considering going FP needs to see one properly set up and displayed. The showrooms I saw had retail screens. It's not a fair comparison, but my painted screen looked better.

We primed the screen area with Kilz, then projected an image to align the projector and get screen measurements for painting. The image on Kilz looked pretty good. We then painted the screen area. My wife commented how much better the image looked. We then masked off the screen, covering it with paper and painted the surrounding area Blackwatch green. In the photos with the speakers, you can see it's not true black. That, along with the black ceiling tiles, made a dramatic difference.

I had ordered a sample of the Seymour AV screen, which I think looks fine. Deb prefers the look of the painted screen. The screen has no hot spots or surface flaws. Blacks are nice and deep. The flat texture gives it a film look. I've only seen some preview clips of broadcast images, but they look fine also.

We watched "The Searchers" on BD the other night. All that Monument Valley sky is a test for uniformity. I noticed a flaw in the sky during one of the scenes. It stayed in the same place in the sky when they cut back to a wide shot from a closeup. I couldn't see it in the closeup because of the nature of the image. It turned out to be a false alarm! The particular lens they were using that day had a smudge! Later vista shots were clean. BTW, that movie was filmed in Vistavision, which ran the camera negative horizontal like a 35mm film camera to get more image real estate. There were no movie lenses designed for that coverage, so they modified Leica lenses and used them!

Standard DVD looks much better than I expected. I'm thinking HD is slow out of the gate because DVD looks "good enough", especially on <60" displays. BD's on my 720P Optoma look better. I've noticed the degree of improvement and content have a lot to do with the degree of improvement. A comparison of average material on DVD and BD shows most improvement in smoothness of image, more so than sharpness. I imagine the difference between 720P and 1080P will be similar. I think I can limp along until 1080P prices fall further. ;-)

Doug

[muzz]

Looks good Doug!!

Enjoy the new room, it sure helps when the significant other enjoys it as well!!

Mine could care less, so she calls me the Man in the basement.....

[wbassett]

DougMac wrote:

Standard DVD looks much better than I expected. I'm thinking HD is slow out of the gate because DVD looks "good enough", especially on <60" displays. BD's on my 720P Optoma look better. I've noticed the degree of improvement and content have a lot to do with the degree of improvement. A comparison of average material on DVD and BD shows most improvement in smoothness of image, more so than sharpness. I imagine the difference between 720P and 1080P will be similar. I think I can limp along until 1080P prices fall further. ;-)

Doug

Nice job Doug!

Projectors... yeah it always seems like a newer and better model at a cheaper price is always coming out... but you know what? Same goes for HDTVs.

I have the Panny AX200u now, which is often called the 'poor man's 1080p projector' because for many it's hard to tell it's not a 1080p projector. All content is upconverted and looks great. I'm not one for watching broadcast TV on my projector, that's what the 55" SXRD is for- plus I personally don't want to waste bulb hours on TV content, but that's my preference.

HD DVD looks very very good, but my Bluray player puts out 1080p/24 and the AX200 can handle 1080p/24 so they look incredible. With the right setup, a projector system will surprise most people as to how good it can look.

I'm glad to see you took the time to do a white screen baseline. A lot of people just jump into a gray screen and never know what the image looks like on a white reference. It is really hard to tell if the image is better or not without doing that basic setup calibration test.

Good job, and here's to many hours enjoying your new setup!