HoloDisplays HoloVega - A review

[mechman]

Open for discussion!


First up in my manufactured screen review will be HoloDisplay's HoloVega. HoloDisplays has been manufacturing screens (mainly rear projection) since 2001. Their screens are being used all over the place. Most of us probably see them daily and don't even realize it. Paging through their gallery images of the ABC news room, the Narita Japan airport, On Star's communication center, churches.... you get the idea. Most, if not all, of these are rear projection screens. Meaning the projector is sitting behind the screen and you're viewing the image on the backside of it. Recently, HoloDisplays has entered the front projection market with their HoloVega. According to their webpage:

HoloVega® Front Projection Screen

Designed with Embedded Optics Technology for unsurpassed brightness and contrast in uncontrolled indoor lighting conditions. Constructed of rigid acrylic to retain true surface flatness without tension springs, wires, etc., and can be cleaned with mild soap and water without destroying the screen. Can be easily mounted on a wall, framed, or freely suspended by thin wires for eye-catching open air “floating” displays. Because of its unique ability to present sharp, bright images in ambient light, it is recommend, but not limited, commercial digital signage in retail stores, shopping malls, supermarkets, banks, hotels, museums, airports, gaming casinos, home theaters, restaurants, sport bars, schools, colleges, trade shows, etc.

They also have some specifications for there screens listed here.

*** The photos have been re-shot and reposted 7-21-07 ***

My original intent was to not compare it to my laminate screen. After seeing what the HoloVega can do I saw no harm in comparing the two. My original photos showed shots of the HoloVega in a simple stand that I whipped up out of 3/4" plywood and some 1X4 oak scraps. Placing the HoloVega in this resulted in it being placed ~8-10" in front of the FG and that much closer to the front two cans in my theater room. After posting the review with pictures, I decided to replace them with the ones that are here now. Now you can directly, and a little more fairly, compare a light gray material to a darker gray material.

The smaller thumbnails in this review can be clicked on to show a larger view.


Some close ups compared with my Fashion Grey laminate screen. Notice the sparklies. HV on left.








mech

[mechman]

The Environment

The first shots are of the viewing environment. From the left we have full ambient light, medium ambient light, and then finally no ambient light.



Now I know some folks are going to think that the light filtering through the shades will effect the picture. It does slightly:



You can see a bit of light hitting the bottom right corner. Not much but it's there. This will have no effect on this review though as I did all shots at night.

Next I'll discuss white/gray balancing. Not much because we do have the thread here which goes into more detail as to how I accomplished white/gray balancing. I used a Whibal card and then loaded the RAW shots into Adobe Bridge where I then used this reference shot to white/gray balance all the shots:



The camera is a Olympus E-500 with a 14-45mm lens. ISO was set at 100. Aperture and shutter speed were set to auto. If anyone should happen to want this data for any particular shot(s) just let me know.

The Projector is a Mitsubishi HC3000U. It boasts a 4000:1 contrast ratio and a brightness of 1000 lumens ANSI. I however run it in eco mode. I'd guess it's around 6-700 lumens in that mode, but don't quote me on that. It has not been professionally calibrated. It has only been calibrated with my eyes using both the AVIA and the DVE disks.

The DVD player is the Oppo OPDV971H. It has the latest firmware. The Satellite receiver is a DirecTV HR20. Both of these are connected to a Monoprice 5X1 HDMI switch that feeds the signal to the projector.

I should probably also mention that the background screen is a Wilsonart Fashion Grey laminate. The FG is darker than the HoloVega, keep this in mind later. Here's a good shot comparing the two:

[mechman]

Further Notes

One thing that I'm going to note here at the beginning is that HoloDisplays touts the HoloVega as a two sided screen. I haven't talked to them about this yet but when I do I will add it here, but I believe that the shiny side can only be used retro-reflectively. I will post these shots of how it looks angular-reflectively. You'll notice my tongue and groove ceiling, the flash from the camera, the light directly from the lens of the HC3000, the ceiling cans, etc.







Don't let any of this sway you though. The matte, if you want to call it that, side is coming up and I wasn't disappointed! I will test this further retro-wise and edit this post to include it in the future (more than likely after the Da-Lite and Carada reviews).

[mechman]

The Bread and Butter

Time for screen shots. As I'm sure you can tell, I put a little more effort into providing screen shots that accurately represent what I see with my eyes. I'm not saying that there's not room for improvement (JimP and kenyee - please keep critiquing!!!), but I do put a bit of effort into it and I think the shots reflect my opinions.

These will be organized into thumbnails, three across, with the leftmost being no ambient, the middle medium, and the right full ambient.

From Bugs! A Rainforest Adventure on DiscoveryHD via DirecTV and the HR20.









I like to use Bugs as it offers both color and contrast in real life. Usually one has to go to an animated film like Pixar creations Nemo or Cars to get this.

[mechman]

Bread and Butter Act Two

Speaking of Cars....

[mechman]

Bread and Butter Act Three

These will be of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I use this one to help show contrast - as it relates to light and dark, not as it relates to color. I guess I could have just said "brightness and black levels".

[mechman]

Bread and Butter Act Four

Finding Nemo Nothing showcases color like the animated films in my book. And this one is near the top! As to why there's only two Carla shots, I can't answer that question. I thought I had three until I went through them all. Looking at the metadata they are a full and medium ambient shots.

[mechman]

The Final Act

These are some miscellaneous shots that I didn't have room for above.








Off-Axis Bugs! A Rainforest Adventure.





I think it's safe to say there are zero viewing cone issues.

[mechman]

What would a mech review be without hockey shots!?!?!?!?






The shots with Kunitz in them were using my movie mode on my HC3000. I realized it afterwards and switched to my 'hockey settings' for the last six. I have the Brilliant Color turned on and the lamp is in normal mode as opposed to low mode. I like my hockey games bright!

[mechman]

Conclusions

Some of the things that I've been looking at when comparing laminates is color, contrast and ambient light performance. Are the colors bright and vivid? Is the overall image bright, especially white or lighter scenes? Are the blacks deep? How are the blacks affected by ambient light?

I believe all of these questions have been answered by the photos above. If you're comparing the background screen to the front screen. The front screen wins handily and yet you have to be drawn to the high ambient light shots and be thinking "the back screen does a much better job than the front". Let me put that to rest now. we have several things to keep in mind when viewing these shots. First, the HoloVega is a lighter gray material than the back material. As shown here:



Secondly, while I thought my little stand was ingenious, it kept the HoloVega out about 8-10 inches from the back screen and all the closer to the front two can lights above. The HoloVega was being hit by a lot more light than the back screen and in my mind it handled that light wonderfully. I realized this error last night after putting a lot of thought into this write up. The pictures were already taken and a lot of them already had been posted. So I concluded that rather than redo all the shots, I'd let them stand as is with a couple of redone full ambient shots taken with the HoloVega leaning against the back screen: ***edit - the shots were retaken and reposted***









And this one with no ambient light - just the rope lights behind the screen are on:



Thirdly, no one should ever have that much light thrown at their screen. If you will, buy something other than a projector because you can not get plasma or rear projection quality with 100+ watts of light shining on the screen directly.

All that being said the HoloVega does an excellent job of rejecting the ambient light.

The colors on the HoloVega are stunning! The characters in the animated films appeared to glow - this from a gray screen?!?!?!





The Holovega excels contrast-wise as well. This should be expected though as it is a gray screen.







In summary, I'm flat out impressed with this screen! It does everything my gray screen does but with a lot more 'pop'. If I were to buy a screen tomorrow, I'd be buying the HoloVega.

mech

[mechman]

Photo Retakes

[Tiddler]

Good job Mech!

I have to say that your Fashion Gray screen is holding up pretty well against the HoloVega. Is that what you are seeing also? I bet if you had applied a 1xPearl Clear Coat using the Folkart Pearlizing Medium they would be hard to tell apart.

You should try positioning the HoloVega sample so that the main subject of the scene is half on the FG and half on the HoloVega. In other words half the image on the FG and half on the HoloVega. You may need to modify your screen holder to get the sample much closer to the main screen. That way they are both in focus.

[wbassett]

Colors look good and consistant across the board and in a variety of lighting conditions. My sample too looks brighter, but as per our discussions it's just not big enough to get any real idea about performance.

Blacks seem to take more of a hit than I expected, but the white look very good. It really is hard when comparing two different shades. In your opinion and assessment, if this was a full screen trimmed out with a black reference border, how do you think the blacks would look?

From their site:
"HoloVega® rigid front projection screens offer outstanding viewing in uncontrolled lighting conditions. Brings front projection out of the dark! "

So if you don't mind one small request... do one or two shots with maximum lighting... I mean everything you got, hall lights, lights in any adjacent rooms, ceiling pots on full... throw everything at it for a couple of shots.

[mechman]

95% done and open for discussion!

mech

[mechman]

tiddler wrote:

Good job Mech!

I have to say that your Fashion Gray screen is holding up pretty well against the HoloVega. Is that what you are seeing also? I bet if you had applied a 1xPearl Clear Coat using the Folkart Pearlizing Medium they would be hard to tell apart.

You should try positioning the HoloVega sample so that the main subject of the scene is half on the FG and half on the HoloVega. In other words half the image on the FG and half on the HoloVega. You may need to modify your screen holder to get the sample much closer to the main screen. That way they are both in focus.

Thank you Todd! It does appear to be holding up OK. But in the end, if I had the money, I'd be buying one of these.

As to the half in/out thing, look at the Carla shots and the Frodo shots. They're kind of half in/out.

mech

[mechman]

wbassett wrote:

Colors look good and consistant across the board and in a variety of lighting conditions. My sample too looks brighter, but as per our discussions it's just not big enough to get any real idea about performance.

Blacks seem to take more of a hit than I expected, but the white look very good. It really is hard when comparing two different shades. In your opinion and assessment, if this was a full screen trimmed out with a black reference border, how do you think the blacks would look?

From their site:
"HoloVega® rigid front projection screens offer outstanding viewing in uncontrolled lighting conditions. Brings front projection out of the dark! "

So if you don't mind one small request... do one or two shots with maximum lighting... I mean everything you got, hall lights, lights in any adjacent rooms, ceiling pots on full... throw everything at it for a couple of shots.

Bill,

The full ambient shots were done with all lights on as shown here:






The only exception is that those two cans by the screen were at ~80%. And that's because realistically, I don't think anyone would have those lights on at all - I never do.

mech

[wbassett]

thanks mech that's exactly what I wanted.

Yes I agree, nobody would have that many lights on, but the manufacturer did make some claims and I just wanted to test those claims and verify them... which I think you just did. Some commercial companies are a bit liberal with their claims and specs.

So to put things in perspective, folks thats a 1000 Lumen projector with maximum lighting and I would say that's a very watchable image.

[Tiddler]

mechman wrote:

Bill,

The full ambient shots were done with all lights on as shown here:






The only exception is that those two cans by the screen were at ~80%. And that's because realistically, I don't think anyone would have those lights on at all - I never do.

mech

Maybe this monitor is out of adjustment but I am having a hard time seeing the sample against the FG\B780 screen. I agree with wbassett the image is quite watchable but on the whole screen not just the HoloVega.

[mechman]

tiddler wrote:

Maybe this monitor is out of adjustment but I am having a hard time seeing the sample against the FG\B780 screen. I agree with wbassett the image is quite watchable but on the whole screen not just the HoloVega.

They are extremely similar. The HV is a bit lighter is all and has a lot more 'pop'. I have a hard time discerning the difference in those shots as well, but not in person. I'm re-doing all of the shots as my original intent was to crop the photos to show only the HV. But since it performed better than my FG I saw no harm in showing both. Yet having the HV 8 inches in front of the FG doesn't do it or the shots any justice. So I'm off to redo them. Anyone have a lab coat I could borrow?

mech

[wbassett]

Very good work mech...

Too bad all screen companies don't provide samples big enough to do a review like this.

[Sonnie]

Excellent... detailed and comprehensive...

This is a lot of work and very much appreciated.

[wbassett]

I did my initial testing and review of the HV sample I was provided and it was decided something wasn't right. Mech and I conferred and felt HoloDisplays needed to be contacted rather than be irresponsible and just present pictures that inaccurately show what the material can do. After reviewing my initial screen shots, HoloDisplays agreed something wasn't right. It's possible the sample was bad, but they do have pretty stringent QA that they do. More likely it was impossible to fully calibrate to the smaller sample.

Steve from HoloDisplays graciously offered to send me the same size screen that they sent mech so we are comparing apples to apples as far as the screen goes. My portion of this review is not intended as a completely separate and independent review, rather mech and I decided that it would be of value to show two very distinctly different projectors with the same materials. That way people can really see how it performs with different equipment and in different settings.

I can say this though, this screen is not just a simple neutral color at work. You definitely can't think 'Let's just color match it', that isn't going to work. Even with some of the issues I encountered (don't blame the screen, it could have been a bad sample or that I could not effectively calibrate to the smaller sample size) it is much brighter than any conventional unity gray neutral screen. In that respect it is very deceiving, but it really does deliver white whites for such a dark shade. Whites were whiter than my reference screen as well as the main screen. Overall it had a level of brightness and depth that is hard to capture in a screen shot.

So look for a supplemental review with an LCD projector coming soon!

[wbassett]

Just got back from Jersey and had a package from HoloDisplays waiting for me!

They definitely get top ratings for customer service and concern for their products. That's kind of rare for a company that deals mostly with businesses to treat general consumers (and reviewers like mech and me)

I know what I will be doing this weekend.

Your experience was quite the opposite from mine.
I installed a 60" dnp holoscreen last year & it was quite bad. There were several small bubble like defects & when I complained to the distributor here, they took out a factory quality control specification spelling out the type of tolerance that is acceptable to them.
I stay away from dnp form then onwards.

[wbassett]

I haven't dealt with DNP yet, but yeah harrier HoloDisplay definitely has top notch customer service. Another thing, you get a real person when you call and not a series of recorded options that ends up sending you to an operator anyway.

I'm figuring out a mounting method for the new HoloVega sample and I should be testing it soon.