[Harpmaker]

We have a number of experimental mixes in development; one that has been designated HTS-X2 has recently been tested by 1canuck2 and he will be adding info and photos to this thread.

HTS-X2 is part of a family of mixes that will run from N9 to ~N7.6. The paints used in these mixes are readily available in many, if not most, areas of the U.S. and Canada. Basically, a N6 gray paint is added to regular Cream&Sugar™ to get darker shades.

HTS-X2 is a N8 reflective screen mix.

Addendum:
This is the mix that will be called Elektra™ N8.

 

[1canuck2]

My HTS-X2 was a Behr-based mix. Here's the formula Harp gave me:

HTS-X2 is a 8:1 mix of C&S™ and N6 paints. It doesn't matter which C&S™ formula you use. I'm assuming you will use Behr paints from Home Depot.

The [B]N6 tint formula[/B] for Behr is:
For [B]1 quart[/B]
Base = [B]Behr #1854[/B]
Tint:
      oz.     348 oz.
B -  1          6
C -  0        79
F -  0        22

Depending on how much final mix you need you could always have them make this up in a 8 oz. sampler.

The breakdown of the HTS-X2 mix is:
32 fl. oz. Behr #1850 tinted for C&S™ #3

[B]C&S™ #3 base[/B].
[b]1 quart of Behr #1850[/B] 
Tint   oz.   384th oz.
C        0       4
F        0       1

16 fl. oz. of Craft Smart metallic Silver

6 fl. oz. Behr N6 paint.

This totals 54 fl. oz. of final HTS-X2.

The bad news is when I went to Home Depot to pick up the paints, they told me both 1850 and 1854 have been discontinued. I had to go to three Home Depots to find one quart of each base and get the mix I needed.

 

[1canuck2]

I mixed up the paints and used about 2 fl oz of distilled water to rinse out the various containers. It was still pretty thick looking but rolled nicely. I used the Tiddler single roller method completing each "stripe" with a gentle downroll, overlapping the previous by half a roller.

My first coat scared me because after it had dried for a couple of hours, it was "blotchy" (there was a speckled effect of dark and light, pretty consistently across the screen as if some parts dried thicker and other parts dried thinner). I rolled the second coat at about two hours and after an hour it looked tons better. I decided to roll a third coat since I had the paint to spare.

After the third coat had dried for about 90 minutes I could not resist and fired up the PJ. Without it fully curing and without a greyscale recalibration, it still looked pretty good to my eye! Blacks were definitely better and white still looked good. I watched a few minutes of Bolt, there's a scene where Bolt (white furry dog) and Mittens (black furry cat) are wrestling around and the detail in both the black fur and white fur was pretty good. I also checked out my standard test movie, the Fifth Element and it looked superb. So first impressions are high!

I took a bunch of photos of the process that I'll post here later. I will also try to take some "good" shots of the screen once it has cured (and I learn how to use the white balance feature on my camera...)

 

[1canuck2]

Here's some pics.

Supplies all laid out:

Two quarts. One is the base for C&S one is the N6 paint Harp came up with.

The C&S base before mixing in the Craft Silver Metallic:

HTS-X2 mix in the can:

HTS-X2 again:

Ready to roll:

The next three shots are the screen (124" diagonal) after rolling three coats of HTS-X2 and a 28 hour cure.

All the lights on, camera flash on:

Partial lights on:

Lights off, just the flash:

I don't really see a difference between the three shots, I guess that's cos the flash fired off for all three. Should I try a shot with the lights all on and no flash? I am not much of a photographer beyond pressing the button on a decent point and shoot, but if there's any particular shots you want to see, let me know and I'll take them. Harp suggested taking a screen shot after calibrating the white balance to a white screen from a calibration disk. I'll try and grab that and any others you want to see tomorrow night after the paint has cured for a full 48 hours.

 

[Harpmaker]

Sorry about that 1C2, in my PM to you about this I failed to mention I was talking about taking screen photos of movie still frames and not the naked screen - my bad. For taking shots like that you would almost certainly need a camera tripod since the shutter speeds will be quite long. If a tripod is not available, try to put the camera on something that can't move (tall table, table with books stacked to bring the camera up closer to "normal viewing height", even the back of a chair can help).

 

[1canuck2]

Hey Harp, I understood that your suggestion was for movie stills. I haven't tried the white balance thing yet, I am hoping for a couple of other shot suggestions people would like to see and I'll do them all tomorrow. The shots above were just everything on full auto on my camera at various light levels.

Also, I have a tripod (the three shots above were all taken from about 17 feet back from a tripod) and I'll be sure to use it for the movie still images too. Any specific movies that you want to see images from?

 

[Harpmaker]

Any specific movies that you want to see images from?

Wbassett is the movie guru in these parts so he might have some suggestions for you, but you can never go wrong with the screenies from The Fifth Element.

 

[1canuck2]

Hi,

I've been a bit tardy about calibrating my PJ after applying the HTS-X2, but today I finally found time to lie on the floor for two hours running through a calibration.

My PJ is an Epson 6500UB with only ~75 hours on the bulb. I only have a Spyder3 colorimeter, so take the results with the appropriate pinch of salt given the gear I have. I used HCFR and followed the procedures in a thread I found on AVS using the 75% Saturation windows. Gamma was a bit of a pain in the bum, but I think the results look good.

Attach is the CHC file (zipped) from HCFR showing the post calibration grayscale results. I am not an expert and don't really know if the attached results are anything to be happy with, but my eye says it looks good.

I plan to take some screenies (hopefully tonight) and will set the white balance of my camera to a 100% White screen from the calibration disk I used (AVSHD709) before taking the shots.

 

[mechman]

Gonna take a look at it 1C2. Have to load HCFR though.

 

[mechman]

1C2,

Get readings directly from the pj - the 11 grayscales and the primaries and secondaries. Then get me a second set from the screen. :T

 

[1canuck2]

Uh, dumb guy alert. You are going to have to explain a little more clearly what you want me to do... sorry

 

[1canuck2]

Here's some screen shots. All are from MKV files on my Popcorn Hour as opposed bluray originals. My camera is a Canon G9. I had it mounted on a tripod about 17 feet back zoomed in. Lights were all off. I first did a custom white balance against a 100% white screen from the AVSHD disc.

Fifth Element (1080p) (I was a little too zoomed in for this one). The third shot looks a little "edgy" but it doesn't look so bad i real life:

Bolt (1080p). The fur details are pretty good in this movie:

Finding Nemo (720p)

 

[Harpmaker]

Those are some pretty amazing shots 1C2! Thanks! :T

I have to ask, how close are the photos to what the image looks like on the screen with your eyes?

 

[1canuck2]

I'd say they are pretty close. The only pic that doesn't look quite as good is the Leeloo falling one which in the pic looks more "edgy". Perhaps the freeze frame betrays the special effects more for that shot...

The Nemo and Bolt ones a pretty spot on.

The photos are completely untouched. I did the custom white balance, used a 2 second timer with the camera on a tripod, took the pics on Fine at 4000 x 3000 and then uploaded them straight to PhotoBucket which resizes them with whatever method PB uses.

Oh, and I will pop the sample card I painted for you in the mail tomorrow so you should have it by end of week... I am interested to see what your analysis shows.

 

[mayhem13]

Vey nice screen shots.....contrast looks fantastic!

 

[Harpmaker]

Vey nice screen shots.....contrast looks fantastic!

Very nice indeed! I'm still blown away by them. :unbelievable:

A major component in these photos is that the PJ was calibrated to the screen (which is D65 neutral) and the camera was white balanced to the screen with a white image being projected.

The reason, IIRC, that 1C2 went with the N8 screen was to improve image contrast and black levels over his white screen. I would say it worked! :bigsmile:

 

[custard]

Uh, dumb guy alert. You are going to have to explain a little more clearly what you want me to do... sorry

the measurements you have taken are with the colorimeter pointing at the screen.

what Mech has asked for is for a second set of measurements with the colorimeter pointing directly at the PJ. the second set is used as a baseline measurement and helps us see if the screen is causing a color push.

i have an i1 display and it freezes when taking direct readings from the screen. hopefully you dont have the same problem.

 

[1canuck2]

Very nice indeed! I'm still blown away by them. :unbelievable:

Well the thanks goes to you... you gave me the formula. I just did the grunt work.

A major component in these photos is that the PJ was calibrated to the screen (which is D65 neutral) and the camera was white balanced to the screen with a white image being projected.

The pictures came out better than any other's I have taken, which never seem to do the real world experience justice, I think the white balance idea was the clincher. I would say they are pretty close to what I see with my naked eye. Nemo, especially, looks superb.

The reason, IIRC, that 1C2 went with the N8 screen was to improve image contrast and black levels over his white screen. I would say it worked! :bigsmile:

This was indeed the reason. I had two goals.
1. For relatively little investment, get a screen that would perform as well as, if not better than, something I'd have to spend $1K+ to achieve if buying a "real" screen. I feel this is achieved. The results have more than exceeded my expectations.
2. Be able to handle a little ambient light for when we play Wii and still have the colours look decent.

the measurements you have taken are with the colorimeter pointing at the screen.

what Mech has asked for is for a second set of measurements with the colorimeter pointing directly at the PJ. the second set is used as a baseline measurement and helps us see if the screen is causing a color push.

i have an i1 display and it freezes when taking direct readings from the screen. hopefully you dont have the same problem.

Thanks custard. I PMed Mech for some specifics, so now I just need to do it. I am using a Spyder3, so we'll see how it goes. A couple of times when doing 0 IRE readings for the grayscale, the Spyder and/or HCFR froze up, it doesn't do well in low light, but I have never tried blasting it with the light directly from the PJ.

 

[mechman]

It should be a tad bit quicker getting them from the projector! Last night I did a quick comparison fo HCFR and CalMAN. The numbers are pretty much the same with regards to xyY. For the dE, they were close to the same for gray scale but different for gamut. I think that was due to on e or the other using a different formula and me hurrying through the readings while not paying close enough attention. Regardless, HCFR did very well. :T

 

[1canuck2]

Sorry for the tardiness. I was off work today so carved out some time to do the readings Mech requested. Hopefully done correctly!

In the attached zip file should be two files:
ProjReadings.chc - HCFR readings for Greyscale, Primaries and Secondaries with the Spyder3 roughly halfway up the screen, about 5 inches from the screen, angled toward the projector lens. (I took realtime readings and fiddled with the angle to tweak the highest ftL)

ScreenReadings.chc - HCFR readings for Greyscale, Primaries and Secondaries with the Spyder3 just below halfway up the screen, about 12 inches from the screen, angled toward the halfway point of the screen. (I took realtime readings and fiddled with the angle to tweak the highest ftL)

I don't really know what I am looking it in truly analyzing these files, so I'd appreciate some "here's what you discovered" type summary after you've analyzed them, if only for my own learnin'.