thanks for the advice. I'm definitely not a DIY person. I am not set on the two screens but they were the two i read were good for ambient light rooms. I can control the overhead lights but the blinds will be open during daytime tv watching
No sweat about not being into DIY, a lot of people aren't. I just wish I was more knowledgeable about the actual shades of gray commercial screens are made in. For some reason most commercial grays don't mention that when it really is a better way to judge how a screen will handle ambient light than a gain figure.
I did get to see the firehawk today. I did find the black bars in movies appeared gray with lights on but I'm going to have blackout shades for movies. Satellite tv shows will fill the screen so I don't have to worry about the bars. Overall the picture quality was good and quality from side angle was good.
Another screen to think about (and view in action if you can) is the Da-Lite HD Progressive 0.6. This screen has a very wide viewing angle and has no negative visual attributes (most of those in front projection screens are caused by the ways screen makers increase gain).
http://www.da-lite.com/screen-surfaces/front-projection/high-resolution/hd-progressive-06
Unfortunately they there was no black diamond for comparison. I didn't even know of the supernova but if it's more expensive I probably won't be able to buy it.
There are people that love their Black Diamonds, but there seem to be more that wish that had gotten a different screen after they have used the screen for a while and come to find the limited viewing angle and color-shifting disturbing. The Supernova is one of the few screens to actually reject ambient light, but that engineering is one of the reasons they cost so much.
The cinegrey from elite screens seems tempting for the price; is the texture of the screen visible at 12-14 feet in bright images, or noticeable sparkles?
No, there are no sparkles in the Cinegrey screen and very little texture either, but I don't know if it falls into the 4K res. spec. or not.
I actually did view samples of the stewart in Magnolia center at bestbuy. It was interesting to see that the white sample increased brightness but with the sony projector it actually was too bright and image actually looked worse. the g4 maintained a good image. I could take the samples home but i don't have the projector up yet. they couldn't get me the black diamond sample thought.
S.I. doesn't give out test samples of BD screens. They want people to only be able to see the screen in use under fairly specific viewing conditions. That is another reason I personally don't care for the BD's.
It is very important that the PJ be calibrated to the screen under use since it can make a HUGE difference in image quality to have the colors, contrast and brightness all set right.
onder: The beauty of the Supernova is that the company has been doing screens for years and they're a great company. Stewart and SI were both uncooperative when I dealt with them, SI more so than Stewart.
