[DeanHT]

Hi everyone,

I have been saving for some time and finally have the money to put together a Home Theater Room and wanted to get everyone opinion on the following screen.

Room size - 24' long - 15' 6" Width - 9 foot ceiling - Open design with ambient light present.

Screen - Stewart Filmscreen SND123H-Luxus Deluxe ScreenWall
Specs- 60" Height x 107" Width
Type: Fixed
Format: HDTV 16:9
Diagonal: 123"
Surface: FireHawkG3
Projector Position and sitting position will probably be about 15' approx.

Question 1 - Is this screen to large for the room and will the Panasonic AE4000U be able to fill the screen without any problems.

Question 2 - Will the screen give me enough room to mount the wall speakers (Polk LC265I speakers on the left and right side) of the screen.

Your suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dean

 

[mechman]

Up in the sticky thread there are two things you should look at - THX's HDTV setup and Carlton Bale's calculator. They're near the bottom of the post. :T

 

[DeanHT]

Thanks, I will definately take a look at those. Anyone else have any comments!!

 

[mechman]

I guess I really didn't answer your questions fully did I? Sorry about that. Normally the AE4000 would struggle with a 123" screen, but if Stewart's gain numbers are correct, you should be ok. According to PJCentral, a 1.2 gain screen with your pj is at 12fL. A 1.3 gain screen is at 13fL. That probably leaves you around 12.5fL. That should be ok. As for the screen being too large for the room, is that possible? :bigsmile: About the only thing that grabbed my eye was that you may want to move your seating area a little closer.

And I don't see why the speakers wouldn't fit. You have a fifteen and a half foot wall and the screen is about nine feet and some change wide. That would leave you with 3 feet on either side for your speakers.

Is your pj ceiling mounted? The only reason I ask is because with your conditions, I'd recommend a High Power screen from Da-Lite. But you can't do a High Power if your pj is ceiling mounted.

 

[DeanHT]

Thanks for the reply. Yes the projector will be ceiling mounted. The Stewart Firehawk G3 that the dealer is quoting me has a gain of 1.3. Using the screen calculator and if I am doing this right does that mean that my ceiling mount needs to be mounted approx. 16'.1" back from the screen to obtain 16:9 123" diagonal image. . Is this correct??? :scratch:

 

[Harpmaker]

Hi Dean, welcome to the forum! :wave:

According the the ProjectorCentral calculator here, your PJ can be mounted anywhere from 12 1" to 23' 11" away from the screen and fill a 123" screen because of the large zoom it has. The closer the PJ is mounted to the screen the brighter the image will be.

One of the problems with picking a screen by gain figures is that they don't tell the complete story of screen performance. The FireHawk screen will only have a gain of 1.3 when viewed on-axis with the PJ and even then only within a given (relatively small) viewing angle. A figure you might see mentioned in advertisements or reviews of a screen is the "half-angle" or "viewing cone", this is the viewing angle when the gain of a screen is only HALF of the advertised peak gain. Going by data from Stewart's FireHawkG3 page it's half-angle is 30° which in the case of a 1.3 peak gain would be a half-gain of only 0.65. You lose a lot of image brightness in those 30°.

If at all possible, I would recommend actually seeing a FireHawkG3 in action before buying one. These are expensive screens and I wouldn't want you expecting viewing performance you might not be getting by looking at numbers alone.

 

[mechman]

I've really got to get off my duff and do some more testing of the Stewart stuff. Then we'd know for sure how much of a drop off there really is. :nerd:

 

[DeanHT]

I was hoping that someone was utilizing the Panasonic PT-AE4000U and the Firehawk G3 so, I could get some feedback from them on the quality of the picture on the screen with ambient light. The only Stewart Firehawk G3 that I have seen had the JVC DLA-RS35U as the projector and the picture quality was awesome. :bigsmile:

 

[Harpmaker]

According to the PJC calc you would have to mount your PJ at 12' 8" to get the same 16 fL that the JVC is producing when placed 16' 3" away, so it looks like you can mimic the JVC if you can mount your PJ closer than you had planned. When your PJ is placed at 16' 3" it is hitting the screen with only 10 fL. All of this is assuming a screen size of 123" diagonal.

I don't want to seem to be trying to talk you out of getting a FireHawk, lot's of people have them and like them. I have never seen one "in the flesh", but some photos I have seen taken while they were in use show enough hot spotting so that I personally would hesitate to purchase one. If you have seen one in action and it meets your viewing needs then go for it. :T

You might try posting on other HT forums to get more responses and views. I think you are wise in wanting to get actual owners opinions. :yes:

 

[DeanHT]

Thanks for the great replies. Awesome site!!! :T

 

[Harpmaker]

Here is a photo from a review site (they liked the screen) that shows why I hesitate to recommend the FireHawk without reservation. I don't remember if this is the FireHawk G3 or the SST version, but it is easy to see hot spotting on this screen. The players uniforms are brighter in the center of the screen than toward the edge when they should be the same brightness.

 

[DeanHT]

Thanks for the information. I will definately have do some more research, before I commit to buy.

 

[DeanHT]

I have been doing some research on other screens and have seen that many people have had good results with Da-lite and Carada screens. Does anyone have any recommendations on those two manufactures that would be suitable for my HT room utilizing the Panasonic AE4000U ceiling mounted with ambient light due to the open design of the HT room.

 

[mechman]

I wouldn't recommend the Carada gray material. When it comes to white, their Brilliant white is at or near the top in my book. But the gray isn't good at all. As for Da-Lite, they are one of the top sellers for a reason - they know what they are doing. Have you looked into a High Power? That is their ambient light screen material. And when set up properly it is a great option.

Actually, looking back through the posts, a High Power wouldn't work for you as your pj will be ceiling mounted. :hissyfit:

At this point, what you should do is call the manufacturers and get samples. See if they'll send you bigger samples too, something like 1 foot by 2 foot. Normally they send really small ones that make it hard to figure out whether or not it will work.

 

[DeanHT]

I had a Da-lite Cinema Contour Da-Mat screen surface in my old HT room and IMHO the picture was very good. My brain is so fried from reading all the various stuff (type, aspect, gain, etc) on the different screens. :coocoo: Wow, I never knew there was so much to a screen!!! :doh:

 

[DeanHT]

Well, I have been doing alot of thinking about what screen to utilize in my room, so I talked with the builder of the house and we ultimately decided to redesign the open floor plan of my theater room, I will now have walls and doors at the rear of my theater room which should solve my ambient light problem. I am nowing leaning toward the Stewart Studiotek 130 g3 screen. Does anyone have any experience with this screen? Again, thanks for the information, Dean

 

[Harpmaker]

Well, I have been doing alot of thinking about what screen to utilize in my room, so I talked with the builder of the house and we ultimately decided to redesign the open floor plan of my theater room, I will now have walls and doors at the rear of my theater room which should solve my ambient light problem. I am nowing leaning toward the Stewart Studiotek 130 g3 screen. Does anyone have any experience with this screen? Again, thanks for the information, Dean

Mech is getting ready for, or has already gone on, his yearly quest for the wily Whitetail deer so it may be a while before he pops in here again. While I have not actually used a full StudioTek 130 screen I have played around with a small sample - it is a white screen with added gain (30%) from a sprayed on "optical coating". The half-angle of this screen is listed as being 68°, which is quite wide so there should be no hot spotting; but I just looked at the gain chart for this screen (here) and when the viewing angle passes beyond about 30° you start to lose image brightness compared to a screen like the StudioTek 100 (a white screen with no gain coating).

To get the best image on a white screen you can't have ANY other light in the room, and the room surfaces should be dark enough so that light from the screen does not bounce back onto the screen thus impacting image contrast.

 

[DeanHT]

Thanks for the information. I cannot decide on the aspect ratio that I want to go with either flat screen 16:9 or 235:1. I also have been looking at the Carada, Elite and now the Focupix 235:1 screen. I may try a cheap 235:1 screen just to evaluate it. This way I do not have too much money tied into a screen that I am not happy with.

 

[Harpmaker]

Thanks for the information. I cannot decide on the aspect ratio that I want to go with either flat screen 16:9 or 235:1. I also have been looking at the Carada, Elite and now the Focupix 235:1 screen. I may try a cheap 235:1 screen just to evaluate it. This way I do not have too much money tied into a screen that I am not happy with.

The way this normally works with a PJ that has a native AR of 16:9 (which the Panny 4K does) is that you will have a totally full screen with a 16:9 image on a 16:9 screen and when watching 2.4:1 material you will still have a full width image, but you will have black bars on the top and bottom of the screen where no image is shown because of the different AR. When a 2.4:1 screen is used, the Panny has a special feature (Intelligent Lens Memory) that will activate the zoom automatically so that 16:9 material will be full height and have black bars on the right and left of the image. If you watch a lot of 2.4 or wider movies then a screen matching the wide AR is probably your best bet.

From Projector Central's review:
• Intelligent Lens Memory.
Lens memory was introduced by Panasonic on the AE3000. This feature enables you to set up the projector with a 2.40 widescreen, and zoom the lens to full frame 2.40 format when viewing a movie in 2.40 aspect ratio or higher. Then when native 16:9 material is being displayed, a push of the button moves the zoom lens to where the 16:9 image is centered full frame in the middle of the 2.40 screen. The objective is to let you enjoy super-widescreen format without the cost of an anamorphic lens. The AE4000 retains this feature and takes it one step further-now you don't have to press the button to change lens positions. The projector will automatically detect the format of the image being displayed, and the lens will reconfigure itself to accommodate it. This feature is optional. If you prefer to be proactive and select the lens position yourself, you can deactivate the auto-detect feature.

 

[getgray]

I have an 11' wide 2.35 curved Firehawk G3. I love this screen. There is no visible hotspotting in my setup. I use a 3-chip DLP with about a 1.8 TR. I chose to use a curved screen to help with any possible hotspotting, although the slightly smaller FH I had before this one was flat and it wasn't an issue with it, either. I'm not sure how much the curve helped, but the uniformity is very good on my system.