A Screen for my home cinema

I am reading many forums since 2 weeks (home cinema-fr.com, www.avforums.com, www.homecinemachoice.com) and reviews to better understand how to choose the right screen for my Panasonic PT900-AE. I am more or less installed in my new apartment, but in order to profit of the biggest room (6.4m * 3.6m), I have to use a wall with either windows or a door in the middle. Time to shop for a screen instead of using the white wall…

A lot of companies are selling screens, and if You do not take care, You’ll end up very quickly with a 200euro screens, which are per see not bad, but really not adapted for home cinema.
You will find a lot of tutorials and guide on the Internet helping You choosing the right screens. Stewart being the Rolls-Royce brand of screens (but it start at 8000CHF)

The 3 major parameters are:

1. Screen Gain : The ability of a screen to direct incident light to an audience. A flat matte white wall has the gain of approximately 1. Screens with a gain less than 1 attenuate incident light; screens with gain more than 1 direct more incident light to the audience but have a narrow viewing angle. For example: an image reflecting off a 10 gain screen appears 10 times brighter than it would if reflected off a matte white wall. Curved screens usually have larger gain than flat screens.
2. Viewing Angle: Screens do not reflect equally in all directions. Most light is reflected in a conical volume centered around the "line of best viewing". Maximum brightness is perceived if you are within the viewing cone defined by the horizontal and vertical viewing angles.
3. Your budget: we can not all buy a Stewart Firehawk (anyway it is optimized for DLP not LCD).

The presence of black band to hide eventual artifacts created by the projector (but it can be solve by software), the transparency of the screens is also important….
At the end, I was reading user experience of cheap screens which develop waves after a period of time,  mechanical mechanism problems and so on…I was able to retains 3  models: At the end, I was reading user experience of cheap screens which develop waves after a period of time,  mechanical mechanism problems and so on…I was able to retains 3  models:

	A mechanical DaLite, Da-Lite Model C "CSR" 16:9  198x353cm – manual which should be the best screen quality of all 2 screens below (screen material only). The Model C™ with CSR is a manual wall or ceiling mounted screen with Da-Lite’s Controlled Screen Return (CSR). CSR is a feature offered exclusively by Da-Lite to assist in the quiet controlled return of the screen into the case.
	Exclusiv home has a tensioned system (seems to be the latest development for avoiding waves in the middle of the screen and still having a rolling screen: the best of the 2 world) It has also SOMFY motor, IR remote controller and a price tag of 1980CHF or 1300 euro. It uses  a vinyl screen of gain 1.0. In fact it is a screen build by Grandview (Grandview Crystal Screen Co of Canada) http://www.grandviewscreen.ca/Products/LargeFlatSeriesTabTension.htm  They are originally out of China and they have decided to add a supply warehouse in Canada. Sariaa is having the same model here: http://www.saaria.com/projectiontechnology/tabtensionscreens.htm All 3 Brand sell the SAME model, so do not loose time to look at characteristics and choose the one which is cheaper.

The last option is the DIY (Do It Yourself), and voila a good link if you have a wall big enough:
http://www.bigscreenforums.com/forum_topic.cfm?which=6316

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