How much does a rear projection screen cost?

It seems to me that our projectors would be excellent for this projector, but it would all rely on the quality of the screen, shich could get expensive. Got any leads on quality screens?

Corbett

We are testing several options. The price for the finished screen will be less than $100 (not much info there huh?).

Have you looked at the Optitrans material.
Some on the AVSforum have had excellent results with it. Price uncertain though.
A local company has a similar, if not identical, material. Have sent off an enquiry but got an autorespond they are unavailable until Sept 1.

Thanks

I have done some tests.
I have used tracing paper and some plexi glass with i have sanded on one side and they both work well.
Also how or what calculations do i need to do for everything??? E.G how big will the picture be, distance etc......
I cant wait until its finished. Do you guys have any idea of when it will be done?

Keep Up the good work
magic_mat123 ... (Matthew)

The problem with the plexi and sanding it, is that it produces hotspoting. same with ground glass. you need something to catch the light/image but lets just enough light through to reach your eyes, yet thin enought to produce a sharp image.

A possible cheap rp screen material? Or base for experimentation.
Joann Frosty Clear Unsupported Vinyl

You can see the Progress on the LLRPTV here..

http://207.44.154.157/forums/index.php?showtopic=1784

I have to admit that I am amazed. This is getting better and better. Congratulations on this project Joe, I cannot wait to see the final product in action.

I am in graphics and we use frosted polyester film and laser print our positives on it. It is much like frosted acetate but more stable and durable and frosted on both sides.

I wonder if this would make a good screen. I don't know where to get it in such a large size though.

a bed sheet streched over a frame works well.

Nope does not work, makes the image blurry and looks bad.

when i tryed i got a good image

Any thoughts on the use of frosted polyester or polycarbonate graphic films? I did find a source on the web that has one side frosted polyester film in 60" rolls. I am pretty sure with some reasearch double frosted polyester or even scratch resistant polycarbonate can be found in wide enough rolls.

Optically either should perform similarly. Any interest in this Brain/Joe? I could send either of you a sample of what we use (13"x17"). Or you could pick up a sample at your local graphics house.

Sure if you have a sample send away, we are trying many options, and want the best but at a resonable price also afterall its DIY

the only concern would have to be without a sticky adhesive backing as not to distort the image.

Does it come in large pieces? I'd like to test it.

OK I'm currently in jury duty, so I'll be away from work for a few more days. As soon as I can get a sample I'll get an address that I can send it to.

The stuff costs us $.65/sheet(13"x17") so if bought in bulk it might be pretty cheap. There is no adhesive on the film.

Yes, It is made for the graphics industry so they have rolls for large format printers available. I will send out a sample when I get back to work. If you want to try it immediately you should be able to pick up a sample of something comparable at a copy/paper supply house.

Here is a list that I have rounded up if anyone is interested:

Da-Lite

Dazian

Draper

GooSystems

HoloDisplays

Gerriets

Rosco Screens

RoseBrand

Stewert


peace

I don't know if already there was a mention about it or not, but why don't try to use sand-blasted glass or plexi for the screen of the RPTV?
I hope the expression "sand-blasted" means the same thing in English like in Hungarian.
Ehh , you know, the glass or plexi that used to be e.g. the wall of shower closets. One side of the material has been factorily "blurred" using a mixture of high pressure water+sand.
So, this kind of glass/plexi could be used here. I guess the roughness of this "blurred" surface can be set by adding more or less sand to the water, but this is the staff's job. Anyway, a "fine" surface could be produced in order to preserve as much focus as possible.

Just my two cents.

does not work well causes hotspoting.

Did the graphic arts film work well?

We use the same sort of stuff on our large-format ink jet printers... you can buy "lightbox film" from a graphic sullpy house... we print images on it to use in lightboxes, like the type you see in airports... not sure if it's polypropylene or not... I'll have to check when I get back to the office...

-N.

Wierd subject area!I work in supply in the army and order alot of things for them by part numbers.I was wondering why doesnt any one contact the company that rpjtv's come from and ask how much the screen that they use would cost i am prety sure these things break often and that someone has to have them readilly available in stock listed by a part number!Just food for thought.

WAIT this is kind of adicting lol. Any one ever tried the light diffuser sheets that lcd screens use on there backlight? From what i get out of it it looks like it works kind of like a fresnel lens spreading light. Or is my medication kicking in lol.

actually that makes sense

The building I work at is upgrading thier VTC ( video teleconference) room with new rear projection set up and I was able to get ahold of their old screen it looks like sand blasted acrylic but some one told me that there is actually a fine fresnel cut in it or blasted in it. the dimensions are 6 ft by 8 ft. I helped install the new screen its a Ocean screen it weighed 350 lbs and about 1" thick 2 layers acrylic on the outside and a tinted or clear mylar inside mylar. it cost my employer $8,000

man thats expensive good for you now that you have the material what you going to do with it

I was looking at make in a rear projection tv with a smaller lcd for MY detached florida Room its going to be my bar some day.

sounds nice hope you follow through with it ill root for ya

So how is that polyester film stuff working?

I was going to wait to post this info until I had pics to share but that may be awhile yet as my camera really sucks.

First the background:

In my brother in law's basement he has a half wall with a column on either side. This wall happens to be smack in the middle of his usable space in his basement. The wall and the columns leave an opening that is just about perfectly sized for a movie screen (at 4:3 there are a few inches on either side and at 16:9 there area few inches on top/bottom). The problem is he has a pool table on one side of this wall and his bar/poker area on the other. His thought was to put a flat display, like a plasma or LCD in the opening in the half wall and make it so it would pivot for viewing on either side depending on where the action is.

I, however, had a different solution that I think may be of interest to those looking at RPTV screens.

While doing research for my PJ I had thought I might do a RPTV setup but built into a wall in the basement. While looking for screens I came across descriptions of a couple screen materials that indicated they were good for either RP or FP. It occurred to me that when my brother in law described his situation that it might be possible to put one of these RP or FP screens in that open space in the half wall and project onto it such that you would have a viewable image on either side (realizing that text would be reversed on one side but for most movies/tv it wouldn't matter).

So I sent requests to the manufacturer/suppliers for sample material to test this theory. Da-Lite was quick to respond and sent a 2x2' sample of their "dual vision" material. Here are my descriptive results. Keep in mind that I borrowed a projector from work for this and further access to it is dependent on lots of things (it is a Toshiba PJ by the way and is for mobile presentation so not the best for HT)...

Da-lite was kind enough to send me a sample of their dual vision screen material. I threw it up in front of a prjector and I have to say, I'm very impressed with the image. Image quality on the dual vision material was comparable to what I saw on our standard projection screen (which is a pretty good presentation screen). The main differences were that the contrast is a bit reduced (not surprising under the circumstances) and the focus was a bit tricky. I placed the material on our screen so a portion of the image was on the material and the rest on the regular screen. Because of the semi-transparent nature of the dual vision material it is a little difficult to get a well focused sharp image on the dual vision, but it can be done with some tweaking and once set, shouldn't be a problem.

But given how you [my brother in law] would use this material, I also hung it "in space" to see what kind of image would be on both sides at the same time. Much to my delight the images on either side were nearly identical. Once again the difference in the images seems to be mainly due to focus issues. The material itself is just a few millimeters thick, but nonetheless when the image is sharply focused on one side, the image on the other side is slightly softened. And I do mean slightly softened. I think under normal viewing conditions you aren't likely to notice the difference without specifically looking for it. You can compensate for this somewhat by adjusting the focus such that the image is focused essentially in the middle of the thickness of the material (ie., it is focused "inside" the material). When you do this, you achieve the same image on either side, both having a very slight softening of the focus. In one sense, this slightly softened focus for the image is a good thing because it is what is often done to compensate for the "screen door" effect common to all video images (the effect becomes more pronounced the larger the image- which is true for all TVs as well as projectors).

Another good thing is that I turned the lights up and still had a decent image, even with back lighting (3 can lights behind the screen and 8 in front dimmed to about half of their full intensity- more light than you're likely to need for the average party in the basement). This was with the projector sitting about 10 feet from the screen material. In other words, it should be a reasonably watchable image no matter the conditions.

So based on what I saw of the images produced by the two Sony [HDTV RPTV Grand WEGA] models Keith was looking into at CC, the image quality on this screen was somewhere between the lower end model and the higher end model and probably closer to the lower end model (although with some reasonably controlled lighting and the right video source I would bet the image could get closer to the higher end model easily).

I was even impressed that the hotspotting when viewing the screen from the opposite side of the projector and in line with the projector (ie, me-->screen-->projector) wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (it is noticeable but not distractingly so and not so much that it makes watching a problem).

...

Unfortunately, my brother in law opted to go with the proven Sony unit instead of try my unusual suggestion.

Anyway, I thought this experience would be of interest to those considering a RPTV screen as I must say I was impressed by the Da-Lite dual vision material. It appears to be a semi-transparent vinyl product, but instead of frosting on one side it appears to be uniformly "frosted" throughout the material. Because of this, I think, the hot spotting is virtually eliminated.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in using this material in a similar fashion as I suggested for my brother in law, please let me know how it works out for you (or PM me and I can provide link to another material you may be interested in).

Regards,
Chris

PS. No, I do not work for Da-Lite or have any association with them at all. The rep who sent the sample is interested to know if anyone uses this material as a "hung in space" screen as I described so do let me know if you use it this way. Oh, and the material is more expensive than blackout cloth but not terrible (considering you get two viewable sides). I think I found it for about $160 for a 96" diagonal.

Interesting! But I'd like to try a sample before spending the 160 smackers. Odd. I tried to find a place to buy rear projection screens and all I got was websites explaining how they worked, the differant types, and what the drawbacks and advantages were for each type. I just kept screaming "Where do I get one and how much does it cost?" No luck.

Hmm.... 2' x 2' free sample? hmm.. I think a few people are going to want some free samples pretty soon that all live at the same adress...

I know it's not exactly in the DIY vein, but I got an broken old, SDTV rear projection TV from a friend, and I am going to convert it into a 7" lilliput PJ RPTV. Pretty much everything is done for me, I don't have to fabricate the case, the screen is perfect, and it looks great. Also, did I mention I got it for free? Yeah, I posted on the work intranet classifieds that I wanted broken RPTV's and got like 5 responses. That might be route to go seeing as I got everything but the PJ itself for free. What do you guys think? Or am I cheating too much?

What is the size of the screen area? The reason Im asking take a look at the LL RPTV I'm building, i do not think you will have enought room inside the unit to have the correct throw distance you need.

here is the link to the LL RPTV (in progress)

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...indpost&p=21854

this is using a 15" monitor and you will be trying to use a 7" you will have to hunt down some optics to pull it off i think.

51" screen area, 4:3 aspect ratio...any idea where i would find the optics I will need? I've been thinking though that I might go the 15-17" inch route just for performance anyway...

The standard lenses and triplet from lumenlab is what I'm using right now and works well. my screen is a little larger than 62" diag. at a 4:3just look at the LL RPTV is what I am curently building.

ok i installed the Professional RP Screen material and was not that impressed with it. here is a screen shot of it.

and here is the same picture with using just a plain white shower curtain liner for 3 dollars.

i think we need more research for a good RP Screen material.

Just to show ya how bright this projector can get. Projected on a light bluegreen wall.

Is it me or does the shower curtain work better then the professional rear projection screen?

Yes it did.

ROFL!!!! thats sad

Maybe you should email them back and tell them about the shower curtains

When I click the link it says "You do not have permission to view this topic" any idea as to why?

Yeah, me too. Is there some super-secret projector plan we're supposed to buy?

It's just a bad link that I believe was made during the forum upgrade. I think it has something to do with the address not being resolved when the post was made. (or something like that) Just replace the address # with "www.lumenlab.com" and it works.

just thought i would bump this thread...i'm thinking about building one too, but with a wooden frame instead...

just waiting on what you guys say about the screen material

At this point diy rear projection has not been much of a success, the picture quality is painfully reduced. Some guy here has been using broken rear projection tv screens which I think is a good idea. Though they don't come much bigger then 60 inches. You can get a lot more with a simple white screen using front projection. The advantage is you don't have any light beams to keep away from.

What is the drawback? Opacity of the material being projected onto?

Finding a large front surfaced mirror could be a problem.

DJ