Projector woes

I’ve been projecting straight onto the wall for years now - perfectly fine, does the job, no nonsense setup - and for the most part, I’ve had no reason to even think about changing it. But now the wall’s got a few hairline cracks, nothing dramatic, just the kind of thing that catches the light wrong, and of course once you notice it, you can’t not see it. So fine, maybe it’s time for a refresh.

And that’s where the so called “options” start getting ridiculous. Projector paint - which if you believe the hype is supposed to transform your wall into some professional grade cinema surface costs a small fortune once you go above 4.5m² and you still have to prep the wall within an inch of its life. Fill, sand, prime, then pray it doesn’t show every tiny bump once the light hits. Because, honestly, all the marketing in the world won’t change the fact that paint can’t not follow the surface it’s on.

So then there’s the DIY screen idea. Build a proper frame, stretch some projector fabric - maybe even mount it directly to the wall, and at least you’re not relying on the plaster being perfect. And yes, I’ve seen plenty of people claim it’s “easy” and “worth it,” but let’s not pretend that building something dead flat, square, and tensioned evenly over 140 inches is just a Sunday afternoon job. And the off the shelf frames? All of them seem obsessed with slapping a huge black border on the front like that somehow makes it “professional.” Maybe it helps some projectors, fine, but if it cuts into the image and draws the eye, then it’s not helping, is it?

To anyone who’s actually done it, not just watched a YouTube video and called it research, what’s the real world experience of making a fixed frame screen this size? Was it actually a clean success, or one of those “looked good on paper until you started cutting timber and cursing at fabric” sort of jobs?

Does it stay tight over time, or do you end up fiddling with it every few months as it sags?

And, for anyone who’s gone down the paint route, was it genuinely better, or just a case of convincing yourself the cost was worth it? Because honestly, I can’t not think the fabric solution is the more sensible route, but I’d rather hear it from someone who’s lived with both before I start throwing money and weekends at it.

So projector paint or DIY screen? Which one actually holds up, and which one’s just a waste of patience dressed up as an "upgrade"?

I used to have a pull down screen fixed to the wall, worked a treat, a black border makes a big difference IMO. Still got it in the garage actually, god knows why, you can have it if you can collect it.

I've done it all for various customers.

Screen paint allowed me to create projection surfaces where traditional fixed or rolldown screens wouldn't have been practical. The last one I did was in a museum in Chester. The screen size is 6m x 3.5m roughly. It's a 200 seat auditorium. It works well. The projector is only 5000 ANSI. At that screen size any minor imperfections in the wall aren't noticeable, but I did spend quite a bit of time on prep before applying the various paint layers. The paint was by Smarter Surfaces.

The first painted one I ever did was back when CRT projectors were still the daddy. The screen size was much smaller - approx 2.1m x 1.2m. I was there principally to install and converge the 50kg Barco 808 and get that running with DVD and a scaler. The customer already had the Screen Goo screen paint.

The room layout was weird. I would have preferred to use a fixed screen with a matt 1.3 gain surface to minimise hot-spotting from the three projection tubes. That wan't to be. The projection wall was part of a walk-thru access to another part of the home. One feature of the Screen Goo system is the magnetic border paint. The idea is that you can have black borders to your screen (a good idea) that can be taken off when the screen isn't being used. I thought it was a bit amateurish-looking. The difference between the white wall and the screen paint was also very obvious in daylight or with the room lights on.

The paint surface did hotspot, and yes, on the smaller screen size it's more obvious where the flaws are with the wall.

I've made screen frames for use with projection screen material. Vinyl screen material works okay because it's stretchy. The better quality fibreglass based screen materials aren't so suitable unless they're pre-finished with a strengthened border with eyelets. If so, then hanging it with short, thick elastic bands provides perfect tension, but you need a metal screen frame rather than timber to avoid sagging at the midpoints of each span. Honestly, it's more effort than its worth, so just buy a premade frame screen.

The one DIY thing I've avoided is the Dulux Ice Storm paint mixes that were beloved of budget DIYers a few years ago. I never had the time or a suitable space to trial it, and having experienced customer's attempts at what they thought was good result for DIY, I wasn't enthused about taking a gamble on a live job.

Cheap rolldown screens always curl at the edges. They can also have issues with the counterweight bar not applying even pressure, so they ripple in the middle. The old round cylinder Elite screen used to be bad for that. I'd see them in pub CRT installations. Floppy edges and wobbly panning shots. Things might have moved on since.

Lucid said:

Cheap rolldown screens always curl at the edges. They can also have issues with the counterweight bar not applying even pressure, so they ripple in the middle. The old round cylinder Elite screen used to be bad for that. I'd see them in pub CRT installations. Floppy edges and wobbly panning shots. Things might have moved on since.

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Mine never curled at the edges or rippled and they're an easy solution.

freddiemercurystwin said:

I used to have a pull down screen fixed to the wall, worked a treat, a black border makes a big difference IMO. Still got it in the garage actually, god knows why, you can have it if you can collect it.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the offer, but I’m not sure if want it. I can already picture myself with that screen in the garage, right next to a dozen other things I said I would get to. The whole "oh, I’ll definitely use that at some point" routine doesn’t work anymore.

Not sure I need another thing lying around, collecting dust and making me feel guilty about not getting around to it.

Thanks anyway though, it’s always nice to have options but for now, I’m probably just going to stick with keeping it simple. Projector paint’s still in the running, sure, it’s not perfect but less faff seems like the way to go. Less of a "what could go wrong" situation.

Lucid said:

I've done it all for various customers.

Screen paint allowed me to create projection surfaces where traditional fixed or rolldown screens wouldn't have been practical. The last one I did was in a museum in Chester. The screen size is 6m x 3.5m roughly. It's a 200 seat auditorium. It works well. The projector is only 5000 ANSI. At that screen size any minor imperfections in the wall aren't noticeable, but I did spend quite a bit of time on prep before applying the various paint layers. The paint was by Smarter Surfaces.

The first painted one I ever did was back when CRT projectors were still the daddy. The screen size was much smaller - approx 2.1m x 1.2m. I was there principally to install and converge the 50kg Barco 808 and get that running with DVD and a scaler. The customer already had the Screen Goo screen paint.

The room layout was weird. I would have preferred to use a fixed screen with a matt 1.3 gain surface to minimise hot-spotting from the three projection tubes. That wan't to be. The projection wall was part of a walk-thru access to another part of the home. One feature of the Screen Goo system is the magnetic border paint. The idea is that you can have black borders to your screen (a good idea) that can be taken off when the screen isn't being used. I thought it was a bit amateurish-looking. The difference between the white wall and the screen paint was also very obvious in daylight or with the room lights on.

The paint surface did hotspot, and yes, on the smaller screen size it's more obvious where the flaws are with the wall.

I've made screen frames for use with projection screen material. Vinyl screen material works okay because it's stretchy. The better quality fibreglass based screen materials aren't so suitable unless they're pre-finished with a strengthened border with eyelets. If so, then hanging it with short, thick elastic bands provides perfect tension, but you need a metal screen frame rather than timber to avoid sagging at the midpoints of each span. Honestly, it's more effort than its worth, so just buy a premade frame screen.

The one DIY thing I've avoided is the Dulux Ice Storm paint mixes that were beloved of budget DIYers a few years ago. I never had the time or a suitable space to trial it, and having experienced customer's attempts at what they thought was good result for DIY, I wasn't enthused about taking a gamble on a live job.

Cheap rolldown screens always curl at the edges. They can also have issues with the counterweight bar not applying even pressure, so they ripple in the middle. The old round cylinder Elite screen used to be bad for that. I'd see them in pub CRT installations. Floppy edges and wobbly panning shots. Things might have moved on since.

Click to expand...

As for the Screen Goo and DIY options yeah I've heard mixed things. Some swear by it, but I’ve seen the same “DIY perfection” turn into more of a DIY nightmare on several occasions.

People end up with that obvious gap between the paint and the actual screen and it’s hard to ignore. The magnetic border idea sounds cool but in practice, like you said it’s a bit amateurish, doesn’t quite have the same pro look as a proper finished edge.

Lucid - I've got a follow up question for you.

Do different receivers, old vs new, affect the sound quality on the preout port for a subwoofer? Like does the age of the receiver actually change how clean or accurate that bass signal is or is it all just about the sub itself?

I'm not interested about the doo dah on the new receivers though.

Jurassicspark said:

Thank you for the offer, but I’m not sure if want it. I can already picture myself with that screen in the garage, right next to a dozen other things I said I would get to. The whole "oh, I’ll definitely use that at some point" routine doesn’t work anymore.

Not sure I need another thing lying around, collecting dust and making me feel guilty about not getting around to it.

Thanks anyway though, it’s always nice to have options but for now, I’m probably just going to stick with keeping it simple. Projector paint’s still in the running, sure, it’s not perfect but less faff seems like the way to go. Less of a "what could go wrong" situation.

Click to expand...

Haha, it was a tongue in cheek offer really, it's probably completely knackered/rotten still having been sat inside it's box in the garage for the last couple of decades!

Jurassicspark said:

Lucid - I've got a follow up question for you.

Do different receivers, old vs new, affect the sound quality on the preout port for a subwoofer? Like does the age of the receiver actually change how clean or accurate that bass signal is or is it all just about the sub itself?

I'm not interested about the doo dah on the new receivers though.

Click to expand...

You're asking if the bass 'goes off' with age? I don't think I've ever been asked that before.

Unless there's some problem with the circuitry - duff caps or a failing IC - I wouldn't expect the bass signal to sound worse with age. It might not stand up to scrutiny compared to more modern AVRs that use room EQ, but only a few AVRs actually attempt to EQ the sub channel(s) in any meaningful way.

The other thing relating to age is the audio CODEC support.

My first standalone processor was a TAG McLaren from the early 2000s. It was bloody good with movies, but limited to the lossy CODECs for DD and DTS. When the lossless CODECs came out - Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD MA - they really moved the game up a league. It wasn't quite the step that Dolby Surround (DPL) to DD/DTS was. But that's because DS was launched in the early 1980s. It was ancient, and the bar wasn't that high.

Anyone in the UK who wasn't into the niche market of imported LaserDIsc titles from the US or Japan wouldn't have heard DD (AC-3) until DVD arrived. It was a massive step up from the fuzzy surround that was Dolby ProLogic was decoding.

Dolby Surround-era AVRs with a subwoofer out were dipping into the 20 Hz~20 kHz main channel audio tracks for the bass content unless they had an onboard AC-3 RF decoder, or had an input for an external one. That's about the only way that the <mid-'90s AVRs could access a dedicated LFE channel signal.

Lossless audio - Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD MA - required better decoding chips to handle the purer signal. The combination of this and the improved signal source may well have resulted in a feeling that the older gear just couldn't cut it. Having said that, I had a play here with a customer's Yamaha DSP-A3090, and even just running in stereo + sub mode, this battle tank construction mid-'90s Dolby Surround was an absolute joy. Huge dollops of effortless, bottomless bass control. The audio equivalent of moving from the swimming pool to swimming in the open ocean.

Lucid said:

You're asking if the bass 'goes off' with age? I don't think I've ever been asked that before.

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I've heard a lot of people mentioning age, wear and tear can reduce the sound quality by a bit.

Whether that is true or not - is a different story.

But, how would a old receiver (and when I say old, I mean circa 2000's) compete against a new receiver, or a receiver that has been released a few years ago, in terms of bass, distortion and sound quality.

Let's assume the THD for both receivers is about the same.

Lucid said:

Unless there's some problem with the circuitry - duff caps or a failing IC - I wouldn't expect the bass signal to sound worse with age.

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Ah - that was the one I was looking for.

So it could degrade the sound quality?

And "duff caps" are not considered a "problem" because they won't always cause the receiver to fail to generate any sound.

Lucid said:

It might not stand up to scrutiny compared to more modern AVRs that use room EQ, but only a few AVRs actually attempt to EQ the sub channel(s) in any meaningful way.

Click to expand...

Surely, I can customise it myself?

Jurassicspark said:

I've heard a lot of people mentioning age, wear and tear can reduce the sound quality by a bit.

Whether that is true or not - is a different story.

Click to expand...

You'd have to get them to quantify what they really mean.

Jurassicspark said:

But, how would a old receiver (and when I say old, I mean circa 2000's) compete against a new receiver, or a receiver that has been released a few years ago, in terms of bass, distortion and sound quality.

Let's assume the THD for both receivers is about the same.

Click to expand...

A good old receiver (with an external multichannel input to get around not having HD audio decoding) would sound comparable to a good modern receiver also decoding HD audio. The bass level for the main channel speakers is a function of how well the amplifier delivers power. The bass from the sub channel would be identical because that's just an electronic signal. The real power would be in the sub.

Jurassicspark said:

And "duff caps" are not considered a "problem" because they won't always cause the receiver to fail to generate any sound.

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Yu can think of an intermittent or dying capacitor as a leaky bucket. It still carries some water, just not as much as a bucket without a hole.

Jurassicspark said:

Surely, I can customise it myself?

Click to expand...

Older AVRs (2000s generation) would EQ the sub for level, phase, crossover frequency(ies), and delay. Most modern AVRs do pretty much the same as far as the sub goes. They do a lot more with the higher frequencies for the main channel frequencies.

If you want to dial in a sub very specifically, you'd buy an outboard parametric EQ device such as a MiniDSP, and a calibrated mic. You'd then run a series of audio tests to map the sound in the room from just the sub. Once you have the frequency response curves, it would then be possible to start tinkering with the sub- and the seating- positions to find a better spot, before finishing off with tweaks with the EQ to flatten the worst peaks.

Lucid said:

You'd have to get them to quantify what they really mean.

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Line level output, perhaps?

Lucid said:

The bass from the sub channel would be identical because that's just an electronic signal. The real power would be in the sub.

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What about how well the amp copes with the speaker’s impedance curve?

Jurassicspark said:

Line level output, perhaps?

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You're asking me to guess? Come on now, let's be sensible. How would I know what they're suggesting, and you seem to be groping for?

Jurassicspark said:

What about how well the amp copes with the speaker’s impedance curve?

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Which amp? What speakers? It's kind of like asking how fast a car goes. Are we talking a Ford Fiesta, an M-Series BM, or a Koenigsegg, here?

Look, this is all incredibly vague, and it feels like you're trying to get some kind of definitive statement that you can then shoot down.

Lucid said:

You're asking me to guess?

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I’m not.

Lucid said:

Come on now, let's be sensible. How would I know what they're suggesting, and you seem to be groping for?

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It wasn’t what “they,” or “anyone else,” was suggesting.

It was what I was merely asking, that’s why the message was followed by a “perhaps?”

A refined way would be: “Do older vs newer receivers differ in line level output voltage for the pre outs, and does it really matter?”

Or is it a standard reference level?

I’m sure it matters.

My laptop and my iMac have two “different listening experiences,”whether that’s by using headphones or speakers, and the sole reason why is because the laptop has got a weak amplifier compared to the iMac.

So, a weak pre out from a receiver, surely would impact the speaker or the subwoofer, regardless how good the amplifier is for the speaker or the subwoofer?

Lucid said:

Which amp?

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The crux behind this was

Comparing

“Older receivers.”

And

“Newer receivers.”

Lucid said:

What speakers?

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Aren’t home theatre speakers ohm specifications common against others, similar in nature?

Anyhow - Didn’t the older receiver and when I mean old, I’m referring to the linear ones, act incredibly, utterly, s**t when the frequency of the speakers sub/speakers reached below 25hz? Due to the variable ohms fluctuations?

I’ve heard, whether this is true or not, older receivers may rely on cascaded “RC filters” in the preout path, which could impart subtle phase shifts at the edges of the audible spectrum/waveform.

Lucid said:

Look, this is all incredibly vague, and it feels like you're trying to get some kind of definitive statement that you can then shoot down.

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I’m really not.

Thanks for your time though - it’s enough info for now.