link to Elite screens aeon series CineGray screen: www.amazon.com/dp/B013OURCNA?... link to elite screens aeon series CineGray screen Unboxing and setup: • My NEW Screen! | Elite...
I installed a white screen, used it mainly at night. It is quite dark in my cinema room but I do have wood flooring and a white ceiling. The picture looked great especially with animation. I noticed that the blacks were not the best. I tried a grey sheet and the results were much better and showed that the white screen washed out a lot of the colours. I am waiting for my new grey screen to arrive with black surround for the wall behind the screen. To me the grey screen works for all occasions.
Bottom line, with a good projector you can add brightness to a gray screen but you can not add darkness to a white screen. Contrast is perceived by the difference of brightest whites and darkest blacks, the darker the black level the less bright the whites need to be. OLED tv's are a prefect example of this, they dont have high peak luminescence like an LCD tv but they appear to have more contrast due to the infinitely dark blacks.
So well written. Just a white screen can be perfectly black if no light shines on it. So light control in all directions is important. But as it is impossible to block all light sent out, and some light will always shine back on the screen, so if the screen have a wide viewing angle. ,,, a grey screen may be a better over all choise.
yea i was thinking the grey screen looks kinda bad in pitch black room what if we turn the projector brightness up? grey is more flexible because its not easy to get a pitch black room, and i rather have some ambient light at the seat area
Not sure if it’s that cut and dry. You’d really need to recalibrate when switching screens because as you’re mentioning, the contrast is totally off now and we’re losing detail.
Great review, a lot of other people who review these screens are insanely terrible and come off as infomercials but this was an actual normal review, really refreshing to see after all the terrible terrible reviews from other people about screens
Thank you for this timeless video! I think this video will always hold relevance to this projector/screen issue! Now since like anything and everything else in life - white VS grey screens - each will have their own PROs and CONs; what I would really like to see would be a company that produced and sold a "double sided" screen (if that would even be possible), so that, one side of the screen was WHITE and the other side was GREY! Then during the day or any other situation in which would had ambient light present, you could have the grey side "in use". Then when the sun went down or you otherwise controlled/eliminated ambient light, you could always swap to the white side of the screen! Although I don't actually HAVE a projector yet (it's on order, expecting it to arrive next week), I am definitely leaning toward a grey screen already though! Just because overall it does look like it would be better suiting to have a grey over a white! I say this because obviously you can use a grey in light or dark, but you pretty much "can't" use a white screen in the daylight or other ambient light situations. As you showed in the video it literally is a night and day difference in the perceived quality of the image! Now, if I can only find a decent grey screen in 200". White is very readily available in almost any size imaginable, but I've been having a hard time finding a 200" grey! My planned use is primarily outdoor, and the projector I have ordered claims a max throw to a 200" screen so I figure I'd max out. The other one I ordered (yes I actually ordered TWO) says it will throw up to a 300" image so I could even go for a screen as large as 300" grey! TL;DR ~ So thank you again for the video! If you know where I can find a "cheapo" 200" - 300" grey screen - please do let me know :)
As soon as I saw the shift from white to grey screen in the first part I was like "Holy moly..." it's a massive difference. Like a completely different experience and the blacks look the way you EXPECT them to (with the grey screen)! Such a shame that grey screens are so much more expensive and so much harder to find... There is a lot less selection in terms of models of grey screens too. Thanks for the video though! I'm now convinced grey is the way to go if you don't have a "pro" totally blacked out movie theatre room and just use your living room like me. Cheers!
Thanks for planning ahead and obtaining footage of your white screen before you replaced it with the gray screen. For your room conditions the gray screen is definitely the winner.
Sorry to be so offtopic but does someone know of a method to get back into an Instagram account..? I was dumb forgot the password. I love any help you can offer me.
@Harold Charlie i really appreciate your reply. I got to the site through google and Im trying it out now. Takes quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
I love my gray screen. It makes a major difference, especially during daytime. The screen returns the light in the direction it came from, so light coming from another direction is returned back to that direction. This is due to the property of the material in the reflective surface, which acts like corner reflectors. Very good video. I'm sending this to a friend who is buying a projector.
Thank you for the side by side. I've been going back and forth trying to decided on a white or grey screen since my room is dark and will have controlled lighting. Everyone always says get white I want as little wash out as possible if I turn the lights on although 9 out of 10 times they will be off. I've been looking for a good side by side video showing both screens running together. This helps my decision!
Coming from a matte white I can say even with the lights off the projector could wash itself out and I could lose finer details in dark areas. I just bought the AEON CLR off of Facebook yesterday for 300 bucks and IMMEDIATE upgrade for my UST. Yes you lose overall brightness and the BAM, but you gain detail in black areas and a much more inky black contrast ratio.
@@hyperactivetendencies7054 Agreed. I have a controlled light room that I have painted a dark warm gray, but it's only like 10' wide, so I still get light spill on the screen from light reflecting back from the side walls. It's not a lot, but enough that that you can tell, especially when the image has black bars. I've thought about putting black velvet on the side walls to help with this, but that stuff collects dust like crazy. I think a gray screen might just be the way to go. Thinking about it ...
If you can fully control the lighting in a room then a white screen with a gain of 1 or even .8 is better for dark rooms, but if you can’t or want some lighting on then go with the grey with a gain of 1.2 or higher. I don’t think it was mentioned in this video but I believe this screen has a gain of 1.2, please correct me if I’m wrong. Very helpful video showing the differences and compromises for both.
Seems like a brighter projector like the Epson 5050/6050 will be much better resolving and will pop on the CineGrey Screen than the Optoma. Although the Cinegrey was very good when light is on, it is loosing some details with the lights off. There seems to be a trade-off choosing any one of them. What would be the difference between the Grey , CineGrey , CineGrey 3D , CineGrey 5D , Silver Screen which are all available from Elite Screens. What screen would you recommend for ~$500 budget in a dedicated HT.
Hi nice comparison vid between the classic white projection screen that is very neutral to a grey one that really excel even with the lights on. How bright are your lights when it's on, maybe the white has a little chance in a dimmer light or maybe if we can use a brighter projector for the white screen but then again black and gray is really good with ambient lighting, you also have a good projector to showcase this thanks.
DLP is different to LCD, DLP has better contrast because the mirror isnt reflecting the light where as with lcd its the lcd that blocks the light so sometimes the light from lamp still gets through the lcd panel
I have a triple layered white matte one, it's fine but silver blacks and contrast do look better esp in ambient light, would say they're more expensive? What colour do cinemas use I wonder?
The difference is phenomenal white v grey , what if I got a BLACK screen ?… oh and well done fella .. this is a FANTASTIC demonstration ! You could be a great physics teacher !👍
Hey man!!! Thank you for making those 2 videos! I’ll be definitely using the set up video when mine arrives... I bought mine 3 months ago, but it’s a long trip to Ecuador... So, It’s the same one, regular cinegray matte, not the ALR cinegray 3D one... I’m going to be using mine with a BenQ TK850... I was wondering, what projector are you using? So I can compare specs (particularly lumens) and get an idea of how mine will look based on this video’s footage...
I had contact with a guy who imports Hot Toys and collectibles via Shipping containers, one one of those huge boats. so I asked him if I could use his address on Amazon, send it to him and have him bring it to Ecuador.
very interesting. the brightness seems almost not effected between the two, which was my concern for grey screens. perhaps thats due to the camera compensating for brightness and in reality brightness takes a huge hit for going grey instead of white?
Thanks a lot for the video, very much appreciated. Just one note, I don't know why you are saying that you have richer blacks in the blu dots comparison. Although they look a bit darker, you're actually losing completely the wavy images in the background. The "arrowed" dot in the cinegrey misses half of its volume! I guess white would be much better for me. Was yours a CineWhite also from Elite Screen? Thank you very much.
Yes 100% maybe if he turn up the brightness up might be better but might end up washed out again. Best get jvc with best black and great contrast with express white screen
@@liveloud4022 Yes it is what I thought. I tried a few pieces of fabric, Cinewhite, Cinewhite3d and 5d. I have to say 5d did look better than 3D and Cinwhite. But it was better only straight in front of the projection area center, already moving the A4 piece around the peak brightnes, look very similar to the cineWhite and my old cloth. But with LG OLED TV reaching 77" (maybe evev more this year) for 3-4000 (and without fan noise)... might be worthy to run out my actual set up light bulb and gofor a discounted TV next year.
Hey buddy, how would you describe the grey/dark shadow details on the grey screen? It seemed like anything dark grey (like someone wearing a black jumper) just showed up as completely black and you lost grey detail, best way to test this is probably look at someone wearing black clothes or a black suit and see if you can see the creases in the fabric of their clothing, its great to have OLED style dark blacks but you also don't want to loose grey/shadow detail. Not sure if the grey screen caused that from watching your footage or if it is your cameras fault
Ehhh on a projector when someone wears something the same color as the screen or anything on screen for that matter, its going to show up much brighter than the screen itself if that makes any sense. The only time you'll see the screens actual color is in day time when the image is black
A good example of that lost shadow detail would be right at 7:32/7:34. Towards the end, you can't really see that there is another person in the background on the right side. You see the same thing a few seconds later where you can't see the drummer's face at all (7:35/7:36). You could play around with the gamma/brightness/contrast settings to try to pull that detail out but then would be giving up some of the black-level benefits of the grey screen.
@@pilinke11 Totally, you don't have to gone full blown calibration but contrast and brightness test patterns are a must when setting up any image from whatever source. Some like to have a little more black crush to give that more OLED experience but that's subjective. I prefer to see the details so I calibrate to barely see 17 black (16-135 range) pattern test.
I am currently using a uhd50x. Planning on taking a cinegrey screen. how is the brightness when you go off angle. Elite specs say its Gain drops to 0.6 after 15 degrees. Also are you using the projector on eco or bright?
Sorry I’m tardy to the party but I wanted to tell you that I loved this video! It even helped me narrow down my purchase decision. While I’m not going to purchase an Elite Screens brand, at least I know I need a gray or high contrast screen. Is a high contrast screen the same as an ALR one (ambient light rejecting)? I am waiting for a swatch book from Silver Ticket screens to make my final decision. I recently purchased an Epson LS11000 since my Epson 5050UB has some mechanical error now and won’t even boot up properly and just shuts itself off. The LS11000 has lower lumens but I don’t even know how noticeable it will be since the other one crapped out. I agree that the general consensus is that white screens are great in perfectly light controlled rooms but I don’t have that luxury. I have a massive amount of light coming in during the day and have had to ride the brightness all the time with the 5050UB. My fear is lumens loss with a gray or high contrast screen, something I can NOT have. What’s your take on all this? Loyal subscriber now btw!
If you're going to have a gray screen of any kind you'll want a projector that can get to 2300-2800 lumens or up will struggle at day time viewing and HDR performance won't be great. Gray screens, especially with some sort of light rejection, have negative gain meaning light is dimmer coming off of it in relation to your projectors actual brightness. None of this too much matters if most viewing is Done at night
You want to go as bright as possible regardless of screen but 2500 lumens is minimum. Most projectors can achieve it. Or get a screen with a screen gain higher than 1.0
@@Kpaceguy Thank you for your quick response. Much appreciated. So my xgimi horizon has a rated ansi lumens of 2200, although I have read articles stating it is much lower than stated. Should I in such a situation go with a grey screen with 1.2 gain or go with an ALR screen in your opinion?
Awesome explanation of how black level can't make a white screen black 😁👍👏. Quick question, I have the LG hu810p and since it's a laser projector with 2700 lumens I did not want any light speckle or any artifacts on the screen. Any suggestions?
You’re going to want to get one of the CLR (ceiling light rejecting) screens from Elite Screens, they’re designed for ultrashort throw projectors like the LGHU810P. Your picture and we greatly improved. Trust me this is the way to go.
@@RagnarCrumpets Thank you for comment! The LG hu810p is a long throw laser projector. I tried the regular ALR screens and those were not a good fit at all. So I recently came across a really awesome screen company that also makes projector mounts, they are called Qualgear. I got thier 120 inch slate gray with 0.9 gain and all my problems were solved! I have a measured increase in black level at 30%. So all is perfect now 👌👍 Thanks again! 👏
@@kman9387 that’s very interesting, anything less than 1.0 gain is considered to be below the industry standard so I haven’t really been looking for anything of that type as I assumed it would just make the picture less bright. But you say it looks good?
The gray definitely has darker blacks with the lights on or off, but I have to give it to the white screen for definition and contrast for night-time viewing. I want to know why they say not to use an ultra-short throw projector with the Akia white screen?
@@Kpaceguy Like what you're showing deflects light from above, the Akia probably deflects light from below, and ultra short throw projectors cast from below. That would cause it to have a very washed out look. Makes sense.
Ive got a ceiling mounted short throw projector (not ultra short throw) in a room with controlled lighting (i.e. dark). What kind of screen should i get? Im thinking a regular matte white with no ALR/CLR?
The grey screen with the lights off was horrible. 6:09 - you can see some of the detail missing on the grey scene from the background versus the white screen. 7:00 - the grey screen scene just looks like it has unnatural lighting. there's a lot more too.
You are 100% correct. Gray screen just looks dull and lose a lot of details in low light scenes. Went through the painful process of buying both, comparing and returning the gray. I wish someone talked about this on RU-vid. I mean the difference is huge.
I use to have the cinegrey 5D and a epson 5040ub on my living room but now I moved everything to another room I can use for mini home theater 🎥 I pain walls black and put some black velvet on ceiling now I feel the cinegrey doesn't give me deeper blacks since it is 1.5 gain y probably get a white screen, and yes I did my test long time ago and yes you loose some details on gray screen it is hard to do a test side by side since you need to calibrated the projector to the screen you are using for a better picture quality
Absolutelly right, gray screen changes brightness. So I need to increase it to compensate. This is why on cinema theater they're still using white screen. For me, use gray screen if you want to see a movie with external lights... wait, why you should see a movie with external lights???
Great Vid mate. We are looking at getting the X100-4K Viewsonic for the throw distance, want a 120" screen in a 3.7 x 3.7 room. Not looking at a UST and my wife also gets the Rainbow effect. The viewsonic only produces 2900 Lumens (about 1200 Ansi lumens) so not sure which way to go. The room with have a bit of light control and is a dedicated room for the set up. The shop I am purchasing the projector from in Australia does this and only this, setting up theaters for people. The gentleman who has been assisting me flat out says a Grey screen will ruin the colours and not to go with one. I have not been able to see a grey screen in person, everything on RU-vid though makes the Grey look Amazing. Any advice would be great, thanks :)
I'll say this, I'll never buy a white screen again. I'll link you to a video I made recently about grey vs white and it should help a lot ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iGC1-Dq4Zj4.html
@@Kpaceguy Thank you for your reply and link. It’s appreciated a great deal. Just watched your new vid and have to say the grey looks much better. I do like a bright picture but not at the expense of loosing colour and contrast, the blacks look like a qled to OLED quality. Elite screens has a CineGrey 1.2 Gain I will be looking at purchasing now. Thanks so much for your vids and taking the time to respond, have an awesome day!
I am having issues with the bright colors to bright and the black level being to dark. Switching from a dark cave scene to a beach scene is frustrating, I feel the need to adjust the brightness and contrast frequently. Is there a remedy?
Basically. You get a white screen that is ambient light Rejecting but it still won't have as deep of blacks and contrast as the gray. As well as the detail
@@Kpaceguy thank you, im building home theater in basement and it will dark no windows and no lights while watching moves so I was confused to which to buy gray or white
I'm using an Xgimi Ultra on a white 1.1 gain screen but am considering switching to a 0.9 grey screen. I just fear that its 2300 ISO lumens is too low to use on a grey screen - especially for 3D content. My room is not light-controlled other than some curtains and the walls and ceiling are all white.
Depending on the mode you watch your projector in, you probably aren't using the full 2300 lumens as it is. So you might have a setting to give full brightness and if you do then I'll can go to the darker screen. It should be fine regardless though
@@Kpaceguy Thanks for the quick reply. Customer service at the webshop where I'm considering buying the screen from told me that they recommend at least +3000 lumens for grey screens... But I've had others telling me that 2.300 lumens will be fine...
Great or better yet Outstanding comparison and presentation....... and why do I say this is because of your honesty and great dictation and summation. I’ve tried every screen except an ALR gray .....I would have to agree with you the ALR gray is compared to the pure white screen provides just a little extra drop of clarity and punch for a room during the day with the lights on viewing HDR...and multi high output 4K movies. In closing as I had mentioned subsequently and I think you’ll agree with me and your viewers every room circumstances light ambient etc. etc. or different that in itself is going to make the final decision for either the white screen or the AL are gray screen. Due to the pandemic I have not been able to order or purchase the Aeon elite ALR Cinegray screen but as soon as it becomes available I am going to try it and compare it with my white screen and I’ll be sure to get back to you and let you know the results. Again, Outstanding and informative presentation keep up the good work I really like what you’re doing and I’m sure others are right along with me thank you. Allan G. United States Air Force
@@Kpaceguy tested and it looks amazing on normal grey paint - I have a 50 inch 4K I was using and now moved it to the kitchen. If I had tested it before, I don’t think I would have ordered a screen… but I’m waiting on a 100inch electric delivery and will compare then.
I mean there’s many different shades of grey As a compromise between complete white and a dark grey screen I’d probably go with a mid gray screen Some where in the middle between darkest gray and whitest white
9:18 not sure what hdr u talking about, but the top part is completely gone in the grey screen lol its like setting the gamma too dark in monitor and all the dark detail just disappeared if you watch horror movie with that you will have a hard time, cant see shit at all
Bro i wanna buy optoma uhz50 with the interior of the room nearly dark. (Black ceiling, dark brown wood panel, dark brown and dark grey stone in wall. But i am confused now. Which screen should i use? Black or white?
Ok wen day use the grey in bight use the white there's a point between white and grey to have a good image it's a tone of grey almost white but not white almost grey but not grey if you find it yi"ll get the right performents and you will be abol to adjust your projector very easily and you will enjoy enithing at eny tome with out mattering if is day or night the tone mabe is a little hard to find but I thin you will find it search the right tone... ();-)
Some of that has to do with the exposure on the camera. A camera just doesn't "see" the same way your eye does, so these types of reviews are ok for getting a general idea, but the eye test is the only way to go when making a decision on a screen material. Silver Ticket screens had a sample pack you can order for really cheap.
I have a complete dark room with control light I have painted my wall just the projected wall to 110 inch white vs popular gray, I can tell you, you will get better black contrast but that's it all the color will loose brightness white color will look like light gray not white but with the white paint you will get better color over all except black for my preference white paint or white projector screen looks better in dark rooms.
White screens are much better than gray screens. I bought a white 135 inch and then saw this and other videos and bought a gray one which I promptly returned after comparing. This video is very accurate on what you will get. While the contrast looks incredible on a grey screen, the image looks very dull in dark scenes. You lose a lot of details for example light shining on a metal and the skin tones are also darker. Gray screen basically brings down the entire white level down across the board. Don’t know how else to explain but you have to compare yourself. I took some videos but honestly the iPhone did so many corrections it wasn’t even close to what you would see through your eyes. Stick with a white screen for the best experience!
Bought a light grey screen and I regret it. The grey makes the projected screen darker which isn't good. The white screen is more brighter and color are more vibrant.
grey looks bad in pitch black room, too many colours missing and just looks dark not one is better than the other this depends on your room settings if you want pitch black room go white if you want some ambient light go grey
OK I guess not so I'll try my best via text I wanted to show you my outdoor setup so you can understand the question but I have a wooden gazebo in my backyard that I have a epson 30 then 3100 movement projector on a white screen I have shades that I pull down to block out some of the ambient light But it's still a little washy when I'm watching during the daytime do do you think that a centigrade would make a huge difference Is in my viewing during the day
this is a fake . i have xiaomi mi laser projector and i tried grey screen and the contrast looks better on white screen, the skin of the people looks bad on grey screens the white is not white on grey screen, the professionals theatres have a white screen not grey or black .
You do have to calibrate differently on each screen. And it depends how bright your room gets. I didn't change the calibration settings at all in this video tho. But fake? Nah you know it's not true lol
@@Kpaceguy the Grey screen isn't as bright i had to go back to my white screen . there is a trade off that is not mentioned in this video . the grey screen isn't for everyone so dont just run out and get one like i said there is a trade off . you might get darker blacks but you lose that overall brightness and it can look dull at times .
