Big Picture Big Sound

While ISF's Joel Silver has been busy with electronics manufacturers like Integra Research building advanced calibration controls into their home theater preamps and receivers, fellow image quality guru Joe Kane (of Joe Kane Productions) has teamed up with Da-Lite Screen Company to design, develop and manufacture projection screens for the home theater and film production markets.  At CEDIA Expo in Denver last week, Joe and Da-Lite reps were on hand to demonstrate the new "HD Progressive" screen material using the Samsung SP-A800B 1080p DLP projector (which Joe also helped to design) to light it up. 

And whatever "secret sauce" Joe sprinkles on these screens seems to work as the images produced in the demo had excellent color saturation, rich black levels and virtually perfect uniformity.  The screen materials which will bear the brand "JKP Affinity Screens from Da-Lite" are expected to be available this fall in two flavors: the Enhanced Matte White fabric is intended for large HD format viewing, and the newly engineered Da-Lite HD Progressive material features a low 0.9 gain for a wide viewing angle and complete absence of hot-spotting.  I got up and looked at the image from way off-axis and noticed no significant drop in brightness or color shift.

The JKP Affinity HD Progressive screen material is expected to be available this fall for a "small premium" (about 25%) over Da-Lite's regular screen pricing.

More information:

• www.Da-Lite.com
• www.JoeKane.com