Da-Lite Cinema Contour - A High Quality Home Theater Screen
Written: Nov 30 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great price, high quality screen, easy to install.
Cons: Vinyl smell was terrible for about a week.
The Bottom Line: Da-Lite's home theater screens are an excellent value for the money.
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| mrs-j's Full Review: DaLite 87156C Cinema Contour - HDTV Format w/ Pro-... |
I think that everyone in the world has probably used a Da-Lite screen, especially when you consider that most of those flimsy excuses for screens in public schools are made by Da-Lite. I actually discovered during the painful process of trying to get our screen that Da-Lite is the preferred manufacturer for all of the screens in New York's public school system.
Having grown up with flimsy Da-Lite screens I wasn't terribly keen on the idea of purchasing one for use in our home theater. My husband convinced me though, after pointing out that the one we would be purchasing would be nothing like the ones in the schools I went to.
The screen we used in our original home theater was a Stewart FireHawk which I absolutely loved. I wanted to go with another Stewart but my husband felt that since we had a more than capable projector, we could go for a more mid-range screen this time around.
My husband chose the Da-Lite Cinema Contour HDTV Format screen with Pro-Trim for our home theater.
About the Da-Lite Cinema Contour HDTV Format w/Pro Trim
First, a little declassifying of the codespeak that Da-Lite uses for their screens.
Da-Lite's "Cinema Contour" screen line is a fixed-wall mounted line of screens, each with a 45 degree angle cut frame and a fixed, flat screen surface. The Cinema Contour HDTV Format screen refers to all of the Da-Lite line that is available in the 16:9 native HDTV format radio. The Pro-Trim finish is just a fabric velvet-flocked finish on the frame. The standard finish is plain black metal which doesn't absorb light nearly as well as the Pro-Trim finish does.
We chose this line of screens because experience has shown that we don't really need a fancy masking system, or a retractable screen system. Since our home theater room is dedicated, it can look like a home theater all the time, there's no need to hide away a screen when it's not in use. Besides, we like the look of the wall-mounted screen, even when we're not watching something on it.
Options For This Line of Screens
There are several configurations that you can choose for this screen. Once the Cinema Contour has been chosen, the two other variables for each screen are the screen type and the screen size.
Da-Lite makes the Cinema Contour line of screens with and without the Pro-Trim finish for sizes ranging from 92" - 220" diagonal in the 16:9 HDTV format. We opted for a 119" diagonal screen size.
Da-Lite's screen fabrics vary greatly and they include a utility on their website to help you choose which screen fabric will best suit your needs, based on your projector type, room size, projector placement, ambient light, and viewing angle requirements.
We chose the "Cinema Vision" screen fabric for use in our Cinema Contour frame based on the requirements we plugged into the fabric choosing guide at Da-Lite's site. This is a white vinyl fabric with a gain of 1.3 and a viewing angle of 45 degrees. Other common choices are the "High Contrast Cinema Vision", a gray fabric better for DLP projectors and a more plain, simple "Matte White" fabric.
The Cinema Vision line of fabrics are seamless up to 12' high, whereas some of the specialty fabrics are only seamless up to 8' or 6' feet high. It's helpful to consult the specifications for the "Cinema Contour" to make sure that your screen fabric will be seamless for your size screen.
Purchasing your Da-Lite Screen
Once we had chosen our fabric and size, we called B&H Photo/Video to order the screen. B&H is a reseller of Da-Lite screens, but we soon learned that using B&H was an enormous mistake - details of B&H's atrocious, repeated mishaps with our screen order are in this review of B&H.
Even though B&H screwed up our order twice, we still got the correct screen the second time thanks to Da-Lite themselves. We called Da-Lite to check that our second order was correct and when it wasn't, the representative at Da-Lite corrected it for us so that we got the screen we'd asked for.
While B&H is just not up to par as a reseller of Da-Lite screens, the folks at Da-Lite themselves were extremely responsive, knowledgeable and helpful. I recommend if you purchase this screen, you use a company other than B&H for the purchase.
Installation
Once our correct screen arrived, we carried it upstairs to our home theater room on the third level and installed it. The screen is drop-shipped direct from Da-Lite and comes via a specialty shipping company, no UPS or FedEx here. It's a heavy box and very long. It took both of us to carry it up two sets of stairs, but with two people it was very manageable.
It took us about 90 minutes, from start to finish, to completely assemble the screen. Some of that time was spent on hold with Da-Lite though, because we did require a small amount of technical assistance.
The frame goes together very easily with the supplied screws. Our screen, being under 120" diagonal in size, came with two large wall brackets. The smaller screens come with one large and one small wall bracket. Screens larger than 120" come with three wall brackets.
This frame mounted in a completely different way from our Stewart frame. Steward has you mount brackets on the wall that you screw the frame onto. The brackets provided by Da-Lite mount horizontally on the wall. The top bracket runs the length of the screen frame and mounts just under where you want the top of the frame to be. The bottom bracket also runs the length of the screen, but is at the very bottom of the frame.
After building the frame, and measuring out the location of the brackets, we realized we had no screws for the brackets. My husband called Da-Lite just to be sure we had everything correct and the representative said they got called all the time about the lack of screws. Since Da-Lite doesn't know exactly what kind of wall or surface the screen is going to be mounted on, they don't send screws. When we mentioned that we wouldn't be able to screw the brackets in exactly on the studs, the rep said we shouldn't worry with a 119" diagonal screen, with some drywall screws it would be fine. We went downstairs and located some drywall mount screws to use with the brackets.
It was then time to snap the screen into the back of the frame and mount the frame. Da-Lite uses a tension mounting process for their Cinema Contour screens. To mount it you positon the top lip of the screen frame over the lip of the top bracket, center it perfectly, and then put pressure against the bottom edge of the frame to pull it down just enough for it to snap into the lip of the bottom bracket. Once it snaps in place, the screen is going nowhere. It took both of us standing on each side of the screen pressing down on the bottom edge to get it to snap into place on the bottom bracket.
As far as installation, that's it! Snap it into place and you're done. (How we get this sucker off its brackets I do not know but that's a problem for another time and another place, hopefully many, many years from now.)
Maintenance
Since this is a fixed screen there are no moving parts or other mechanical issues to worry about. If the screen needs to be cleaned, Da-Lite recommends using a clean, damp cloth and wiping the screen down in one direction only.
Picture Quality
The quality if this screen is beyond what I thought Da-Lite was capable of, based on my limited experience with their flimsier, cheap screens. The gain and Cinema Vision is perfect for our LCD projector and the viewing angle allows us to add more chairs to our home theater than we thought we would be able to.
I completely recommend the Pro-Trim finish, particularly if you find that perfecting the keystone correction on your projector is tough. If any light bleeds over to the trim, the fabric absorbs it so completely that it's not noticeable.
We chose the 16:9 HDTV format for our Cinema Contour because we always end up watching DVDs and movies in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Da-Lite does make this screen available in a 4:3 ratio, but I wouldn't recommend it for larger screens, as 4:3 television blown up to full size is pretty ugly.
The Only Downside
There was one thing I did not like about this screen and that was the smell from the outgassing of the vinyl once it was installed. I noticed a day or so after we installed the screen that our home theater stank to high heaven. After scratching our heads for a few moments, I walked over to the screen and took a whiff. BLECH! The smell was terrible.
I opened up the windows in the room and cranked up a fan for a day and the smell dropped to acceptable levels. After a week or so, the smell faded completely.
Service and Support
We've dealt with Da-Lite more in the past month than any of the vendors we've used for any other home theater product. Every single time we've called we have been pleased with their support and their help. I can highly recommend the company based on their support record with us.
All Da-Lite projection screens come with a one year limited warranty against manufacturer or product defects. When returning a screen for warranty repairs, the return should go through an authorized Da-Lite dealer.
Da-Lite Contact Information:
3100 North Detroit Street
Post Office Box 137
Warsaw, IN 46581-0137
Phone: (800) 622-3737
Fax: (574) 267-7804
E-mail: info@da-lite.com
Other Helpful Da-Lite Links:
Da-Lite Front Projection Screen Guide: http://www.da-lite.com/education/guide.php
Da-Lite Fabric List: http://www.da-lite.com/education/guide.php?page=fabric
Da-Lite Cinema Contour Product Information: http://www.da-lite.com/products/product_pdfs/234.pdf
Recommended:
Yes
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mrs-j
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"Man was made for something better than disturbing dirt." - Oscar Wilde
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