Introduction

Although flat panel HDTVs come in pretty big sizes these days, even the largest one cannot compete with what we can get with a projector screen. If you want a 10 foot wide screen, no problem.

Well, maybe I shouldn't have said, "no problem".

Some consumers have dedicated home theaters that control all ambient light such that when all the room lights are off and the projector is off too, you can't see your hand in front of your face because there is zero ambient light.

For the majority of us however, we use a family room or den for watching movies using a projector that we place on a coffee table, or perhaps mounted on the ceiling, with the screen mounted on the opposite wall, or pull-down from the ceiling. And, that room has doors and windows. The result? Ambient light that peeks its way around the edges of the blackout curtains.

Ambient light strikes the screen and adds white to that deep blue sea or bright red dress that the star is wearing. This causes the color to become desaturated and reduces the overall contrast of the image. It's a frustrating problem that we either just put up with, or do something about.

A company called Screen Innovations (SI) has done something about it by designing a screen material to mitigate the problem. They call it Black Diamond II HD.