There is a catch during low-light viewing, however, in the form of a slight ‘glistening’ effect over the image. My tests proved that it also functions well in darkened environments, with contrast levels and colour response both remaining very impressive. Hit the lights!ĭon’t think from all this that Screen Innovations’ Zero Edge is only good in bright rooms.
But considering that a Zero Edge costs a mere fraction of what a similarly sized plasma TV would set you back, its results are more than good enough.
To be fair, a plasma screen could deliver brighter, punchier images still. Even with daylight streaming in it served an image of surprising dynamism, colour richness and black level response – sticking two fingers firmly up at the usual laws of projection physics. The result of all the Zero Edge’s innovations is that it delivered an engaging image with all of my test room’s lights on – even with some fairly cheap and cheerful projectors. In fact, the latest generation Black Diamond fabric on the Zero Edge is even more potent with its reflectivity than previous iterations, as well as being watchable from wider viewing angles before the image’s brightness consistency deteriorates. In other words, with Black Diamond screens, far more of the projector’s light is fired straight back at you, producing a level of intensity that scarcely seems possible at times. Try using it in a room with light walls and you will notice that the reflections cast off onto the wall are enormously reduced compared with normal screens, which tend to ‘scatter’ the light that hits them. The ‘trick’ of the Black Diamond screen is essentially that it’s multi-layer structure enables it to better focus the light that hits it from the projector.
The latter option is also recommended if you’re a heavy watcher of 3D. There’s a 0.8 gain finish for relatively low-lit rooms, the likely most popular 1.4 gain for fairly typical living conditions, and a high 2.7 gain version for very bright environments. The fabric finish on the Zero Edge comes in three flavours depending on your needs. On the upside, of course, this backplate also ensures the screen can’t bend or warp away from the perfect flatness that’s so necessary for a home cinema projection screen. Though don’t imagine from this that the Zero Edge is light in fact, while not as heavy as an 80in+ flatpanel, its rigid aluminium ‘backplate’ introduces some serious heft. You can, suggests Screen Innovations, even make a fashion statement out of your Zero Edge by hanging it via ‘flying’ wire mounts. It’s also barely 1cm deep, meaning the impact on your room is remarkably small for a product which ranges between 80in and 142in diagonally. What’s more, in place of the chunky frame found around most projection screens, the Zero Edge lives up to its name by sporting barely 1cm of frame. This clever, startlingly effective product uses a patented – and fiercely guarded! – ‘layered’ construction to produce a contrast-rich projection screen surface genuinely watchable in daylight conditions. The latter approach is massively more affordable, but demands that you a) find somewhere to hang a big and quite often ugly screen, and b) either convert a spare room into a dedicated home cinema, or live with your everyday living room in perpetual darkness.Ĭue the Black Diamond Zero Edge from Screen Innovations.
You want MASSIVE. This would be fine, were it not for the fact that going truly massive where video screens are concerned means either spending a fortune on a king-sized plasma TV (such as Panasonic’s extraordinary 103-incher), or else trying to accommodate a projection system. In fact, for some of you, even ‘big’ won’t cut it. If you’re reading this magazine, chances are you love a big screen. Enjoy a big screen experience without compromising your lifestyle