Tips From The Top

Are you ready to create the home theater of your dreams?

While HD TVs offer some incredible images, if you’re looking to bring the true theater experience to your own home, a projector and screen are just what you need to make an authentic, all-encompassing event for your next family movie night.

Let’s start with a brief introduction to home theater screens for your smart home.

Essentially, there are two basic screen types: fixed and motorized. A fixed screen remains on the wall, its frame and screen material always present. A motorized screen is retractable, raising and lowering into a case. There are a variety of reasons you would choose one over another; your smart home integrator can help you decide which option is best for your theater.

Screen size, viewing distance, and screen shape, as well as front or rear projection, will all influence your decision for the best screen. 

Dragonfly leads the pack in design and production of superior quality film screens for home theaters. Their screens are built for custom installations, well-suited for particular smart home specifications. 

Dragonfly’s 4K projection screens provide four times the color, sharpness, and overall resolution of 1080p screens. Their fixed screens mount directly to the wall and can add a sleek finish to the smart home’s design. Their retractable screens drop down via a quiet motor in less than thirty seconds. And the recessed screens drop down from the ceiling and can hide again in a storage space.

If windows and unwanted light interfere with your viewing experience, Dragonfly’s Ultra Black ALR absorbs and rejects ambient light, allowing any room to become a home theater. Dragonfly’s Ultra AcoustiWeave screen is acoustically transparent, so that your integrator can conceal speakers behind the screen without affecting the sound or image quality. And Dragonfly’s High Contrast screen adds a wider spectrum of subtle blacks and darker colors to the scene, perfect for home theaters that have a lot of natural light but want a theater mood.

Stewart Filmscreen makes professional screen products that can also be used in home theaters. THX and ISF certified, these screens are used in studio screening rooms and film production houses around the world, making them the industry-standard for color balance, details, and textures. Stewart Filmscreen offers fixed frame systems with front and rear projection, fixed frame systems with motorized masking, rigid glass and acrylic rear projection screens, and retractable screens with motorized masking. 

“Motorized masking” is a feature based on the fact that covering part of the screen helps you to actually see the image better. Since you view images in your home theater in different aspect ratios (standard TV format vs widescreen, for example), a motorized masking system will automatically shift your screen from one aspect ratio to another, instantly creating a sharp black border to help your eye see a sharper image. Called the “Binary Reciprocal Intelligent Control” by Stewart Filmscreen, this feature creates precision settings for all standard and custom aspect ratios, eliminating the need for multiple controllers.

This brief introduction is just the tip of the iceberg of home theater screens. Working with an integrator will give you a broader sense of the options available. To learn more about screens for your home theater, call us at Jackson Hole AV. We’d love to help you find the best screen to create the home theater of your dreams.