Impact Screen Comparisons

[Taylor40299]

I did something close to what I described. I am using the supertex screen. The bottom has a conduit covered in pvc as weight, hovering about 1/4 off floor. I had to put in two fixed end poles (2x4) to attach bungee cords. And same conduit attach to ceiling very securely, no play at ceiling. Without bungee there was always significant wrinkles. In total darkness I find the screen to be quite adequate for movies played through blue ray. The surround sound added more value than the better screen. At first I got caught up in try to make it perfect but to be honest the room is our play room. Often has 6 girl slumber parties playing Mario cart and streaming scary movies with popcorn. I couldn’t justify cost to equal the 4K tv inside. I think the supertex screen is a great value if you have light control. I can make my room dark at noon. Hope this helps. I really have not seen that I might blow through it. Have had it a year. Play 2 to 3 rounds a week. Have friends over. My ball speed is over 160 and am 9 to 10 feet from screen.

[Solstice72]

Thanks for the input. My plan is/was to have a painted wall and a 16 x9 impact in front. Just here people talking about better image quality and wondered how good it is on better impact screens, or at least more expensive ones. I will through this out as well to see how you guys think it will work. I thinking two rods in the impact screen. One that runs across the top on pulleys to raise it, and one across the bottom weighted to make hang straight, but not really attached, so that the screen can catch the ball but the weight would keep it flat. Probably would need some bungies to keep from swinging, or at least to help it settle down quickly. Then I could just lower it to see painted sceen behind. This was my original ideal when I got the supertex screen.

Taylor, very interested in what you did for movie screen and impact screen. Looking for the best for impact screen.

Thanks

[Ironstrokes]

now that i pointed it out your going to notice haha. I dont hit as hard as you so i dont blow through mine as you have

Son of a bitch, I did notice it today! haha. It didnt kill just me yet, but i cant see the process has begun

[aeroburner]

now that i pointed it out your going to notice haha. I dont hit as hard as you so i dont blow through mine as you have

[Ironstrokes]

agree on the gc2 but from what i saw on the screen on irons you tube is the screen is puddling all over the place and after he hits it, it looks like a sheet out on a clothes line, personally that would drive me nuts

Yea I had it tighter in the past but after the bounce back and then blowing the holes in my hq2 and supertex so quickly I had to back it off a bit on the tension. And that is even with a net fairly tight behind it too. Played with the tensions on both the screen and the net and just never found that perfect sweet spot. Always mess with it like once every month or two and then back off when I get bored.

I don't have anything tensioning the bottom of the screen across it either, so I'm sure that's part of the culprit too. Hasn't bothered me too much yet, once it does then it'll drive me nuts until I make it perfect

[Ironstrokes]

The one thing this has opened my eyes to is the fact that I'm glad I bought a GC2 over a Skytrack. Just watching the delay in the videos annoyed me over the 6 shots!!

Haha same at this point. Having the gc2 now myself ive already now gotten used to the less delay and it's normal to me now. It never brothered me much at the time but when I went back and tried the skytrak to compare numbers recently it is a bit of a shock to the system the first time you see the delay again

[aeroburner]

agree on the gc2 but from what i saw on the screen on irons you tube is the screen is puddling all over the place and after he hits it, it looks like a sheet out on a clothes line, personally that would drive me nuts

[p3eps]

The one thing this has opened my eyes to is the fact that I'm glad I bought a GC2 over a Skytrack. Just watching the delay in the videos annoyed me over the 6 shots!!

[CBDBOZ]

Can't see the videos... is there a URL / YouTube link?

[Ironstrokes]

Hello Ironstrokes, I have been curious as to why sound matters, but realized how loud this would be in a house late at night. I am lucking that my sim is in a dedicated finished outbuilding. Sound is not an issue. My goal is to have a home theater room for the daughters sleep overs and movie night, a cool video game environment for son and me, and most importantly a golf sim room. I have Ideas for two screens one wall for movies and games, painted, and an impact in front of it. Wondering, is Carl's screen significantly better visually than Supertex. And do you know if the new version is visually the same or better. Strictly about image quality and durability. Sound is unimportant. I have a supertex and it's ok visually but not good enough for movies. Sounds like you have experience with several, any help would be great.

After reading some of the responses, didn't realize painting the wall was the best option but sounds like it is. Im gonna have to take a look at some of that screen goo myself for my basement.

But to answer the question anyway. Luckily im in a detached garage where I play so noise isn't an issue to me either. I mainly made this video because there was some discussion on it in another thread and someone asked my experience with the sounds of the screens and that got me curious myself to see if it was really that different.

I went with the Carl's premium because of the thickness and quality it seemed to have after my old man found a great deal on one. I busted through the two different previous screens I had, one in a year and the other in 6 months, so needed something more durable. The picture quality I would say is somewhat comparable. Carl's is probably a little better because of the thickness and not letting as much light pass through it, but its not crazy noticeable as far as I remember. It seems the most important thing is just minimizing the light around the screen and the type of projector. With the lights out they both were very solid for me at least to watch movies on with my optoma 1080st, but haven't really used it that much for that, so haven't had the need for it to be super perfect yet.

One thing I would say is a huge advantage of the carl's screen to anyone that may want to use it for golf and theater is the thickness of it makes it super easy to get a flat image with no puddling or ripples in it after hitting into it a bunch. The extra weight/thickness on it just makes it not want to fold or bend as much.

Sadly dont have any experience with the new material yet, only the old. Based on the pictures ive seen the new one seems to be a little thinner, but apparently more durable. But not sure.

[CBearsSB]

PR-100 with archery net behind. No significant ball striking noise and no bounce back. Excellent image.

[Taylor40299]

Thanks for the input. My plan is/was to have a painted wall and a 16 x9 impact in front. Just here people talking about better image quality and wondered how good it is on better impact screens, or at least more expensive ones. I will through this out as well to see how you guys think it will work. I thinking two rods in the impact screen. One that runs across the top on pulleys to raise it, and one across the bottom weighted to make hang straight, but not really attached, so that the screen can catch the ball but the weight would keep it flat. Probably would need some bungies to keep from swinging, or at least to help it settle down quickly. Then I could just lower it to see painted sceen behind. This was my original ideal when I got the supertex screen.

[andygg1986]

Another thing to consider is that a lot of people set up their simulator to run 4x3 aspect ratio but movies are 16x9 or wider. High end projectors let you program multiple zoom and aspect ratio settings, but if you position the projector far enough away to have the picture go to the floor, you will probably not be able to zoom out enough to get the bottom of the picture up off the ground too much. Maybe that doesn't matter to you but it is something to keep in mind. Also, since most projectors are 16x9 native, to run at 4x3 the sides are cut off. If you want to go back to 16x9 you will probably need your movie screen to be wider than your impact screen. When you blow up a 1080p video that large, your projector pixel size starts to be the limiting factor in image quality rather than the screen, so I wouldn't worry too much about getting a pristine surface to project onto. On an impact screen like the Supertex, the screen material blurs the image enough that you won't see the pixels. I'm not sure about other impact screens but I have ordered the new version of Carl's from dbgolf. My guess is that either of those would work fine to watch movies on as well. Maybe you could do some sort of adjustable tensioning instead of switching screens (tight for movies and looser for golf)?

For my media room, I have a high end 1080p and I use that with a nice 120" screen. It looks great but the height of the screen is only 5 feet tall. Most people have their impact screens 8-10 feet tall, so each pixel becomes 1.6x to 2x as large. You will see individual pixels if you are sitting 10 feet away from that if you have a high quality movie screen or screen goo. There are online calculators that tell you what distance pixels become visible based on resolution and screen size.

[Joko]

Just to add, I used a product called "screen goo" to paint my screen for movies, etc in my basement. Works very well.

[goatbarn]

Actually, considering the movie screen could just be paint, you could have 2 projectors (or a quick connect/mount setup with 1 for both locations) for each activity, facing different walls. Your movies play off to the side, and your golf sim screen stays in place on another wall. 2 projectors could be expensive, but a quick switching setup with 1 projector could be nice. Hell, maybe if you planned precisely you could use 1 projector with a mount that's able to swivel 90* when needing to watch movies on the painted wall.