Public spaces, multi-purpose areas, and large venues can offer real challenges to a projection system—not least because of ambient light issues and a typical need for wide viewing angles.

One thing these types of installation don’t need is a standard 1.0 gain matt white projection screen surface. White screens aren’t a good choice for rooms with ambient light conditions; they’re very diffusive and spread light in a very wide pattern.

Unfortunately, white screens do this with both projection light and room ambient light, so both types of light then compete at the viewer’s eyes. That’s why if there is a good amount of ambient light in the room we recommend an ambient light rejecting screen.

Because people have been using 1.0 gain white projection screens for so long, however, we still see them in use—even in those multi-purpose rooms with ambient light. Besides habit, cost is a big reason we still see matt white screens being used. This trend is especially prevalent in sectors where budgets are tight, such as K-12 education construction.

One option is to use a higher gain white screen, such as Draper’s TecVision XT1300 White, which has a gain of 1.3. Using a higher gain white screen like this will improve the brightness of the image, but contrast suffers and even higher gain white screens are best used when the ambient light can be controlled.

The usual assumption, when dealing with uncontrolled ambient light in a multi-purpose area, is to handle it with a grey screen. Just going grey isn’t necessarily the answer, however. Not all grey screens are ambient light rejecting. While their black tints allow some of them to improve contrast, they are still mostly diffusive surfaces and don’t “reject” or “reflect” off-axis ambient light away from the audience. Traditional grey screens also tend to have very low gains. That means that they will eat up your projected light, again forcing you into a brighter projector.

That’s why the best choice for a room with a good amount of ambient light is an actual ambient light rejecting material. The best ones are typically darker grey, which helps with image contrast, but they are more angular reflective than diffusive. Reflective components in the vinyl surface reflect off-axis ambient light away at the same angle as it is hitting the surface, essentially bouncing it away from the audience.

Remember that grey tints reduce gain in most ambient light rejecting materials, and they can tend to “muddy” bright colours. This means a brighter projector to sufficiently “light up” those colours, or better ambient light control. Even with that, however, ambient light rejecting materials provide the best solution in lighted rooms, especially when proper selection tools are used to find the right material. Not all ambient light rejecting screens are the same. Go for one that gives you the best of all the characteristics needed for good design – the right grey tint for contrast, the right gain for brightness and wide viewing angles, Imaging Science Foundation-certified for true colour reproduction, and 4K ready.

You can get better performance by evaluating the lighting conditions and combining the right projector and surface. Plus, the higher cost of an ambient light rejecting screen is actually less than upgrading to a more powerful projector to handle ambient light.

Draper offers grey TecVision solutions for high ambient light situations. TecVision MS1000X Grey has an onaxis gain of 1.0, and superior contrast, and is certified by the Imaging Science Foundation for color accuracy. TecVision XH900X Grey provides high contrast at a gain of 0.9 on-axis. XH900X has a wider viewing cone than MS1000X, is also ISF-certified, and resists moderate to high ambient light. Both surfaces are 4K ready.