Why Stewart Screens?

Because the screen is the centerpiece of the home cinema.

Think about it. Once you have decided you want a home cinema, ask yourself, "What is it I really want?" A great picture? Incredible sound system? A place in my home that literally recreates the experience of a movie theatre?"

It only makes sense to have an Academy Award-winning Stewart Filmscreen as the centerpiece of your home cinema.

Consider that virtually every professional screening room in Hollywood uses a Stewart screen. Major film and entertainment production centers use Stewart screens because they rely on their images being reproduced accurately. Critical artistic and technical decisions necessary to produce a film are made every day by directors and producers viewing their work on a screen from Stewart. In fact, Stewart is the only projection screen manufacturer to win not just one, but two Academy Awards for science and technology achievement in the motion picture industry.

We do not separate our home cinema products from our professional and commercial products. Same craftsmen. Same designers. Same raw materials. The people building your home cinema screens are literally the same people building screens for NASA, Disney, IMAX, and AMC theaters, just to name a few. The same hands building your screen might have just finished working on a stealth bomber flight simulator, a circle vision for EPCOT Center or perhaps a special effects screen for Lucasfilm.

The screen fabrics we feature in this web site are the same ones used by professional companies worldwide. This means you can view your images with the same fidelity as the president of a major motion picture studio.

That is recreating the cinema experience!

Working with an authorized Stewart Home Cinema Dealer, we custom build each screen to room and system specifications.

This webste has been created to aid you in your plans to install a home cinema or commercial screen application. You can rest assured that the quality we deliver to the rest of the world will be delivered to your home as well.

Front Projection Screen Fabrics

Which screen fabric is best for your home cinema?

Clearly there is no magic screen material that performs perfectly for every installation. Each home cinema design has distinct and unique demands. Before selecting a screen you must first consider a number of varying factors, such as projector type and model, front or rear screen installation, viewing angles, ambient light conditions, seating layout and screen size, to name a few.

That is why Stewart provides varying optical fabrics with different reflective and colorimetry values for every single home cinema design presented to us. And since Stewart has been in the made-to-order screen business for nearly fifty years, catering to your individual screen requirements is simply a part of our daily business.

To get you started, we have included brief descriptions of our most popular home cinema screen fabrics for front projection installations.

Each screen can be made in seamless sizes up to 40' x 90'. They are available in electric roll-up or fixed frame models, are completely washable, flame retardant and of course are available with Stewart's acoustically transparent THX sound option.

StudioTek 130
This screen is generally used with high output broadcast quality projection systems to produce images to the strictest color and white field uniformity standards. It was developed and certified by the Imaging Science Foundation.

Ultramatte 150
This screen fabric combines the qualities of StudioTek 130 and the higher gain Videomatte 200. It is a great choice for projectors that employ line doublers and even HDTV images. This is the same screen material that most commercial movie theaters use!

Videomatte 200 (pictured above)
This screen is color-corrected for CRT video projectors and also works well with slide and film projectors. This is a moderate gain screen with high reflective qualities that still maintains good off axis viewing. Since it is more reflective, it works harder to brighten up the image. The screen is twice as bright as ordinary matte screens and is an excellent choice for installations featuring smaller projectors or when very large image sizes are desired. It is also an excellent choice for LCD projectors.

In-Wall Rear Projection Screens

Rear Projection screens operate on a similar principle as a conventional television in that the source of projection is behind the screen in an enclosed, light-controlled environment. As a result, installing a rearscreen system means giving little consideration to ambient lighting conditions.

Ambient lighting is one of the first factions to deteriorate the image on your screen. By installing the projector in an enclosed room, you eliminate virtually all ambient light interfering with the path of the image being projected onto your screen. Rear projection systems also keep your equipment hidden and secure.

Most in-wall rear projection systems are designed into either new construction projects or rooms undergoing extensive remodeling, primarily because the design requires considerable space for the projector to fit behind the screen. Your installer may recommend a Stewart optical mirror system to fold the light path of the projection and reduce the required throw distance by approximately one half.

Rear projection screens are designed in two styles: diffusion technology and optical lens technology. Diffusion technology, which is employed in Stewart's Techscreen and Lumiglas projection surfaces, is excellent for most rear screen applications, providing a gain of up to 2.0. Optical lens technology, found in Stewart's advanced OptaScreen, provides gains up to 5.0 and has the unique ability of providing a viewing angle of 180 degrees. Though optical lens technology is generally more expensive than the diffusion type technology, it is two to three times brighter.

Finally, Stewart's rear projection screens are divided into two categories.

The first is a flexible rear screen fabric which is similar to front projection screens in the physical sense and has the ability to be either electronically rolled up into a housing or stretched onto a frame.

The second is a rigid rear projection screen - a hard surface which looks similar to frosted glass. Because of its ability to deflect sound from the projection room and provide a more sturdy installation, rigid screens are extremely popular for home cinema rear projection systems.

Stewart's Rigid Rear Projection Solutions

Stewart offers a wide range of flexible and rigid rear screen products for virtually any installation. The following is just a sampling of our most popular diffusion rear projection screens. These rigid rear screen products are available in glass sizes up to 10' x 25' and acrylic sizes to 9' x 16'. They feature a tough, fine-grain washable surface and excellent color reproduction.

Lumiglas 100
Used in most rear-screen applications, the Lumiglas 100 has a gain of 1.0.

• Perfect for film, slides, and video in rooms where room lighting is controllable

• Superb wide viewing angle for wide seating arrangement

• Anti-hot spot formation

• ISF approved

Lumiglas 180
When your room lighting is only moderately controllable, the Lumiglas 180 is the ideal screen with its 1.8 gain.

• Ideal when video is primary media

• Good viewing angle

• Anti-hot spot formulation

Techscreen 200
When your room has higher-than-normal ambient light conditions, turn to the Techscreen 200 with a gain of 2.0.

• Great for film, slides, video, and data graphics with moderate viewing angles

• Excellent contrast ratio

• Dynamic color reproduction

OptaScreen and OptaWave
Stewart's new OptaScreen series is possibly the most advanced line of rear projection screens available today. Designed to optimize video projections, the OptaScreen delivers gains up to 5.0, making it perfect for rooms with extremely high ambient light conditions.

• Super high contrast ratio

• Sizes up to 180" diagonal

• 180 degree viewing cone

• Super-fine pitched fresnel and lenticular lens elements

• Extreme high brightness

OptaMirror Folded Optics System
Rear screen installations with little floor space behind the screen demand Stewart OptaMirror Folded Optics System. OptaMirror's 40" x 50" first surface mirror is mounted on a lightweight aluminum framing system which permits you to reduce your projection throw distance by approximately one half with no loss of resolution. Attainable image sizes range from 67" to 125" diagonal.
Easy to assemble and adjust, the OptaMirror is tailored to your custom installation. Your home cinema designer and installer should be consulted for exact specifications.

THX ® Acoustically Transparent Screens
Bring the sound experience home

For the ultimate experience, your home cinema should use a high quality audio amplifier and surround-sound processor with speakers arranged in the same format as most commercial cinemas: left and right channel speakers up front, a discrete center channel speaker plus surround-sound speakers placed along the side of the room.

Why? During the post production audio mix for movies, sound tracks are assigned to the appropriate speaker locations. For example: the image on the screen shows the inside of a submarine with the captain looking through the periscope. The audio mix would have the sound of the sub's engines coming from all around you on the surround speakers. The captain's commands would come from the center screen speaker, and the blip of the starboard sonar would be coming from the right speaker. As the crew fires the port side torpedoes, the swish of the launch engulfs you from the left speaker.

Stewart's acoustically transparent screen heightens this experience by allowing the center channel speaker to be placed directly behind the screen just like in a professional cinema or sound mixing stage. Since the sound is now coming from behind the image, the audio cues are perfectly aligned with the visual action on the screen. This is important since much of the sound track comes from the center speaker.

This new technology is available for all Stewart front projection screen products.

Multi-Purpose Rooms
Integration of home cinema into a multi-use room

Most home cinemas today are designed into existing rooms - such as family rooms and living rooms - that already serve multiple purposes. In addition to the physical optical design, the screen and projector should completely disappear when not in use.

Fortunately, the products in this section are designed specifically to help you achieve a high quality home cinema in such an environment. Electric roll up screens, adjustable screen masking and projector lifts are just a few ways to complement the design of a home cinema in a multi-use room. Your designer/installer will work closely with Stewart's design department to develop the best systems for your individual installation. In the mean time, the following products and specifications provide an overview of the more popular items available today.

ElectriMask Widescreen System

Stewart's Electrimask Widescreen System is designed to integrate with the latest multi-format video projectors, which are capable of both 4:3 aspect ratios of standard broadcast television and the 1.85:1 format seen in commercial theaters.

When you want to view conventional broadcast TV or VCR tapes, the screen descends from the housing with black panels to the left and right of the screen to give you a standard 4:3 viewing format. When you switch to laser disc, the format can also switch to 1.85:1, other wise known as "letter-box." With the flip of a switch, the masking retracts into the screen's housing and the portions of the screen hidden by the masking are now completely filled with the newly formatted laser disc image, top to bottom, giving your audience the ultimate in visual impact.

Luxus A Series Electric Roll-up Screen
This is Stewart's most popular electric roll up unit because it can accommodate screen sizes up to 9' x 12' (180" diagonal). Typically, the screen housing is hidden above the ceiling, and the screen descends through a slot in the ceiling.

Alternate design options include mounting the screen housing directly to the wall, with a fascia board installed by your dealer to hide the screen housing and blend with your home's decor.

The Luxus A Series employs a tab guy tension system, a Stewart innovation, to ensure screen flatness. Plus, the system is compatible with virtually any controller system your dealer may install to more easily operate your home cinema.

The SR-1 Screen Series
The SR-1 electric roll-up screen is identical to the Luxus A Series with the exception that its housing is more styled and can be installed with minimal architectural changes to your room. Since the SR-1 is easily moved from location to location, it's ideal for condos, apartments, and leased homes.

Dedicated Rooms

Dedicated rooms are found among the more serious home cinema installations. Generally, all attention is focused on room design and equipment performance. Less attention is paid to "hiding" equipment, so permanently mounted screens are more often installed.

Sometimes referred to as "personal screening rooms," these dedicated rooms closely resemble a miniature theater and most always include at least the center channel speaker placed directly behind perforated, acoustically transparent screens.

Luxus ScreenWalls
Fixed screen systems are the simplest and most straight-forward projection displays that Stewart manufactures.

In Stewart's Luxus ScreenWall the screen fabric is stretched onto a finished shadow-box style frame and attached with snap fasteners. The lightweight aluminum is typically installed to float several inches off your wall. On some occasions, the screen itself is actually custom-built into cabinetry supplied by your home cinema designer/installer.

Regardless of what type of screen you desire, all Stewart fabrics are available on Luxus ScreenWalls, including Stewart's Home THX acoustically transparent screen material. To meet your installation requirements Luxus ScreenWalls can be manufactured seamless up to 20' wide.

Website: http://www.stewartfilm.com