Aside from a huge, costly flat-panel TV, the easiest way to put a big video image up on your wall is to buy a front-projector/projection screen combo. And with good high-rez front projectors now selling for as little as $2,000, that option can be particularly budget-friendly. The only serious drawback is that front-projector setups need a dark environment to perform best — even a small amount of light leaking onto the screen makes the image look washed out and dull. So what do you do if you don't want to turn your living room into a shadowy crypt?

Screen Innovations is one company that's stepped forward with a solution to the daytime-viewing problem: the Viságe optical front-projection screen. On a regular screen, tiny diffusion elements covering the surface reflect both the direct and off-axis (ambient) light hitting its surface. But Screen Innovations says the Viságe (a screen containing special material from DNP, a Japanese Company that manufactures in Denmark) reflects only the light coming directly from the projector, rejecting indirect illumination from windows or lamps. This precision filtering comes courtesy of a high-contrast shield covering 60% of the screen, which contains millions of tiny lens elements that "focus" the light hitting its surface before reflecting it back. The screen gain for the Viságe (that is, the level at which the material itself acts to boost image brightness directly in front) is 2.0 — relatively high. Accordingly, DNP claims that its material provides an image that's twice as bright as what standard screens provide for daylight viewing, as well as a contrast ratio that's 10 times higher.

The Viságe comes in sizes ranging from 60 to 120 inches (diagonal) in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio (4:3 screens are also available). For my test, I used a Panasonic LCD projector positioned 10 feet from the screen and set about level with its bottom edge. Even before turning on the projector, I had to admire the screen's beveled, black velvet-coated frame, which looked a lot nicer than the industrial-grade aluminum frame on the fixed-mount screen I normally use for testing projectors.

The Short Form

$2,399 / screeninnovations.com / 512-832-6939

Plus

•Produces a bright picture for daylight viewing

Minus

•Visible hot-spotting at off-axis seats •Limited contrast and detail in dark pictures (daytime viewing) •Pricey

Key Features

•Comes in 60- to 120-inch (diagonal) screen sizes •Velvet screen frame comes in 10 colors •Available in 16:9 widescreen and 4:3 configurations

After firing the projector up with my window blinds open and turning on some Arena Football on the INHD channel, I was surprised by how bright the picture looked. The killer app here is obviously daytime sports-viewing: Colors looked punchy, and the image had decent contrast, with the black parts of the players' uniforms coming across as reasonably dark. Watched on a regular Da-Lite Da-Mat screen (a model designed for dark home theater viewing) under the same conditions, the same picture looked so washed-out that I could barely make out what was happening.

Switching to The Hunt for Red October on HBO-HD, the image still looked clear, but dimmer portions of the submarine drama's mostly dark picture came across as flat, with little in the way of shadow detail. (Viewed later that night on the Viságe in a dark room, the movie looked much better, with strong contrast and clean color.) The picture was also beamy, with noticeable hot-spotting at the center — a typical issue with high-gain screens like this one. Viewing from seats way off to one side of the couch also made the hot-spotting more noticeable.

BOTTOM LINE If you want to watch TV with a front-projector in anything but a completely dark room, you'd do well to check out Screen Innovations' Viságe front-projection screen. At $2,399 for a 60-inch model, it's definitely pricey, but then again, it's one of the few screens on the market that can deliver a decent-quality image in a high ambient light environment. One day, 60-inch or larger flat TVs may be cheap enough that you won't think twice before buying one. Until then, there'll be a definite niche for specialty front-projection screens like this one.

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