Is projector screen specific paint any different than normal paint? In this video I’ve got eight different screen paints from Home Depot, a popular YouTube projector screen paint channels, as well as from the well-established brand “Paint on Screen,” and we’re going to run them through a bunch of tests with six different projectors to see once and for all if projector screen paints are worth 10 times more than the cans you can get off the shelf at your local hardware store.
As always, there are no sponsored reviews on this channel, but to further remove any potential bias towards one brand or another I put my wife in charge of painting and instead of using their brand names she labeled the screen paints with letters A through H as she applied them to my two identical 92” PVC screens. All the paints were rolled onto a completely smooth and clean surface using fresh 3/8” nap 6” microfiber rollers with a single layer of white primer base coat.
Again, I tested all the paints without knowing their brand name, but for your benefit here are the paints we’ll be looking at in this video.
Paint A was Behr i300 Dead Flat White which is $22 a gallon at Home Depot, and my wife said that it went on extremely easily and had perfect coverage after a single coat on top of the primer, but she did do a second coat just for good measure.
Paint B was Paint On Screen’s 3D4K formulation which is over 10 times more expensive at $269 a gallon. The 3D4K wasn’t quite as thick as the Behr i300 paint, but still had good coverage and no issues with streaking or texture.
Paint C was another formulation from Paint On Screen called S1 Ultimate Contrast which was $224 a gallon, and my wife noted that this was the thickest paint yet and covered very easily, but did leave a very slight texture from the roller due to the thickness of the paint.
Paint D was the first from the YouTube paint channels. This is from Crow1176 called his Ultra Black or UB mix which was $60 for a quart or $240 a gallon. Crow’s formulation is clearly homemade, and my paint arrived via USPS in a plastic container and unfortunately had been damaged in shipping leaking roughly 10% of the paint into the bubble wrap and cardboard shipping box.
My wife noted that Crow’s Ultra Black was the thinnest paint yet and required two coats just to get full initial coverage, and after that she did a third and fourth finish coat.
Paint E was another YouTuber paint from BLACK SERIES EDITION LLC, and this is their IMPERIOR GUNMETAL BLACK WIDOW paint, and I paid $289 for a gallon, making it the most expensive paint yet. The Black Series Paint also came in four plastic to-go style containers but survived the shipping process without issue.
The Black Series paint went on with the least texture so far but required three coats for complete coverage. My wife did note that the paint had a bit of an unpleasant musty smell, but it went away quickly after drying.
Paint F was an off-the-shelf Home Depot color called PPG Metallic Tones, specifically the foundry color mix recommended by the YouTuber Robert Briggs. I paid $26 for a quart, but a full gallon is only $60. Unfortunately, this was the first paint that didn’t go on well, and after three coats the finish was still streaky, and you could easily see roller lines from where the metallic sparkles were in higher and lower concentrations. We were able to make it slightly better by giving the entire screen a light sanding and watering down the final coat, but the roller lines never fully went away.
Paint G was the last YouTuber screen paint from PARTAY! PROJECTION SCREENS, and this is their Sirius C formulation which I paid $60 for a quart which would come out to $240 a gallon. For some reason Partay doesn’t ship to Florida, so I had to order to my parent’s house in Ohio and have them forward it on to me, but unlike the other YouTuber paints, the Partay paint came in a legitimate paint can and had no issues with leaking.
My wife noted that the Partay Sirius C was the thinnest and most watery of all the paints, but after three coats it had full coverage, and she added a fourth coat for good measure.
And last, Paint H was another formulation from Paint on Screen called “Black Projection Surface”, which was not only the darkest, but also the most expensive at $299 a gallon, and like the PPG Metallic Tones, even after four coats the Black Projection Surface had visible roller marks, and after a light sanding and finish coat with thinned paint the marks improved but didn’t go away completely.
So, for ease of application the Behr i300, Black Series Imperial Black Widow, and Crow’s Mix were the easiest to apply evenly with a roller and the PPG Metallic Tones and Paint On Screen Black Projection Surface were the most difficult and would definitely benefit from being sprayed on rather than rolled.
However, the most obvious difference between these paints was their color and their resulting screen gain which put simply is the amount of light that gets reflected from the screen compared to a white reference screen. Typically, white screens will have gain values of 1.0 and above, and gray and black screens will have values under 1.0. To complicate things even further some screens reflect red, green, and blue in different amounts and if there are major differences in individual color gains, the color accuracy of the projected image will be significantly reduced.
To test this, I started by doing a rough calibration on a BENQ x500i projector on my ISF certified 1.1 gain white surface and measured an average grayscale error of 0.7 and a color error of 1.9, and for reference, we generally say that any color dE under 2.0 is imperceptible to the human eye. After calibration, projecting a 92” screen the x500i measured 126.51 nits peak brightness with a 0.0749 nit black floor giving it a native contrast ratio of 1688:1.
Then, without moving the projector or test probe I measured each screen’s peak brightness, black floor, grayscale curve, and color accuracy and here are the resulting gain values calculated against my 1.1 gain reference screen where you can see the Behr i300 and Paint on Screen 3D4K both had higher peak brightness than my reference screen, the S1 Ultra Contrast and Crow’s screen paint had reasonable screen gains of around 0.69 and 0.56, and the rest of the paints measured extremely low gains reflecting less than 15% of the projected light back to the viewer with the Partay Sirius C coming in under 0.09 gain.
All of the paints except for 3D4K from Paint on Screen resulted in higher grayscale or color errors, but the Paint on Screen S1 Ultra Contrast and Crow’s screen paint were still well within the acceptable limit, while the Behr i300 had a much higher red gain than blue gain resulting in all of the white values being shifted towards red, and all the low gain screens were generally less color accurate, but the Paint on Screen Black Screen was the most color accurate and the Black Series Black Widow paint was the least color accurate.
Interestingly though, while Black Series Black Widow paint had a much higher blue gain and a lower red gain, it also seemed to reflect brighter light sources with a higher gain than dim ones resulting in an increased 2250:1 contrast ratio compared to around 1700:1 for most of the other screens, which is pretty surprising and not typically how screen gain works, so let’s talk about why you’d normally choose one gain over another.
Selecting a screen gain lower than 1 can accomplish 3 different outcomes.
The first outcome is avoiding a raised black floor caused by a poorly light controlled room, and when I say light control, I’m not just talking about blocking out windows and turning off lights, but also choosing dark paint for your walls and ceiling, using dark colored carpet, and dark furniture. Otherwise, light from the projected image reflects off of surfaces in the room and back onto the screen resulting in a raised black floor and poor ANSI contrast even with extremely high end projectors like this JVC NZ8. Using a lower gain screen reduces the peak brightness of your image making room reflections less of an issue, not only due to decreased initial reflections, but as that light bounces off your walls and back onto the screen it is then further reduced by the lower screen gain.
The second reason you might choose a low gain screen is if you have a projector with a lot of peak brightness but a poor black floor because a low gain screen will reduce the brightness of the entire image including the black levels. The Dangbei Mars Pro 2 for instance has a relatively high peak brightness of 178.9 nits on a 100” screen, but a pretty muddy black floor of 0.216 nits. However, when paired with a 0.56 gain screen paint like the Crow’s mix the peak brightness would still be a respectable 100.18 nits but the black floor would be reduced to 0.12 which would appear much darker in a room with the lights off.
And the third possible use for choosing a low gain screen applies more to the almost black screens like paints E through H that reduce even extremely bright projectors down to miniscule brightness values but are also dark enough that the screen looks black even in high ambient light environments. Using one of these screens with an extremely bright projector like this 6000 lumen Epson L1100U results in a more TV like experience, though I don’t think it’s worth it to buy an $8000 projector to produce and image that you could get from a $500 TV, and none of these paints can be classified as true ambient light rejecting or ceiling light rejecting screens since they don’t have the physical lens structures that you’d find on a lenticular or Fresnel screen designed for and ultrashort throw projector.
Speaking of which, screen finishes can perform differently depending on projector type, so I’ll be testing each paint with long throw, short throw, and standard throw projectors, as well as single laser, triple laser, 4LED, and single LED light sources, both with the lights on and lights off.
Here’s a reminder of the screen letters and corresponding paint.
A- Behr i300 Flat White
B- Paint on Screen 3D4K
C- Paint on Screen S1 Ultimate Contrast
D- Crow’s Ultra Black Mix
E- Black Series Edition Imperior Black Widow
F- PPG Metallic Tones Foundry
G- Partay! PSP Sirius C
H- Paint on Screen Black Screen Surface
Starting with the most ideal combination possible, the $12,000 JVC NZ8 in full darkness with black curtains surrounding the viewing area. You can see that even in these ideal conditions, room reflections spoil the black floor on screens A and B due to their high gain, and the surrounding blacks turn yellow as the light from the bright honey bounces around the room and screens C, D, and E look much better, however in scenes without large black areas the extra brightness of screens A, B, C and D makes them more vibrant.
For a projector with excellent black levels like the JVC, I thought screen C was the best balance between rejecting room reflections and preserving enough brightness to make the highlights pop, and though screens D and F also looked interesting, they had major hotspotting issues where the screen was significantly brighter directly in line with the projector lens, and as a result I picked screen E as the runner up for lights off viewing with the JVC.
Next is the Dangbei Mars Pro 2, which like the JVC is a standard throw single laser projector, but unlike the JVC, the Dangbei has an extremely high black floor, so it will benefit more from a lower gain screen. With the lights off I still thought screen C was the best and screen E was the runner up, but pausing on a black screen you can really see how bad the hotspotting is on Screens F and D, and there’s even a bit of hotspotting on screen A.
Next, the last standard throw projector we’ll test is the Nexigo PJ40, which is a very inexpensive single LCD projector with a white LED light source and much lower peak brightness, and I still thought that screen C produced the best, most uniform image with good color and low room reflections, but screen B took second place since the Nexigo PJ40’s lower brightness benefitted from a higher gain screen, and while screen F looked eye catching there was still serious hotspotting and you can see that the middle of the screen has similar brightness to screen’s A and B while the outside of the screen looks darker than screens C and D.
Moving onto the BENQ X500i, a short throw projector with a 4LED light source, screens C and D both looked very good and there was less hotspotting with the short throw projector than there was with the Dangbei and JVC, though you can still tell that the brightness of screen F is not at all consistent, and E also showed a bit of hotspotting, while screens G and H had way too much brightness reduction.
And the last lights off test was with the Nexigo Aurora Pro, a triple laser ultra short throw projector with high brightness and a low black floor, and in this test screens C and D were by far the best, but B and A were also good. G and H were just too dim, and the steep projection angle of the ultra short throw projector helped to reduce the hotspotting on E and F, but the ceiling reflections were out of control, and you could basically watch the video reflected off the ceiling above the projector. I’d also just generally recommend against projecting onto a painted wall using a UST since the steep projection angle will exaggerate any imperfections in the wall and the image will end up looking wavy, no matter how perfect you think your wall is.
And that means that for lights off viewing screen C finished first using all five projectors, screen D came in second due to its middle of the road gain value, but had issues with hotspotting, and screen B was in third struggling with room reflections but producing a bright vibrant image in brighter scenes.
Next, we’ll repeat those same tests, but with a bank of LED lights at a 15 degree angle in front of the screens.
Starting with the JVC NZ8, watching a $12,000 home theater projector with the lights on felt absolutely wrong, and basically all of the advantages of the NZ8 are ruined by this amount of ambient light, however screen E was the clear winner and had a low enough gain to be able to display blacks, but not so low that it couldn’t show highlights, and I put screen G in second place and H in third, but if I’m being honest the only one I would consider watching for an extended period of time in these conditions was screen E.
With the Dangbei Mars Pro 2 the little bit of extra brightness helped screens G and H look a little better, but I still preferred the image from screen E, and even though I gave screen F fourth place the hotspotting from the projector, streakiness of the paint and the reflection of the light off the glossy surface was horrible and not something I’d ever seriously consider watching.
But with the inexpensive Nexigo PJ40 the hotspotting near the center of the image on screen F was pretty eye catching, and I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it was a good experience, but it was enough for me to put it in second place behind screen E, and unfortunately the Nexigo PJ40 just doesn’t have enough brightness to work with the ultra-low gain screens like G and H.
The short throw BENQ x500i had less hotspotting on screen F, and if it weren’t for the glossy reflections of the room lights, I probably would have picked it for first, but instead I put it in second with screen E in first again followed by G and then H which both had more of a flat black look, but G was a little brighter in the highlights.
And last, the ultra short throw Nexigo Aurora Pro looked horrible with the lights on in every screen especially when compared to what you’d see with a proper ambient light rejecting lenticular or Fresnel screen, but I guess if I have to pick the one that is the least bad I’d probably choose screen C, then D, then E, H, and G, but again, I really wouldn’t recommend painting a wall to use with a UST projector, especially not for use with the lights on.
And that means that for use in high ambient light, screen E came out on top for all the projectors except the ultra short throw, screen G was in second and screen H was in third.
And to recap issues that you might have based on your specific projector, screens F and D had big issues with hotspotting using standard throw projectors. With the short throw BENQ x500i Screen F was the only projector with significant hotspotting, and while the ultra short throw Nexigo Aurora Pro produced the least hotspots, screens F and G were the worst offenders with the UST.
I also tested for laser speckle problems using the JMGO N1 Ultra, which is an otherwise very high performing triple laser standard throw projector except for issues with prevalent laser speckle, and I found that screens F and E had the worst and most noticeable speckle while screens C and A mitigated speckle almost completely.
So, conclusion time, do I recommend any of these paints?
Definitely. For lights off viewing Paint C which is the S1 Ultimate Contrast formulation from Paint on Screen was by far the best and I preferred it over my white fixed frame screen on all my projectors across all content types when the lights were off. It was also the least expensive projector screen specific paint and had mostly even color gain throughout the brightness spectrum, no hotspotting, and good laser speckle mitigation, so if you’re looking for a projector screen paint to use in a room with decent light control Paint on Screen S1 Ultimate Contrast is the clear winner.
If you are in a situation where you’ve got a little bit of ambient light creeping into your room and you still really want to use a projector then I think Paint E, the BLACK SERIES EDITION IMPERIOR GUNMETAL BLACK WIDOW had the best overall picture with smooth texture, no roller lines and very little hotspotting despite a low overall gain. Unfortunately, it had a much higher blue gain than red gain leading to big white balance inaccuracies near peak brightness, so you might need to try to calibrate that away, and it also had very noticeable laser speckle when using triple laser projectors like the JMGO N1 Ultra and Hisense C1, but for bright single laser, or RGB LED projectors I think it’s a good pick.
And last, if your goal is to always watch your projector with the lights on, then I think you’re much better off with a Fresnel ALR screen and an ultra short throw projector, but if you have a REALLY bright projector like this 6000 Lumen Epson Pro L1100U then Paint H, the Black Projection Surface from Paint on Screen actually looked really good even with the lights on, but it would definitely benefit from being sprayed on rather than rolled because the matte texture made it hard to paint without the roller lines showing, and even with the 6000 lumen Epson, the Fresnel screen and Ultra Short Throw Nexigo Aurora Pro looked much better with the lights off.
As always there are no sponsored reviews on this channel, and I don’t have any affiliations with these projector screen paint companies or individuals, but I’ve got their various websites linked below as well as Amazon links for all the projectors I used in this video, and as always I appreciate when you use those links since as an Amazon Affiliate I do earn a small commission on the sale at no cost to you.
I also want to thank all my awesome patrons over at Patreon for your continued support of my channel, and if you’re interested in supporting unsponsored and unbiased reviews, please check out the links below. If you enjoyed this video, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and as always, thanks for watching The Hook Up.
