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Product Review
Widescreen Review - Lunette Series
By Doug Blackburn - September 2011
For the last seven years, Elite Screens’ primary focus has
been on home theatre screens with high-performanceto-cost
ratios. Elite Screens’ secondary markets are
government, house-of-worship, educational, and
military. The Lunette screens combine Elite’s highperformance
CineWhite screen material with curved
extruded aluminum frames. The reviewed 106-inch
diagonal Lunette 2.35:1 Lunette screen has an MSRP of
$1,129 (frame model Curve106WH1). The 100-inch
diagonal model (Curve100WH1) is currently the most
popular Lunette screen size and has an MSRP of $1,029.
There is also an acoustically transparent option offered
at $1,299 MSRP for the same curved 106-inch diagonal
size that was reviewed. The Lunette screens are
currently Elite’s highest-performance screens, designed
to compete with high-performance screens from other
manufacturers, but at a lower cost.
All Lunette screens have a curved frame. The largest 2.35:1 size is 158-inch diagonal, and the smallest available size is
85-inch diagonal. The same screen material is available with a flat frame in Elite’s ezFrame screen series. A 103-inch
diagonal ezFrame (flat) version of the curved Lunette has an MSRP of $798 (a 103-inch curved Lunette model would
have an approximate MSRP of $1,079). Curved screens are popular in home theatres using an anamorphic lens combined
with a 2:35:1 or 2.40:1 aspect ratio screen. The curve of the screen reverses the inevitable small amount of
pincushion distortion caused by the anamorphic lens. Curved screens can be used without an anamorphic lens to
good effect, especially if the projector throw distance is long enough to avoid barrel distortion (the opposite of pincushion)
that can be more obvious at short-ish throw distances. Alignment of the projector-to-screen will also affect the
amount of geometric distortion. Minimizing distortion requires that the projector lens height remains within the height of
the image area of the screen. The more above or below the top/bottom edges of the screen, the more geometric
distortion will be introduced. A ceiling mount that puts the projector lens two feet above the top edge of the screen
would have quite a bit more geometric distortion than if the ceiling mount was low enough to place the projector lens
at the same height as the top edge of the screen. There are typically four reasons a curved screen might be chosen
over a flat screen. The previously mentioned anamorphic lens combined with a 2.35:1 screen is one reason. The second
reason is that a curved screen may produce images that are slightly sharper than a flat screen at the far left and far
right sides of the screen. However, viewers tend to look directly at the central one-third of the screen most of the time,
with the outside edges of the screen taking on a less critical “peripheral vision” role that heightens immersion. Viewers
rarely look directly at the left and right one-third of the screen during movies. That means the slight advantage in sharpness
at the outside edges of images may not be obvious while viewing movies. This sharper-at-the-outside-edges factor
may not be true for every projector/lens combination or every system/setup. If the projection lens is optimized for sharpness
on a flat surface or if the throw distance is long, there may be no sharpness advantage for a curved screen. The
third reason people use curved screens is simply that a curved screen has a “cool factor” that you don’t get with a flat
screen. The fourth potential benefit of curved screens is that more light is reflected towards the viewers, with less light
reflecting to the sides and bouncing off of walls, leading to light-contaminated black levels. This is a more significant
factor when the sidewalls are somewhat close to the screen and when the walls are painted something other than
black or very dark neutral gray. Color on the walls will create colored reflected light that can contaminate images.
When it’s not possible to make the room completely black or very dark gray, or a very dark shade of some color (less
ideal, but better than a medium-to-light shade of any color), a curved screen can help reduce unwanted side effects
from the non-dark walls.
Setup
The Lunette screen arrived nicely packed. As with any screen, you need quite a large clear floor-space to assemble the
screen. The frame rails went together easily. Each frame corner has a beefy angle bracket that holds the frame rails
together. Some screens I’ve assembled have had to be “tweaked” to remove some trapezoidal shape after initially
fitting the four frame rails, but the Lunette frame came out “square” (perfectly rectangular in this case) without having
to be tweaked. You always want to double-check any screen frame after assembly. This is easily done by measuring
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