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the two diagonals. When the two diagonals are the same, the frame is “square.” If the two diagonals are different, the
frame has some trapezoidal distortion.
The Lunette screen material has rod pockets on all four sides. Four plastic “rods” are inserted into the pockets on the
four sides of the screen material. This was reminiscent of assembling a camping tent with flexible support poles. The
edges of the screen, now with the plastic rods in the pockets, are pushed into channels in the aluminum frame. Plastic
“keepers” lock into grooves in the frame rails, which hold the plastic rods in the channels. You begin installing the plastic
retainers in the center of the long dimension, then install retainers in the center of the left and right sides. More plastic
clips are installed from the center-outward on the long dimension of the screen. As the remaining unsecured area of
the vertical edges is similar to the un-anchored space on the top and bottom, you begin adding retainers to all four
sides uniformly, still working from the center towards the corners. This keeps even tension on the screen (assisted by the
plastic rods in the pockets). The screen material stretches lightly over the aluminum frame so the screen material follows
the curve of the aluminum frame with no waviness. The process was simple to complete, and there were no wrinkles or
unevenness in the screen anywhere once all the retaining clips had been installed.
Wall-mount brackets are included. These should be anchored to wall studs to support the weight of the screen safely.
Elite does not currently offer a stand or legs for the curved Lunette frames. Since I have about 8.5 feet of space behind
the screen to accommodate equipment racks, my only options are stand-mounted screens. I used a stand-mounted
2.40:1 screen as the support for the Lunette screen by turning the wall-mount brackets into trick “hooks” that hooked
around the back of the other screen’s frame. That left protruding “hangers” hanging over the front edge of the flat
screen. The Lunette screen was hung from the two brackets like a framed picture. Careful attention had to be paid to
getting the Lunette screen lined up with the projector so that the left and right edges of the Lunette screen were both
exactly the same distance from the projector. My first attempt at hanging the Lunette screen resulted in the right edge
being about 1 inch farther from the projector than the left edge. This produced an easily visible difference in image size
between the left and right sides of the screen. The projector axis has to be exactly right, and the screen’s position also
has to be exactly right in order to not have unwanted geometric distortion.
In my room a JVC Professional DLA-RS60 projector is 14.8 feet from the screen. Viewing distance is 8 feet for this 8-foot
wide (nominal) screen, giving an angle view of 60 degrees. Elite recommends a minimum viewing distance equal to
the diagonal screen measurement. For this 106-inch diagonal screen, I was about 10 inches closer than their minimum
recommended viewing distance. If there were going to be any visible problems with the screen material at my closerthan-recommended
viewing distance, I certainly would have seen them.
The projector is on the top shelf of a tall rack. The center of the projector’s lens is the same height from the floor as the
top edge of the viewing area of the screen. With no anamorphic lens in the optical path, this setup produced straight
lines at the top of the screen and slightly “barreled” lines at the bottom of the screen. The amount of barrel was about
1/8-inch between the center and either the right or left edge of the screen. This slight curve at the bottom of the image
was easy to hide by zooming slightly so the bottom quarter-inch or so of images falls on the black velvet-covered frame.
The front of the screen/frame assembly is featureless, except for the small Elite Screens logo in the lower right corner of
the screen, offset to the outside edge of the frame, as far from the image area as possible. The frame is thicker around
the outside edge, with about half of the 3.5-inch width of the frame rails tapered to a thin edge right at the screen
surface.
In Use
The surface of the Lunette screen has a slight texture, a very fine “grain” that is smaller than individual pixels. Touching
the screen, it feels smooth, as the texture is too fine to be detected by the sense of touch. The only way to see the
texture is to get close to the screen, and if you’re like me, you have your high-magnification reading glasses on so you
can get even closer than your minimum focus distance. Shining a flashlight on a diagonal helps to reveal the texture.
There is absolutely no prismatic effect visible at any time. Some screen materials produce prismatic effects due to
reflections from fine glass or other reflective particles on the surface of the screen. This can have the appearance
similar to the “silk screen effect” often seen in RPTV screens or in higher-gain front projection screens. The Lunette screen
never had this issue. The fine texture of the screen is completely random, with no visible orientation that could cause
density streaking in the horizontal or vertical directions due to directional surface coating in the factory. There’s nothing
I see in the Lunette’s images that indicates any coating issues that lead to a visible image defect due to less-thanperfect
reflection of light. There were a few times when I thought I saw some slight vertical density patterning in bright
areas of images, but this remained present when a different screen was temporarily moved into position, so this effect
was either coming from the projector or the Blu-ray Disc.
Used with Panamorph’s DC-1 anamorphic lens, the amount of downward tilt of the lens made a big difference on how
effectively the curved screen eliminated the pincushion distortion from the anamorphic lens. Getting the tilt just right
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