Ten years since its founding, SI is now on its 23rd revision of its Black Diamond screen and has set its sights on the commercial market with major updates to the top three screen materials in their lineup: Black Diamond, Slate, and Solar in the new extra-large (XL) variations.
The new Black Diamond screen, called Black Diamond XL, achieves its ALR properties by utilizing microscopic stacked optical layers. Historically, Black Diamond and all other layer-based optical screens were limited to 60 inches in height.
“Black Diamond XL is probably the single greatest innovation that this company has achieved to date. There’s an incredible amount of engineering, development, and technology that has gone into creating this product. It wasn’t easy,” said company founder Ryan Gustafson. “We knew the world needed it, though, and that drove us to never stop on our goal to achieve the largest optical layer-based screen in existence.”
Black Diamond XL increases the maximum height limitation to 76 inches tall, making it possible to create a seamless, 150-inch diagonal 16:9 optical screen.
In addition to Black Diamond XL, SI is also announcing that its Slate material has a new, larger variation aptly named “Slate XL.” Slate was originally designed to make ALR screens larger and more versatile at an affordable price point. SI’s unique Zero-G “levitating” projection screen is one example where Slate accomplishes this by rolling tightly onto a motorized core. Originally limited to 106 inches in height, SI announced that Slate XL will surpass this maximum height by an increase of more than 78 percent, resulting in a new maximum material height of 189 inches by 2,900 inches wide. This delivers a 371-inch diagonal ALR screen in 16:9, without a seam.
SI is also updating its Solar White and Gray screen materials to match the new larger variation of Slate XL at a maximum material height of 189 inches by 2,900 inches wide. Solar White and Gray were engineered to offer customers affordable white and gray screen options that were capable of uniformly and accurately repeating results at up to 4K resolution. Due to its managed texture pattern, drastically reduced image diffusion is possible even at a budget-conscious price point.
“Even though we continue to push screen technology further with innovations like our new XL line of screen materials and our totally unique Zero-G screen, our biggest innovation is still in how we do business. Innovative, simple, fun. That’s our motto,” said Blake Vackar, VP of commercial sales. “We have been in our customers’ shoes, and we understand the importance of answering the phone immediately or getting a drawing out in minutes—not days.”
Black Diamond XL will be shipping in August, 2017, while Slate XL and Solar White and Gray will ship in September, 2017.
