This innovative cable-drop projection screen system was exactly what this multi-purpose hall needed

Challenge

The Meeting center ‘Dorpscentrum Oegstgeest’ in the west of The Netherlands, near Leiden, needed to update the projection set-up in their largest hall. Dorpscentrum Oegstgeest is a center that offers 13 different type of rooms for multiple applications ranging from conferencing and movie-nights to worship.

Their largest space has room for up to 175 people and features a high ceiling and stained glass. The room comes equipped with projection for presentations and movies. The issue however was that the projection screen in this room was not flat, didn’t retract anymore and needed to be replaced.

Solution

Jacot Audiovisueel, long-time partner of Legrand I AV, was asked to update the projection installation and integrate room control. The largest challenge was, quite literally, the high ceiling and the required height of the projection surface. Julian Sutherland, project leader at Jacot said “We have worked with Projecta for many years and were aware of the possibility to add a large black border above the screen for custom screens. The screen we needed to replace had a height of 500 cm height and 200 cm in width without any borders.

When we ordered a custom projection screen in a similar height, we noticed that this very long material was not as straight as we needed it to be.” Maikel Koppen, product manager at Projecta comments: “This is simply gravity pulling at the non-tensioned fiberglass material, which is typically used for basic resolution projection, at such a height. We would usually recommend using a tab-tensioned material that is tensioned on all four sides for a perfectly flat surface, however a high ceiling installation requires something else.” This was when Sam van der Harst, Sales Manager for the Netherlands at Legrand I AV suggested Jacot to look at the new Tensioned DescenderPro with SightLine. SightLine is an innovative cable-drop system that allows a tab-tensioned screen surface to be lowered on near invisible cables. Julian Sutherland: “We decided to try out this new system as it looked to be a perfect fit for this challenging install.

Results

The installation of the projection screen with a viewing area of 244x390 cm and the Projecta HD Progressive 1.1 material for high resolution went well and was easy to configure. The case, in a custom black color, was mounted at about 6 meters height against the wall using wall brackets as the design-ceiling could not be used. The SightLine cable-drop system allows the projection surface to drop down about 180 cm on the four cables to attain the ideal viewing height.

Another major benefit was that, compared to the old situation, the large unused surface above the projection area didn’t block the view on the stained glass behind the screen anymore. The stained glass is the most distinctive part of the room, and now it remains visible even when the projection screen is in use. Joop Verdonk, president of Dorpscentrum Oegstgeest says “I wasn’t expecting it to look this good. I was surprised that you really couldn’t see the wires and it looks so much better than the previous one with the large blackdrop. Also, the surface is very flat, really nice. I am very happy with how the result of this installation by Jacot Audiovisueel with this Projecta projection screen.” 

Interested in SightLine? See here for more information.