The Gray Screen: High Contrast Cinema Vision (HCCV)
Da-lite's HCCV is quite a strong performer as well. In terms of brightness of the gray screens in the review, it ranked third behind the brilliant Vutec SilverStar and the Stewart Firehawk. It measured 90% against the standard white board compared to the Firehawk's 115%. The remaining gray screen products from Goo, Draper, and Carada were significantly less bright than the HCCV.
Since we found the SilverStar to be unsuitable for home theater on other grounds, the horse race in the gray category came down to the HCCV and the Firehawk.
The Firehawk is brighter than the HCCV by about 25%. Black levels are about the same on both screens, but whites are more brilliant on the Firehawk, giving it better contrast range and color saturation. It has more neutral color while the HCCV has a bias toward a slightly cooler color temperature.
However the Firehawk must be installed with a ceiling mounted projector to get the optimum results from it. If you were to set up in table-top operation, the brightness and contrast advantage of the Firehawk over the HCCV disappears. The Firehawk will also give best results with a longer-throw projector. So much of the question pertaining to relative value of these two screens depends on how you wish to set up your viewing area, and the projector you intend to use it with.
The videophile going for best possible image quality will select the Firehawk and abide by the recommendations to ceiling mount the projector and use a longer throw lens whenever possible. The home entertainment enthusiast who is looking for a practical and quite functional screen, but who is not concerned with the making the effort and investment to create a completely optimized viewing environment will find the HCCV to be the more cost-effective solution.