Review: NothingProjector Black Series ALR/CLR UST Projector Fixed Frame Screen

Introduction

Building on Roland’s excellent review of the NothingProjector Black Series Motorized Floor-Rising Screen, NothingProjector also sent us the Black Series ALR/CLR Ultra Short Throw Projector Fixed Frame Screen, which has the same screen material as the one Roland reviewed.

This article focuses more heavily on the assembly and installation experience, while still including some real-world viewing impressions using a dimmer projector Formovie Cinema Edge rather than Roland’s Epson LS650. For more testing and measurements, see Roland’s companion review: Review: NothingProjector ALR Motorised Floor-Rising Screen for Ultra Short Throw Projectors.

Ultimately, my conclusions are the same as his the NothingProjector Black Series delivers impressive performance for its price, with excellent build quality, strong ambient-light rejection, and a clean, high-contrast image when properly paired with the right UST projector.

Pros and Cons of the NothingProjector Black Series Fixed Frame

PROS	CONS
✅ Ceiling light rejection is genuinely first‑rate; image “floats” with downlights on.	❌Black edging can be slightly misaligned at the frame joints, creating tiny visible gaps if you look closely.
✅ In the dark, the screen looks black and suppresses boundary reflections—high perceived contrast.	❌ In fully diffuse bright light, it downgrades from “magic” to merely “watchable”—which is still a win for UST living‑spaces, but don’t expect flat-panel quality here even with a light-cannon like the Epson.
✅ Easy one-person assembly, with thought and care put into packaging and instructions	❌ Lower 0.6-gain surface requires a bright projector (ideally 2,500+ lumens) to maintain punch in well-lit rooms; not ideal for dimmer USTs in daylight conditions.
✅ Frame is light with an easy mouting system
✅ Very minimal sparkle/texture at normal viewing distances
✅ Very Wide, and uniform viewing angles

What Fixed-Frame ALR and CLR Screens Do (and Why It Matters)

Fixed-frame ALR (Ambient Light Rejecting) and CLR (Ceiling Light Rejecting) screens use a precisely engineered optical surface that controls the direction of reflected light.

Unlike a matte-white surface that scatters light evenly in all directions, these micro-structured lenticular layers are designed to reflect light from your ultra-short-throw projector directly toward your seating position while absorbing or deflecting ambient light coming from overhead or off-axis sources.

The result is a significant increase in perceived contrast and image depth in real-world environments. This doesn’t change your projector’s native contrast ratio, it simply reduces the amount of stray ambient light that washes out the image. By managing light directionally, these screens preserve dark-scene detail and black levels that would otherwise be lost under ceiling lights or daylight spill.

This is especially important with UST setups, where projectors sit just inches from the screen. The shallow throw angle requires a finely tuned optical structure to properly reflect light back to the viewer without introducing hotspots or uniformity issues.

For a deeper technical dive into how ALR and CLR materials are designed and tested including gain measurements, half-gain angles, and real-room performance comparisons, see:

The Hook Up’s ALR Testing Guide

ProjectorCentral’s ALR Comparison

Specifications

(Taken from the manufacturer’s page for the Black Series ALR/CLR Ultra Short Throw Projector Screen— same optical material as the floor rising version that Roland tested)

Parameter	Specification
Type	Fixed-Frame ALR/CLR screen for UST projectors
Size Tested	120″ (available from 84″–130″)
Aspect Ratio	16:9
Gain	0.6 (claimed)
Ambient/Ceiling Light Rejection	Up to 95% (claimed)
Viewing Angle	Up to 170° (claimed)
Material	PET-Crystal lenticular optical layer on HBSI TPU backing
Resolution Support	3D / 4K / 8K compatible
Backing	Opaque black backing

Screen Assembly

Right away, NothingProjector impresses with its packaging . For a 120″ 16:9 screen, the box isn’t too large or heavy. I was able to transport it in my sedan (fitting it between the front and rear seats) and carry it solo without issue.

Inside, everything is neatly packed, labeled, and protected. The kit includes all necessary hardware, even two screwdrivers so you don’t need any additional tools. The instructions are clear, concise, and well-illustrated.

Assembling

Completed Screen

Assembly Experience

From unboxing to full assembly, the entire process took about 90 minutes. Most of that time was spent tensioning the screen material with the leaf springs, which is by far the most time-consuming step. Overall, the build went very smoothly. Nothing Projector’s clear labeling makes it easy to see which parts go where, and when combined with their detailed instructions, the screen comes together without much guesswork.

There is one small but important detail worth noting: when inserting the fiberglass rods into the screen edges, make sure they sit properly over the seams of the hem. It’s easy to think they’re in place when, in reality, they’ve slipped past the seam and aren’t fully seated. I actually had to readjust one of the rods for this very reason.

For the 120-inch model, the top and bottom black outer frame sections come in two pieces that meet in the middle. If you look closely, you might notice a small visible gap where the joints meet. It’s not major, but under the right lighting you can see it. Nothing Projector cleverly includes plastic corner caps to hide the frame seams in each corner, but there aren’t any for the middle joints. It would be great to see similar clips included for those as well.

Lastly, I want to point out that Nothing Projector includes a pair of cotton gloves for handling the screen material. This is a thoughtful touch as the ALR surface can be damaged by oils or fingerprints, so make sure to wear the gloves any time you’re touching the viewing surface during assembly.

Viewing Impressions

Using the Formovie Cinema Edge (~2,100 lumens) in a completely dark room, the image was stunning. Blacks were deep, and overall contrast was excellent. The image wasn’t overly bright, but that’s expected when pairing a 2,100-lumen projector with a 0.6-gain screen. In a dark environment, lower brightness isn’t necessarily a drawback, it’s all about perceived contrast. When the room is fully dark, your eyes naturally adapt to the lower light level, so the image doesn’t need to be as bright to deliver the same sense of contrast and depth you’d expect in brighter viewing conditions.

Moving to what I’d call typical evening lighting about 57 lux in brightness, a few lamps on or dim overhead lights, the image remained impressive. I noticed no visible drop in precieved contrast or color accuracy at this level. Two downlights were positioned directly above the screen, which would normally create a bright line down the image. However, the Black Series’ surface effectively neutralized it. With the projector on, no trace of that line was visible. Even with the projector off, only a faint mark could be seen if you looked closely.

Because the Black Series is an ALR (Ambient Light Rejecting) screen, reflected light from surrounding surfaces simply didn’t make it back onto the viewing surface. Even in a room with white walls, the black levels remained impressively deep and stable even with the evening lights on, with no visible image degradation from light.

Under bright, factory-style lighting about 600 lux, the image began to wash out but in a very even and consistent way. This indicated the screen was doing its job of rejecting as much ambient light as possible. The result was still usable for casual, non-critical viewing, with no glare or harsh reflections. The limitation here wasn’t the screen it was the projector. As Roland’s daylight tests with a brighter UST showed, the Black Series can maintain a far stronger image when paired with higher-lumen projectors.

In short, the screen’s performance scales directly with the brightness of the projector. In dark or moderately lit rooms, it excels. In very bright environments, the screen still controls reflections effectively, but a more powerful projector is needed to maintain image punch.

For more testing results see Roland’s review of the motorized floor rising version, Review: NothingProjector ALR Motorised Floor Rising Screen For Ultra Short Throw Projectors

Sharpness. texture and sparkle

• Pixel definition with the formovie the image was sharp and clear, any imperfections here wa a result of the projector itself ratherr than the screen effecting the image. I saw no no moiré. Roland’s presepctive was identical to my impression. ” with the LS650 was crisp edge‑to‑edge – again as much as the projector allows; no moiré or aliasing at seating distances. However, that’s not a big feat, as the LS650 projects a rather soft-looking image compared to my JVC. However, this was also the case with the JVC: image sharpness was excellent.”
• Texture/sparkle: From normal seating distances, I observed no texture or “sparkle” or screen breakdown toward the edges. This is often been a comprosime of ALR screens is that the cytrals can sometimes create a gem like sparkle, but the nothing projector screen does a great job of not having it here.

For more testing results see Roland’s review of the motorized floor rising version, Review: NothingProjector ALR Motorised Floor Rising Screen For Ultra Short Throw Projectors

Uniformity and hot‑spotting

One of the most impressive aspects of the Black Series is its image uniformity. Across the entire surface, brightness and color remained remarkably consistent with no signs of hot-spotting, banding, or uneven texture, issues that are surprisingly common with many ALR materials, even some costing several times more.

When paired with a properly aligned ultra-short-throw projector, the screen delivers a perfectly balanced image from edge to edge. There’s no visible bright center or dim corners, just an even layer of light that helps maintain contrast and color accuracy across the frame.

Off-axis performance was equally strong. Horizontally, the image stayed bright and contrasty even from wide seating positions, meaning you don’t have to be directly in front of the screen to enjoy optimal image quality. Vertically, it also held up well, moving above or below the centerline introduced virtually no visible shift in brightness or color, which makes it forgiving for a variety of seating heights or room layouts.

In short, the Black Series demonstrates exceptional optical uniformity for a lenticular ALR surface. It maintains a clean, even image under real-world conditions where lesser screens might show uneven gain or narrow sweet spots.

Brightness and Measurements

Extensive quantitative measurements of this exact screen material were previously performed by The Hook Up. To summarize his results:

• Measured gain: 0.74
• Black floor: 0.04 nits (mid-range performance)
• Light rejection: 60–80%, depending on incident angle

My subjective experience aligns closely with these findings. The image appeared slightly dimmer than on higher-gain ALR screens but maintained excellent black levels and ambient-light resistance, especially with typical home overhead lighting.

This represents a balanced ALR performance profile, trading a small amount of peak brightness for excellent contrast preservation and wide viewing consistency.

Matching Your Projector and Screen

No screen, no matter how advanced, can perform at its best without being properly matched to the projector driving it. The screen and projector work as a system; one determines how light is produced, the other how that light is distributed and perceived. Getting that balance right is key to achieving the image quality you expect.

The Black Series is optimized for ultra-short-throw projectors and uses a low-gain (0.6) lenticular surface designed to enhance black levels and reject ambient light from above. This gives it excellent contrast and viewing angles, especially in dark or moderately controlled rooms. However, that lower gain also means it reflects less total light back to the viewer compared to a neutral-gain (1.0) or positive-gain surface.

In practice, that means you’ll need a reasonably bright projector, ideally 2,500 lumens or higher, if you plan to use this screen in a room with significant ambient light. In darker environments, however, that same low gain becomes an advantage, producing deeper blacks and better perceived contrast without the glare or over-brightness that high-gain materials can introduce.

This is the trade-off inherent to all projection setups: higher-gain screens boost brightness at the cost of black depth and uniformity, while lower-gain screens deliver richer contrast but rely more heavily on projector brightness. Choosing the right balance depends entirely on your environment and viewing habits.

In short, a screen can’t fix a mismatched projector, and a bright projector can’t overcome the wrong screen surface. When chosen as a pair, though, they can produce an image that rivals or even exceeds what you’d expect from a traditional TV, just on a much larger canvas.

Conclusion

The NothingProjector Black Series Fixed-Frame Screen delivers impressive performance and build quality for its price.

Assembly is simple, packaging is thoughtful, and the visual performance rivals screens costing several times more. It avoids the common pitfalls of lower-end ALR materials—no sparkle, no moiré, and minimal hot-spotting—while providing strong ambient-light rejection for real-world use.

If you’re setting up a UST projector in a living-room environment and prefer a fixed-frame aesthetic over a retractable system, this screen is a fantastic value choice and an easy recommendation. Links to both versions below:

Fixed Frame: Black Series ALR/CLR Ultra Short Throw Projector Screen

Floor Rising Motorized Frame: Black Series ALR/CLR Floor‑rising Ultra Short Throw screen