As Al rightly said, I jumped all over this. It was one of the first things we saw on our way around the show and it was was of the day’s winning products for me.

Nuvu have a really unique take on the portable projector screen concept and given that high quality small projectors are starting to become affordable I’d say they timed their entry into the market perfectly.

Traditional projector screens are either fixed to the wall (potentially unsightly in a domestic arrangement) or attached to the roof to roll down on demand.

If you have a permanent fixture you won’t be interested in this. If you have no space or no desire to give up a whole wall you’ll be looking at one of the more transient screen options and this is where Nuvu comes in.

A traditional roll down screen needs to be firmly attached to the ceiling which is not a small job in itself and it is also difficult to get right technically, as a projector screen needs to be flat and smooth in order that creases don’t show up on the projected image. To smooth a screen you “tension” it, that is you stretch it around the outside (not practical on a roll down screen) or weight it on the bottom (not the best tensioning arrangement).

The Nuvu solution is a foldaway portable screen that overcomes these issues.

Obviously there’s still a ceiling mount. For Nuvu it’s a magnetic disc about the size of a large coin. Two of these discs in the ceiling provide all the support the screen needs to hang from. When the screen is not present the discs are practially invisible.

Then there’s the screen itself. It is supplied folded in a round carrying case that can be put out of sight anywhere. When it’s brought out of the case it snaps open into the distinctive oval shape you see in the photo. The rim of the screen is a spring steel band so once the screen is in shape it’s automatically tensioned and smooth. Once the screen is open you just hang it from your ceiling magnets and viola, one home cinema to go!

The backing material is thick enough to block daylight so you can hang it in front of a window if you want to and there is an optional tripod to hold the screen if you decide that you want true portability rather than screwing metal discs into your ceiling. You’d think that folding a screen would introduce all kinds of creases into the picture but I didn’t see any obvious ones looking at it - the combination of screen material and tensioning seems to effectively suppress them.

The best part is the price. The screens are available in three sizes and the top 85 inch diagonal model goes for about 350 pounds which is in the low to mid price range of comparable sized screens from other manufacturers.

The photo shows the screen in both it’s open and packed forms (With apologies to Nuvu - it seems that it is possible to snap an out of focus picture with a “foolproof” digicam…)

More information from http://www.nuvuscreen.com/

[edit: www.cinenow.com has a video interview that explains the concept behind the screen better than I can describe it. Thanks Bob!]