In May 2001, our marketing people were satisfied with the business performance of the Pure Mat, which started selling well. The popularity of the Pure Mat was expected to increase further. But one thing kept bothering me. Because of tight space, I had no choice left but to place my screen in front of the window at home. Light coming from the window permeated through the Pure Mat. Though I asked our marketing people whether there were any problems, nobody pointed out this problem. I heard that the Pure Mat was also used as a sound screen. However, if sounds permeated through the screen, lights must have permeated though it. I thundered at them because they were not aware of the problem. Projection screen manufacturers' marketing people should actually use their screens, otherwise they cannot understand how customers feel inconvenience, or what their problems are. I discussed the problem with Mr. Akita right away, and decided to apply backcoatings to the remodeled product of the Pure Mat for improvement.
In June 2001, I received the first trial product of the Pure Mat with backcoatings applied, and examined it with in-house staff members. Some staff members insisted, "Look! The quality of images is somewhat different from what we expected." But most of the staff members said that no difference in the quality of images was apparant.
Because we wanted to show the trial product to Mr. K, a critic who made the first evaluation of the Pure Mat, we invited him to the head office in Tokyo and gave it a try. We placed the current Pure Mat and the trial product with a gray backcoating (Standard Paint Color No. N6.0 of the *Japan Paint Manufacturers Association) side by side, and watched "Meet Joe Black" and "Shakespeare in Love." Mr. K just said, "Any projection manufacturer should know this difference." His remark was magical. He pointed out that there is a slight difference in transparency of water in glasses, and brightness of necklace pearls. We decided to make another trial product with a reddish brown backcoating instead of the grayish backcoating (N6.0).
*Japan Paint Manufacturers Association
When a society for the study of multimedia had a meeting at the end of June to discuss projection screens, Mr. O, the former chief editor of the magazine "S," proposed to have a try at a screen with coatings in light blue at the front and back surfaces because he felt that images would come into clear focus. Because we were going to make a trial product with a brownish backcoating, we judged it appropriate to make another trial product with a bluish backcoating for examination.
